English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Iván García, 5 December 2019 — For three days now there is no running drinkable water. If you want to purchase a pack of cigarettes or medication at the drugstore after 8pm, you must walk more than a kilometer. It is common for men to urinate in the public right-of-way and for people to dump … Continue reading “Two Havanas Within a Single City / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Havana, November 13 — Independent journalist Ricardo Fernández Izaguirre was arrested this Tuesday after answering a police summons. The 14ymedio and La Hora de Cuba contributor remains detained in the cells of Villa Maria Luisa, run by State Security in the city of Camaguey, as relatives and colleagues confirmed to this newspaper. This Monday, Fernández … Continue reading “14ymedio Journalist Arrested For Being "Counter-Revolutionary" In Camaguey”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 1 November 2019 — The filmmaker Eliecer Jiménez went on a trip to the United States five years ago to “catch a break,” but in the end he decided to stay in that country. This week he returned to Cuba invited by the Hanna Arendt Institute of Artivism (Instar) to exhibit … Continue reading “"All of Us Cubans Who Live Abroad Are Political Exiles"”
14ymedio/Mario J. Pentón, Havana/Miami, 23 September 2019 — Getting access to potable water in a big city like Santa Clara is no easy matter, but even more difficult still is getting purified water, which is highly beneficial for patients diagnosed with cancer or other diseases that weaken the immune system. EcoFinca, a project headed by … Continue reading “Selling Purified Water Prohibited in Santa Clara”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 July 2019 — The commemoration of the 66th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada Barracks, on July 26th, was the confirmation that Miguel Díaz-Canel is, definitely, the one chosen to remain in command of the country as a stand in for the historical generation. The president himself implied in his … Continue reading “’The 26th’ of Cuban President Diaz-Canel”
Rebeca Monzo, 27 June 2019 — I am 100% Habanera. I was born in the Reina Clinic in Central Havana but I only stayed there for a couple of days. I went home to the Los Pinos, which in those days was an attractive and friendly neighborhood with a pleasant micro-climate that encouraged the growth … Continue reading “100% Habanera”
14ymedio, June 16, 2019 — An emaciated man with soot-colored clothing and tattered shoes walks alone with a firm step and carrying a bedroll in the direction of the Rumichaca bridge between Ecuador and Colombia; it is one of those doors of hope for the Venezuelans fleeing hunger and poverty. With two crevices on both … Continue reading “Venezuelans in Ecuador, X-ray of the Hunger Emigrating All Over Latin America”
14ymedio, Havana, 13 June 2019 — Cubans will pay more for water starting in 2020 when new rates go into effect in an attempt to “encourage conservation” in a country were more than 20% of the water for the residential sector is lost because of the bad state of the pipes. The measure, approved last … Continue reading “Cubans Will Pay More For Water Even If It Comes Only Twice a Month”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 13 June 2019 — I was 10 years old and my world was the size of the matryoshka dolls that adorned my living room. It was 1986 and in Cuba we were experiencing another turn of the screw of nationalization with the rectification of errors and negative tendencies process, while … Continue reading “‘Chernobyl’ and the Reconstruction of Memory”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 19 May 2019 — Maybe because the National Bus Ticket Agency on 41st street at the corner of 30th in Havana’s Playa municipality is next to a theater, you might think that what happens every day at 8 o’clock in the morning is a performance, designed to mock of several things … Continue reading “"Good Morning to My Customers"”
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, May 14, 2019 — The rearview mirror is too long and hides the meter that marks the price that the customer must pay at the end of the trip. Confused and disoriented, the tourist, recently arrived in Cuba, will attempt to look for those universal red numerals that increase as the … Continue reading “"For That Price Nobody Here is Going Anywhere"”
14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 19 April 2019 — As Cuba sinks into a new period of crisis, the absurdity of existing in parallel planes has been imposed as the norm in the daily lives of its inhabitants. Submerged in the desperate search for subsistence, a growing number of Cubans choose to ignore other signs of … Continue reading “Political Snobbery or Consensual Propaganda”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 22 April 2019 — That day I did not want to watch national television but rather some documentary on the ‘Weekly Packet’, but when I turned on the screen there was Ramiro Valdés, speaking before the National Assembly about the “diversion of resources,” the official euphemism used to talk about stealing … Continue reading “Nostalgia For The Cage Of The ‘80s”
14ymedio, Havana, April 10, 2019 — The man accused in the so-called Usera triple murder will be tried in Venezuela, not in Spain. In citing its resaon for rejecting an extradition request, the criminal division of the Supreme Court in Caracas noted that Dahud Hanid Ortíz, the man accused of the murders of two Cubans … Continue reading “Venezuela Rejects Extradition Request for the Accused Killer of Two Cuban Women in Madrid”
14ymedio, José Gabriel Barrenechea, Santa Clara, 1 Aptil 2019 — Perhaps to keep us in suspense, as usual, Gustavo Andújar and Jorge Domingo Cuadriello again bring us their magazine, Espacio Laical (Lay Space), at least in its paper edition. But the resource works, because when it finally appears, the accumulated impatience is such that one can not … Continue reading “"Lay Space" Arrives Late But is a Must Read”
