AhoraCuba!

This is my first article here on AhoraCuba!, and I must confess to you that I write with some hesitation, because never I have written to a "global" audience, but always to friends I already know - one reason why I am unsure about how to begin. Actually, looks like I already have...

I live in Habana, and to break the ice between us, here are some personal facts about me. Some things that I enjoy are dancing (especially Salsa, which fascinates me), reading a good book whenever I can get my hands on one, movies (especially thrillers and suspense movies), and I am completely addicted to my son, who is 10 years old.

Now that we know ourselves just a little bit better, I can tell you that we had one week full of events, the country was getting ready to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Fidel, and I really believe that it has been done with much success. There was one magnificent musical activity, with representatives of several countries of America, call "Todas las voces, todas" that continued almost until dawn, and a large parade in Revolution Plaza the Sabado in the morning.

Well, I'm looking forward to writing to you again, and as always I will attempt to keep you updated with new events, and write more articles (albeit small ones), but will try to maintain our mutual window of communication always open.

Until next time.

In the vast majority of the countries of the world, citizens have a series of privileges that many take for granted. In Cuba, some of these have become prohibitions.

When I say ¨privileges¨ many think about things like "how can the law be bent" to favor the citizen, or perhaps of the knowledge of how to stretch laws to cheat the rules of society, but no; I talk about rights more elementary than that.

For example, how can it be possible that I, as a Cuban citizen, cannot buy a car or rent a hotel room? Or that living in Cuba I cannot visit certain of our beautiful keys and beaches... or how to understand that I am harassed as I enter the lobby of a certain hotel just because I am a Cuban citizen.

Thousands of times I have wondered to myself: why? They say it is because of the embargo... I cannot be rent a room in the Hotel because of the embargo, I cannot buy the car because of the embargo, I cannot travel abroad because of the embargo, I cannot have a cellular phone because of the embargo, I cannot have Internet at home because of the embargo.

But the difference is that if you are a foreigner in Cuba, if you want a car, the embargo offers it to you, thus also the embargo offers beaches, the keys and the hotels to you. It is an implicit contradiction of the "idea of the embargo". that only is understood by some ¨illuminated civil servants¨...

If we begin to analyze the current social issues in Cuba, it seems to me that it would be an interminable debate, therefore I will focus on concrete examples in and around my community.

Cojímar, simple town of fishermen and nothing more, mixture of cultures and creeds, is a perfect example of the syncretism of race. This small town that once lodged in it great figures of contemporary Cuban intellectualism, but that also was preferred by one of the great ones of North American Literature, Ernest Hemingway, has become an irrefutable sign of the existence of social classes in ¨Socialist Cuba¨.

Whichever doubts, whichever options there are in life are not necessarily always taught to our young people when the time comes to decide the correct way to live their lives. There are not always many choices... to be spiritual or materialistic, a poor intellectual or blissful worker in ignorance. Which is best for me?

Believe me, dear reader, this is a difficult decision when the panorama which appears before you is one which cannot be reasoned with, nor difficult is this decision when the panorama that appears before you cannot be reasoned with nor understood by your mind in any way. Like trying to understand that it is right that the metal worker who occasionally cleans your windows can have a higher standard of living than your mother who is a doctor. Or seeing that the civil engineer at the corner is selling ¨Pizzas and Refresco¨ because it is much more profitable to him, many times over.

We must not judge the Cuban youth to make a right decision from so few choices, when they cannot see the long-term consequences but only the short term benefits, and the government who stands to gain from their education puts them in this crossroads with so little preparation. To choose the blue tablet or the red one... what would you do?

My name is Steve, and this is my first – and probably last, asides from site announcements and news – blog post here.

The goal of AhoraCuba! is to provide an outlet for news and views from within Cuba, by ordinary Cubans. All blog posts (except this one...) here are written from Cuba. We're hoping we can grow this site into a resource for those who are looking for unbiased, sincere information on Cuba.

Ideally, we want this site to remain as apolitical as possible – this is nearly impossible, of course, as almost all topics in Cuba can be traced back to politics... la “monotema”, they call it. Nevertheless, our goal here is not to become a mouthpiece for one ideology or another, but to try and provide a glimpse into the daily realities of Cuban life, and all the good and bad which it entails.

That being said, I'll now turn things over to our authors, who are professional authors, but regular people like you and me, who happen to be living in Cuba.

We welcome your comments on any of our posts, though responding to them might take longer than you're used to. Also, since we're striving to keep as clear of politics as we can, please try and keep your comments relevant to the post on question, without diving into the political subcontext that enshrouds it.

Thank you, and we're looking forward to hearing from you.