Inside a water tank Dayron hides a satellite dish to capture television from Mexico and Miami.  He lives in a building with eight apartments and supplies a cable with the forbidden programming to each neighbor.  Even though the police track these illegal distributors, there’s little they can do given the growing number of those committing… Continue reading Satellite dishes

In the closed room of the Palace of Conventions an Information Technology conference ended today, one which was accessible only to foreign delegates or Cubans with credentials.  As much as I tried to slip into the event, I lacked the association with an official institution needed to be there.  As an optimistic preamble to the… Continue reading Revolution.com

My friend Yuslemi’s pocket hasn’t recovered from the last meeting at her son’s primary school.  A portion of the meeting between the parents and the teacher was dedicated to the needs of the classroom, and in particular a discussion of the share each family needed to come up with to buy a much needed fan. … Continue reading Request list

It arrived in force in the seventies to break the grayness of the rationed market.  Amid the daily rice with beans, pizza invaded us with its novelty and its colors.  Each province built a pizzeria and created its own recipe, a source of dismay for any Mediterranean chef, but how captivating to the islanders.  Thick,… Continue reading Nostalgia for pizza

An unusual Sunday, with barely twenty-three degrees centigrade in Santiago de Cuba, I listened to him speak from the altar.  Over two hundred people attended his sermon in the wooden church in a poor neighborhood with the mountains as a backdrop.  To me, bored by the liturgies, I was surprised to see him celebrate from… Continue reading José Conrado

The duality, in which we are caught between the official version and the on-the-street reality, also characterizes the demands emerging from this Island.  The list of what we hope for is divided into two different agendas, as dissimilar as they are conflicting.  The first, the government’s list, includes strong declarations calling for the release of… Continue reading Two agendas

The rejection of what is different, of the foreign, looks equally bad as discrimination and humiliation.  The strange “endophobia” displayed in excluding that which is similar, in denying equal rights to your own compatriots, is common on the streets of this Island.  Among the most intense impressions the city of Santiago de Cuba left me… Continue reading Endophobia

Since Friday we’ve been in Santiago de Cuba.  My mother asked me to bring stones from the Sanctuary of Cobre, and my sister, as in the refrain of a traditional song, is hoping for a “little Virgin of Charity.”  However, we have come for something more: to spread the virus called “Blogger Journey” to this… Continue reading Ortega y Gasset meet Cachita

Who doesn’t remember the sweets and the accompanying soft drink we received, during the years of the Soviet subsidy, as a school snack.  Like everything that is free, we ended up diminishing its important and during recess many of us played at spraying the fizzy drink and tossing the pastries.  In our hands, the guava… Continue reading School snack