English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
It seems like a kids’ game. Two sides. Good guys and bad guys. The Cuban government tries to make us look like a bunch of crooks, fools, delinquents, mercenaries, and traitors to the country. But life is much more complex. It has mixes. Nothing is black and white. A wrongful precedent is created when the … Continue reading “Delinquents and Loyalists”
It’s been a boomerang. Carlos and Ariel both are 41-years-old. They grew up with the idea that the United States was the worst of all countries. The dogs and white racists, dressed in their white hoods, were waiting around every corner to knife a defenseless Negro. The prisons were full of Latino immigrants and ethnic minorities. The American … Continue reading “Monologue of Two Balseros”
When Cubans find themselves struggling with personal problems they usually prefer to visit a babalao so that they could toss their shells instead of confessing to a priest in the church. Catholicism has the most followers on the island. But the beliefs brought over by former African slaves of the XVI and XVII centuries also … Continue reading “Meurice, Cuba’s most Beloved Priest”
The government of General Raul Castro is handling the Cuban situation with kid gloves, and a lot of discretion. The jubilation and cheap partying of revolutionary re-affirmation is pure distraction. The national economy is sinking without remedy. The prescription for alleviating the disaster appears most like the neo-liberal variety that is criticized with such passion by the … Continue reading “Raul Castro Handles the Situation with Tweezers”
Dania Virgen García is a journalist like Usaín Bolt is a cosmonaut. Her story is one of an imposter. Before the flood of material and political shortages that Cuba experiences, some citizens, spontaneously, feel deeply that the road of dissent is a good way of changing the state of affairs. Okay. It’s fair that all have … Continue reading “Banana Dissidence”
If we Cubans thought that our hardships and shortages of all kinds had hit bottom, forget it. It is the twentieth anniversary of the most severe and extensive economic crisis that the island suffered in all its history. Those were hard years. Very hard. It is still fresh in my memory. Blackouts of up to … Continue reading “The Special Period Returns”
Take note. More than 50 percent of the potable water that is distributed in the Cuban capital is lost to the poor state of the network of aqueducts and sewers. It is a drama. Also note that more than 100,000 Havana households do not have access to the precious liquid. Ask Jose Mesa, 49, what … Continue reading “Havana Water”
As a child I knew him in Havana. We lived in the neighborhood of El Pilar, Cerro. We were neighbors; he lived with his mother and brother on the first floor and I lived with my family on the second. Skinny and tall, he spent the day with a guitar, playing songs that he invented. That … Continue reading ““I will go to Cuba when I can do it as a free citizen””
The sun beats down hard on the grey and white building located on Aguila street at the corner of Dragones, next to Chinatown in Havana. On that piece of real estate which was long ago given up by the Cuban Telephone Company, are the offices of ETESCA, the Empresa Cubana de Telecomunicaciones (the Cuban Telecommunications Company). On his morning walk … Continue reading “An Act of Repudiation from Within”
They’re like pirates on the highway. And they act with total impunity. On the stretch between Kilometer 10 and the first ring of the National Autoroute, a road with 8 lanes, dark as a wolf’s mouth and where the poor condition of the pavement makes drivers reduce their speed, it’s the propitious moment for a new breed of … Continue reading “Highway Robbery”
Life for Juan Domeq, age 69, is a vicious cycle. He gets up every morning at 5:30 am and slowly hobbles to a newsstand to buy 50 issues of the newspaper Granma, and the same number of Juventud Rebelde. Domeq spends 20 pesos (less than US$1) for the hundred copies. If he can sell them … Continue reading “Stories of Ordinary People”
Some old strategists of the partisan information in Cuba feel nostalgia when they evoke the first thirty years of the Revolution. No one doubts that in this period a majority supported the olive-green government of Fidel Castro. Not Later. Certain things changed. The logical wear and tear of power. The proverbial economic inefficiency. The emergence of … Continue reading “The War of Insults: A Dead-End Street”
An apparently simple act, like decorating student dormitories with Barbie dolls and advertisements for capitalist consumer goods, has unleashed a mini-storm with the authorities on the island. Agustin Alfonso, age 20, a junior (3rd year) law student at the University of Havana, is the typical model of ideologist ambiguity who lives on the island at … Continue reading “Che Yes, Barbie No”
If something distinguishes the City of Havana it is its two faces, that quietly and peacefully coexist, in one the ugly and in need of painting and maintenance, and in the other the repaired and comfortable. These contrasts have become more visible after the penalization of the dollar was lifted in 1993, when waves of capitalism spread first … Continue reading “The Two Faces of a City”
Take note. Two-thirds of the homes on the island are in fair or poor condition. Almost all the water works are deteriorated, and as a result of leaks, almost 65 percent of water distributed is lost. By way of example, in the City of Havana more than 80 percent of multi-story buildings cry out for … Continue reading “Gotta Have Dough to Repair Your Pad”
