Category: Generation Y

You can be 23 years old and see with the clarity of someone who has lived a great deal.  It’s possible to have a raggedy old laptop fossilized by the heat and to write a blog without breaking any keys in the effort.  She manages to say the hardest things—things the majority of people only… Continue reading The troubles of Lía

I argued with a lady in line for malanga root.  She wanted to let her two friends cut in and I figured that if they did I wouldn’t get the ten pounds of food, rationed since the hurricanes.  In the end I let the two old ladies cut the line and didn’t even insult them… Continue reading Bouillon cubes

Although a crack down has been announced against the diversion of resources, price speculation and stealing food, lately the official market has also collapsed.  In a brief tour of state-run cafeterias in my neighborhood, I could see a reduction in what is available.  A convertible peso restaurant* specializing in fish no longer sells shrimp pizzas… Continue reading The cat’s hairy tail

In late August I wrote a post titled “What I see around me” which, illustrated with pictures of several billboards, showed the signs that surround me.  These posters, television propaganda and political murals in workplaces form part of the visual inventory of the obligatory.  Images quite different from what we select when guided by our… Continue reading Superhits

The informal market is experiencing sharply rising prices these days. An egg now costs the high price of four Cuban pesos, one-third the average wage for a day’s labor. But the pockets of the buyers have not been the hardest hit; for those who illegally sell this product, conviction can lead to two years in… Continue reading Which came first?

On Thursday, a movie about the Cuban war in Angola was released across the island. Outside the movie theaters couples chose to change course and head to someplace dark because the Cuban campaign in Africa holds little interest for them. The film suffers from a couple decades delay and tackles a story, parts of which… Continue reading The longest war

El Guajiro Azul [the Blue Peasant] sent me a text where he tells of his motivations for, and headaches in, writing his blog “Retazos” [Fragments].  The title of his message is delightful: “The old man, the Internet and me.”  Reading it, I feel the strong pull of the hook, but this time the old fisherman… Continue reading Post to the sea!

The lack of means of transportation doesn’t reduce us to immobility, but it does take more time and creativity to get ourselves underway.  Hence Havana is filled with jerry-rigged cars that could not pass a thorough technical inspection, and in the provinces animal traction has returned as a more widespread form of transport. In my… Continue reading Defending the “spider”

To Gandhi on the 139th anniversary of his birth He prepared. He polished his explanations. All the proposals he had been accumulating over years of looking at his reality and wanting to change things, he honed for a verbal contest. He had calculated that his debate opponent would remind him of the benefits and would… Continue reading Arguments versus screams

With a muffled struggle, the animal spoke, mouth foaming and eye terrible, “Brother Francis, don’t come too close…” Rubén Darío* The interviews given by Eliécer Ávila, a UCI [University of Information Sciences] student, to Cubaencuentro and Kaos en la Red [Chaos on the Web] were sent to me by email.  Reading both of them, I… Continue reading Eliécer’s motives