Noon Saturday found us on the highway heading to Pinar del Río.   The grass at the side of the road had already grown, but the leafless palms recalled the disaster that happened just two months ago.  Life is slower, as if Ike and Gustav had reimposed the nineteenth century image these fields once had.  If… Continue reading Against forgetting

Last week we were talking about ants, people and the small traditions that sustain us day to day.  Well, a few meters from my house I found this billboard with the same metaphor of the insects.  Unlike the anthill imagined by me—where everyone has a place—here there is a creature apart.  It frightens me to… Continue reading Small and apart

Two of my friends were married in the nineties so that they could buy the cake and beer that the ration market allowed for weddings.  They were not a couple and had never exchanged more than a hug, but reselling the drinks and the sugary desert produced enough money to live for several months, each… Continue reading Matrimony without patrimony

The sky is not always that precious blue of the tourist postcards.  Thank goodness, because I can not imagine a year with scorching sun without the pause of these weeks that bring cold fronts.  Since Monday a cloud has come, bringing London to Havana and severe flooding in the east of the country.  The streets… Continue reading Havana winter

A boy approaches me to ask if I am “Yoani.”  He extends a sweaty and cold hand to me.  I’m afraid that he’s coming to give me the first slap, but he only points, “Hopefully you are real.  Because now we’ve seen everything!”  He makes me want to follow him and show him my navel. … Continue reading It’s not me

A little pioneer shouts slogans at school in the morning.  Her face reddens and a vein bulges in her forehead, reinforcing her shrieks.  Among the phrases she repeats is a dreadful metaphor:  “We will see the island will sink into the sea first, rather than give up the glory we have lived.”  On a Committee… Continue reading Numantia

Days ago, when I found out that Generation Y was a finalist in the Bitacoras.com awards, I wrote a letter to the organizers of the event.  I learned today of the prize awarded by the jury and the lines written that Tuesday are appropriate to celebrate the triumph: Make it or don’t make it, win… Continue reading Without legs and with trophy