Search results for: yoani sanchez

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 15 August 2016 – The baby cries in her cradle while her mother sings to console her. Barely three months old, her name is Michelle, like Barack Obama’s wife. This little Havanan who still nurses and sleeps most of the day, came into the world after the armistice: she is a … Continue reading “Cuba’s Landscape After the Thaw / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 13 August 2016 – Turn on the radio and the announcer reads a brief headline: “Fidel Castro, The Great Builder.” The man goes on to explain that the most important works of the country have come from this head that for decades has been covered by an olive-green cap. … Continue reading “Recipe For Forgetting Fidel Castro / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 6 August 2016 — She split the plate into two meager rations. “Mommy, you’re not going to eat?” asked one of the daughters voraciously swallowing the mashed banana without oil, free of protein and with hardly any salt. The image of this skimpy dinner in the summer of 1993 is recalled by Maria … Continue reading “The Special Period: The Return Of The Cuban Middle Ages / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 July 2016 — Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken off the mask and let us witness the spectacle of his contorted and autocratic face. Last week’s failed coup d’etat has allowed him to unleash political persecution in Turkey. Now he rails against his opponents, decrees a state of emergency and suspends … Continue reading “Erdogan Unmasked / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 20 July 2106 – At the beginning of the year evil was incarnated in the intermediaries, who were blamed for the high food prices in the produce markets. At the end of 2013, the boogeymen were those who worked for themselves selling imported clothes and other merchandise. In February of this … Continue reading “Guilty! / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 7 July 2016 — My father came home with his head spinning. “What is the crime that several Cuban athletes in Finland are accused of?” He had only heard the official statement signed by the Cuban Volleyball Federation read on primetime news on Monday and published in the written press. … Continue reading “Cuba’s Journalists Missing in Action / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 6 July 2016 — Bearded, hungry and full of frustration, Walter Marrero Velazquez returned to the same island that saw him leave on a flimsy craft. On 20 May the group, consisting of 24 rafters, was intercepted by the US Coast Guard while clinging to the American Shoal lighthouse, eight miles off … Continue reading ““It’s Very Possible That I Will Try Again,” Says Rafter Repatriated To Cuba / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 25 June 2016 — “We want to be on the front pages of newspapers” claimed a taxi driver in the middle of heavy traffic on a Panamanian street after being asked about the leaked documents from the firm Mossacl Fonseca. A few weeks after that conversation, the media focused again on that country this … Continue reading “Cuba’s Port of Mariel Lags Behind Panama Canal Expansion / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 June 2016 — Rupture can only be possible if there was once an agreement, a relationship or love. In the eyes of Latin America, Brexit seems like the story of a mature friend embroiled in the bitter litigation of a divorce, provoking a certain envy in those who have never managed to … Continue reading “Latin America in the Mirror of ‘Brexit’ / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 15 June 2016 – The news mourned on Sunday, a week that ripped apart and will forever mark the lives of the victims’ families. The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, became a death trap for dozens of people at the mercy of a madman. The motivations that led Omar Seddique … Continue reading “We Were All At Pulse / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 10 June 2016 –“Why did you bring the girl if it is raining?” my friend’s daughter’s second grade teacher asked when she brought her child to school on Wednesday. Although the school year should continue, many elementary school teachers took advantage of the precipitation this week to hasten its end. … Continue reading “Rain, A Justification for So Many Things / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, 9 June 2016 — The woman had something. In addition to her deep voice and the passion she poured into the microphone, she had an attitude that fascinated us. When she appeared on the television screen my childish self-absorption was put on hold and I stopped running around and paid … Continue reading “Elena Burke, A Voice That Resonates In Our Memory / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 4 June 2016 – Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution shows its loyalty to its friends in many ways. One of them is complicit silence. When the Tlateloico Massacre happened in 1968, Fidel Castro did not condemn it because his ally, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, ruled Mexico at the time. Something similar … Continue reading “Tiananmen Square, Shared Silence / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 14ymedio – There are those who believe that the pages of newspapers only have space for tragedy, armed conflicts and diatribes against politicians. In a world where the newspapers prioritize the extraordinary and the TV screens are filled with crises or shipwrecks, the little things, the common moments, lose narrative space. … Continue reading “The “Little Witches” Arrived / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”

14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 25 May 2016 – People with whom we share sorrows and joys are a reflection of ourselves, however different they may appear. As friends we choose them to accompany us, but also to complete us, with the diversity and continuity that our human nature needs. The problem is when … Continue reading “Shameful Friends / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez”