Two Blogs, One Life: Introducing Cuba Libre / Yoani Sánchez

Cuba Libre

Surviving the utopia, I aspire that these texts and opinions will contribute in some way to achieving a more plural and inclusive Cuba, one based on words and not on bullets; on its citizens and not on olive-green uniforms.

I have created this new virtual space, as if it weren’t already too crazy to have my other blog, Generation Y, a blog maintained since 2007 that has turned my life upside down. I see people everywhere who have shut down their websites, put the “closed” sign on the diary that accompanied them for years, and yet I undertake the adventure of sailing in two shops, opening this new window to my reality and adding another distress to the already difficult problem of connecting to the Internet from Cuba. But I’m not complaining, it delights me to post my opinions, my certainties and uncertainties on this great web of kilobytes. I love hitting the nail on the head, or putting my foot in it, under the sharp eyes of the readers.

This blog will be a disappointment to those who seek in its pages the cold eye of an analyst, the statistics pulled out by a student, or the entomologist’s lens observing life from above… as if it were an anthill. Rather, here I will post chronicles of my reality, reflections that come to me while roaming about a country that in one moment seems stuck in time and then suddenly gives fits and starts, backward and forward.

You already know the risks, your decision is whether or not to board this boat… there are no lifeguards.

Translator’s note: As of today Yoani has opened a new blog, Cuba Libre, in Madrid’s El Pais, Spain’s largest circulation newspaper.

28 May 2012