A sensation of tensed string, of collective asphyxiation, is what I feel these days in the streets. Strange December this one, in which I don’t hear anyone make predictions for the New Year. Not even the shy prediction that 2008 maybe bringing us “better things.” These expectations we spent on the previous New Year’s Eve, when we speculated that with the 2007 would come the desired economic openings and the needed political changes.
By the end of July, it was clear that things were going a lot more slowly than we thought. The last weeks of December have left us the conviction that “up there” they are “buying time.” Announcements of all-day drinking water, repaired roads and new buses circling the city are the repertoire of what is promised to us. All of these goals remind me of the desired conquests of forty of fifty years ago, but how limited, late and false do they seem to me now.
Lacking shared hope and announced resolutions, I am going to make my own list of wishes, a simple and clear enumeration of desires for this leap year that starts tomorrow. At the head of these endeavors will be that, by next December, we don’t have this sensation of “another year gone without bringing us that which we desire so much.”
Happy 2008!
Photo caption: Expectant face
Great Blog!
What Communism does to noble and good people is understood better by what comes out of these people when a piece of freedom is granted to them, like the Internet.
In a system where the government owns the TV, Newspapers, Grocery Stores, Job Places, Schools, etc, etc, etc; the same government controls what every citizen sees, listens, says, eats, does, thinks, meets with, owns, breaths and lives.
BTW, the correct translation of “Escuelas en el Campo” is something: Rural Boarding Schools. Countryside Schools sounds like summer camps.
Yoani,
Do not lose your positive attitude. I know there are thousands of people praying for you, your family and your fellow Cubans. I am one and know many others. I know things will change in the near future and again there will be no clouds other than sweet rain clouds that hang over Cuba.
Warmest regards, John
!
This is the year, and it will be sweeter by a thousand times because of the fifty years that came before.
What do they say in Cuba? Espero and Ojala?
Maybe President Lage will be different?
Yes Yoani happy 2008 and I hope you the best in your days to come
Thanks for sharing
Fidel, Fidel… I read your lengthy, boring entry. the bottom line is that your people are suffering and cannot wait for your death. You try to control what your people do, buy, sell, eat, drink, and think. But you cannot, or even one second, control what your people dream of- freedom!
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links: