We’ve already been four months without an elevator. Fourteen stories down, fourteen stories up, and there’s no clear date for when the contraption will be ready. The installation goes at a Cuban pace, which seems like that of one of those Galapagos tortoises that needs hours and hours to advance a few meters. Something always happens to extend the date for inaugurating the new Russian elevator, and meanwhile my legs are like those of an alpine mountain climber.
If you see that at times the blog has the rhythm of the eight steps that form each flight of my stairs, no need to worry; Generation Y will survive this too.
byte by byte, one stair step at a time. http://talkingcuba.wordpress.com/
Suerte que los groceries no pesan tanto. Porque no te mudas al primer pizo???
Ok, Andy and others I have a new post explaining my views on the new changes in the Cuban government
http://blog.isallaboutmath.com/2009/03/03/is-the-revolution-reinventing-itself-do-we-have-a-new-revolution-with-raul-castro/
come live in canada you will have lots to complain about………..like freezing ur ass. working for nothing.etc etc
#4 LMAO its damn cold and the economy is shrinking. Can’t even get warm drinking rum bc I can’t afford it ($24). At least Yoani and her friends can drink and be warm. I know people who pay $50 a month to go to the gym and use the stair climber. Yoani gets it free and complains LOL She should be happy that she will have nice legs and a firm culo.
Your name says it all #5. Its sad that you make fun of the plight of the cuban people. You should live in Yoani’s shoes for a month and see how you like being followed by the stazi-like secret police. Knowing that any day you can be taken away from your family and never be seen of again. Eating scraps, watching your kids go hngr yand you can do nothing. Go live like that and then let me know how you like socialism.
#5. For Yoani the lack of an elevator for four months in a high rise building may only be an inconvenience. However, what about seniors or people with mobility problems living in the same building? Those folks would be trapped in their apartments without a working elevator. What you call complaining, I see as another sad reflection on the daily struggle to survive in Castro’s Cuba.
#4 and #5
The stupid parallel you both try to make between the “problems” the canadian people have and the tragedy the cuban people goes trough is disgusting.
A canadian can’t spent $24 in rum…. a cuban doesn’t earn $24 in four months
A canadian can spent $50 in a Gym…. a cuban has to work ten months to earn $50
Yoani is fighting to change this situation…. you both can well fight for a better Canada instead of spent your time making fun of other peoples problems.
hey 4 don t worry a tourist willl bring y some cash…and a gym in cuba is free ……….
Agree with #5, and not the sourpusses who follow; my friend Dan has lived in his rent-controlled fifth floor walk-up on E. 14th St. in Manhattan since 1977, and because he’s gone up-and-down those stairs for the last 30+years he looks–and feels–at least twenty years younger than his age (71). As for the seniors, those who DON’T make it up-and-down the staircase often die of a broken hip, etc. in their 70’s. Just remember, “on the way down, even the Saints will help you!”
I like walking up stairs for exercise; however, one might have sore muscles one day or one might sprain an ankle and not be able to climb stairs for several days. Having a functional elevator is a good thing. Remember they ration food in Cuba; combined with climbing 14 floors whenever you go in and out of an apartment is bad. I sometimes go in and out of my apartment into the street 5 times per day and if we had no elevator I’d probably stay inside more. The lack of elevator decreases Yoani’s freedom to come and go. I’m sure not repairing the elevator is a calculated move by the government in keeping the people depressed and oppressed.
Maybee Yoani could ask some of her benefactors in the U.S. to try to smuggle the parts for the American elevator out of the U.S. (embargo restriction) and then it could be fixed.
It’s not an american elevator. It’s a soviet elevator. Probably the factory has been dismantled, the workers spread far and wide. Her building was built after the revolution… by a worker’s brigade… her husband was one of the ‘brigadistas’. She talks about it in earlier entries here and in various interviews she’s given.