English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Justo Mora / Mario J. Pentón, Cienfuegos/Miami, December 12, 2018 –Winter hasn’t managed to contain the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is grazing freely in Cienfuegos. 198 people have been seen in the past week under suspicion of dengue, and 22 suspected cases of Zika have been recorded, which makes the province one of those … Continue reading “Dengue and Zika Advancing in Cienfuegos”
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 3 October 2018 — In public buildings and places, health authorities in Havana are warning the population of the presence of dengue fever in numerous neighborhoods of the Cuban capital while, in hospitals, patients with symptoms of having contracted the virus crowd clinics and admitting stations. The warnings call for a reinforcement … Continue reading “Dengue Fever is in Havana”
Ivan Garcia, 4 April 2018 — From the twentieth floor of a building near the Havana Malecon the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean look like you could touch them with your hands. From that height you can’t see the disastrous infrastructure of Havana. Or its broken streets, water leaks or the buildings torn apart by bad state … Continue reading “To Be "Rich" in Cuba / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, Havana, 20 February 2016 — After seven years in Havana, Carlos continues jumping from one rental to another, subject to the whims of the those who rent to him, and the lack of legal certainty for tenants. Despite the 2010 legislative change that eased the renting of homes, rooms and premises, … Continue reading “Living Under Someone Else’s Roof / 14ymedio, Yosmany Mayeta Labrada”
Ivan Garcia, 19 September 2015 — Right at noon on Thursday, September 17, two enormous Soviet-era KP3 trucks filled with trash were rumbling along Tenth of October Avenue towards the garbage dump on 100th Street in eastern Havana, escorted by a bulldozer and a police motorcycle. Orestes, a community worker, has labored for twelve hours every … Continue reading “Will the Pope Swallow the Castros’ Bait? / Ivan Garcia”
For the environmental project, “A Rose-Colored Planet,” children would be responsible for beautifying the green spaces of the capital. Dilapidated Havana requires much more than a community gardening project: sanitizing the city is the urgent business. Cubanet, Gladys Linares, Havana, February 27 2015 — Now it turns out that children have the responsibility for creating … Continue reading “The Gardens of Indigence / Cubanet, Gladys Linares”
Autocrats always want to transcend their own times. The Roman emperors, Hitler, Mussolini and the communist dictators Stalin, Honecker or Ceaucescu, bequeathed their own styles of architecture. In Rome they still retain coliseums and palaces. Mussolini left hundreds of works, constructed under the label of fascist rationalist architecture, rolled out in Italy at the end … Continue reading “The Havana That the Castros are Going to Leave Us / Ivan Garcia”
Image taken from Todo Fugas Every other night between 8:00 and 10:00 the zone where I live “has its turn” at the water, and when it runs for a while, my block shows itself off like a shiny glass mirror. It is because the conducting pipe from the aqueduct “comes out” in that section — … Continue reading “Bathing Alternate Days / Rosa Maria Rodriguez”
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba, www.cubanet.org – The first case of infection was discovered last August 8 in the peripheral district of San Lazaro and although at the beginning epidemiologists thought that the virus could have been transferred from the city by Havana by Juan Arbolay Águila, who works as a driver in the port of Mariel, studies … Continue reading “Cholera Spreads Through Cienfuegos Province / Alejandro Tur Valladares”
From the posters placed around the city urging people to protect themselves from cholera through a set of preventive measures, the increase is visits to doctors and nurses asking about acute diarrheal symptoms, the prohibition of offering smoothies, natural drinks and even water, if they are not industrially canned or bottled, in coffee shops and … Continue reading “Cholera Appears / Fernando Damaso #Cuba”
Let’s take a look at government predictions. According to state technocrats, Cuba’s GDP will grow 3.7% in 2013. Spokesmen for General Raul Castro claim that, in spite of an economic crisis affecting half the world, social services will remain at 2012 levels. The “good news” keeps on coming from the Palace of the Revolution. The … Continue reading “Cuba 2013; A Cautious Forecast / Ivan Garcia #Cuba”
Not having been in the Fajardo Hospital since its repairs, I was told that the Emergency Room was the most significant of the improvements. The Latin American students cared for Rafael Tuesday night, he’d had a fever since the previous day. They ordered urgent blood and urine tests. It didn’t occur to any of them … Continue reading “A War They Don’t Talk About / Regina Coyula”
In Cuba, all he has are a sixth grade education and his sixty years of age. Blas Fortún is one of those rare human beings. If a mission is necessary to the East of Cuba, it is Blas Fortún who offers to go. If something has to be taken to a prisoner, you don’t have … Continue reading “Blas Fortún Martínez: The Best Cuban Opposition Activist (My Personal Opinion) / Antunez”
This Saturday night the floods began to recede but left behind a very worrying panorama of mud, dirt and material damage. 14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, June 23, 2024 — “I slept on the table because the bed got wet and I couldn’t put a sheet on the floor, it was all flooded,” this is … Continue reading “The People of Havana Hold Their Breath in the Face of a Forecast of More Rain for Sunday”
The official press recognizes the collapse of honey production throughout the country 14ymedio, Havana, 8 May 2024 — “That the honey from the Cuban hives continues to conquer the European market,” is the closing aspiration of an article in the official press this Tuesday. The desire corresponds to reality: the Island exports every year between … Continue reading “The Government Exports 90 Percent of the Island’s Honey, Which Cubans Must Buy ‘On The Left’”
