Cuba blog girl is back in action!!!! For your reading pleasure.

[Jammyisme]

 coming to believe that the influence of the Internet on our reality is bigger than I thought. After several days of not being able to connect to the Internet in hotels such as the Meliá Cohiba, the Panorama and the emblematic Hotel Nacional, the ban seems to have been lifted. Today I spoke with the same employees who two weeks ago showed me the resolution excluding Cubans from using such services at tourist facilities. They told me I can once again buy the blessed card that opens the door to the virtual world.

I may sound a bit boastful, but I think that if we had not raised a ruckus in recent days—denouncing such apartheid—we would have been deprived of the ability to connect. Yes, they cede when you push back, they have to amend the plan when we citizens raise our voices and the international media hears the echo. We understood this with Gorki’s case, and this correction confirms that our keeping quiet only allows them to snatch away more spaces from us. We need to make the most of the situation, now they are saying “Cubans can connect”, and take it as a public commitment. We must hold them to it and, if not, there will be Twitter, Facebook and text messages for protesting, when they try to shut us out again.

* On Monday, a dozen bloggers conducted an investigation into more than forty hotels. With the exception of the Occidental Miramar, they all said they were ignoring the regulation that prohibited Cubans from accessing the internet.

[Jammyisme]

One day my father came home pale and trembling. He had just seen a video—shown only to Communist Party militants—where they announced the cuts the Special Period would bring. Sitting at the dining table we heard him tell us that the hardship could reach the dreaded Zero Option, a single collective pot would have to feed all the neighbors on the block. The film my dad saw that night was intended only for people of “proven” ideology. Hence my sister, my mother and I had to be content with the terrifying narration he shared with us.

Only a “revolutionary elite” seems to have the right to learn about these issues that concern all citizens. I thought so selective a practice had gone by the wayside, together with others that were so common in the seventies and eighties. However, for a couple of weeks another video has formed part of the movie listing of the secret and hidden. The topic of this new movie is the downfall of Carlos Lage and Philip Perez Roque, the most recent of the youngest sons devoured by power. They are not the heroes of the plot, rather the victims, the scapegoats for something more like a Greek tragedy than an action thriller.

Everyone’s whispering about the scenes in which both ex-civil servants talk rubbish about the generation in power, but so far a copy of the guarded video has not been leaked. It hasn’t happened this time as it did with the filming between Eliécer Ávila and Ricardo Alarcón, or with the images of Tania Bruguera’s performance. Cubans are waiting for a generous hand to steal the film and circulate it on the alternative information networks. These are no longer the days when something like this can be maintained in the closed circuit of the faithful, because technology understands nothing about classified material or news only for the select few.

My father called me yesterday to find out if I’ve seen the hidden recordings made by those who threw out the foreign minister and the secretary of the Council of Ministers. “Don’t despair,” I told him, “as soon as I have them I’ll bring them to you,” and I immediately remembered when he broke Party discretion to warn us of what was to come.

Mayo 25th, 2009 | Category: Generation Y | 2 comments
Bucket and pitcher
Under the sink rests the plastic bucket with which the entire family bathes. It’s been more than twenty years since the pipes collapsed and to use the bathroom they have to carry water from a tank in the patio. When winter comes they prepare a lukewarm bath thanks to an electrical heater made from two cans of condensed milk. None of the children in the house knows the sensation of a jet of water falling on their shoulders. Since the water comes only once a week, no one can waste it in a shower.

To the rhythm of a pitcher rising and falling, the majority of people I know groom themselves. The decline of the hydraulic networks and the excessive prices of plumbing parts contribute to the calamitous state of the toilets. The act of washing the body, which should be an intimate and pleasant time, turns into a sequence of inconveniences for the better part of my compatriots. To the poor state of the infrastructure we must add that to buy shampoo and soap we need a different currency than that in which they pay our wages.

Juan Carlos and his wife know well dry spells and nights monitoring the pipes. At their house the precious liquid comes every seven days and the only water pressure comes from a pipe stuck in the ground. For this couple, the bucket and pitcher are essential tools without which they couldn’t cook, wash or clean the house. So many years without being able to open the tap and rinse their hands has forced them to develop a method that they explained to us today through these images. It’s a brief demonstration—in the words of my thin friend—“that will make them laugh, but it’s pathetic and tragic what’s happening in this country.”

[Jammyisme]

Inscribed on the hypothalamus

After five attempts to leave illegally, Carlos has found a path without the danger of sharks and sunstroke.  One leaves Cuba through one of the few countries that still don’t demand a visa from my compatriots. By this same route, thousands of young have left in these last months, after coming to understand that the announced process of “changes” has been another instance of the powers that be pulling our legs. The recidivist rafter is over thirty and has spent at least a third of his life with his eyes focused on the far shore. If everything goes well, he will be looking at the Island from a distance within a couple of months.

Every year I find myself in the sad situation of remaking my group of friends because, as Wendy Guerra says, “Everyone’s left.” Even those who planned to grow old in this land or who had some economic advantage that allowed them to live comfortably. Even a friend who seemed—like me—to intend to light up El Morro once everyone had left and let it go out, has told us he’s leaving. He came to the house yesterday and in a whisper, as if he were afraid the apartment was full of microphones, told us, “I can’t take it any more.” The phrase I’ve heard so much it’s become commonplace in our conversations.

He is another who leaves despite a good apartment, a job that pays well, an intense public life. He made the decision to emigrate for reasons very different from those of Carlos, but both agree they don’t want their children to be born in Cuba. Meanwhile, one lives in the falling down house of his grandmother, the other sleeps each night with the air conditioner set to 20 degrees Celsius. Their conditions of life are so different and their aspirations so similar that I can only think the imperative to emigrate comes from the hypothalamus. It’s like a pull that comes from within, a call to the instinct for self-preservation that tells us, “Save yourselves, get out of here.”

[Jammyisme]

How to Help

Every week I receive hundreds of emails, which I can hardly respond due to my limited ability to connect to the Internet. So I am taking the opportunity of this post to answer the question: How can I help the alternative blogosphere in Cuba?

I will detail the resources or the type of collaboration that can help bloggers in creating and updating their blogs.  This list is not in any priority order and should be interpreted simply as suggestions.  It’s a request to citizens of the whole world and rests on the solidarity among people that has nothing to do with political stripes or ideological preferences.  So here goes:

Link to the blogs and place them on the search engines or platforms where they can have greater visibility.  Each person who reads us, protects us, so we need to strengthen the shield formed by readers and commentators.
Spread the contents of the blogs, especially to the interior of Cuba.  This can be done by sending our posts to friends and relatives on the Island, to share with them the opinions that come from right here, but which are not disclosed in the official media.
Invite alternative bloggers to participate in events, whether virtual or real.  This can be done through voice recordings, home made videos or telephone calls that help spread their opinions.
Lend a hand in the administration of blogs, especially to those bloggers who have  very limited access to the Internet.  For this you only need the will to collaborate, a minimal understanding of Wordpress or Blogger.com and the honesty to not add or change any content that has been authorized by the author of the site.
Avoid the cult of personality of a single emblematic blogger and take the alternative blogosphere as a phenomenon in which a growing number of Cubans are participating.  Don’t repeat in the virtual world the adoration of individuals that does so much damage in the real world.
Buy cards for accessing the internet in public places.  Remember that many of us are obligated to play the high prices in the cybercafés or the hotels to access the net.  So if you’re a tourist visiting the island, collaborate with us to acquire a few hours of connection in these places.
Every kind of information media is helpful to us, from the tiny flash drives to the most sophisticated external hard drives.  A great number of the bloggers I know distribute their texts to the interior of the Island on these storage devices.
Mobile phones and economic aid to open and maintain accounts.  I have been in the position where I frequently post by sending text messages to people outside Cuba who later put my texts on the net.  So providing a blogger a cell phone is a way to open a parallel path to the traditional Internet access.
Laptops or any kind of accessory to build a PC.  My experience tells me that an old laptop brought to the island and given to a possible blogger can be the spark for the emergence of a new opinion.  Look in your office or your house for everything that’s been scrapped but that might be useful for assembling a computer, and add it to your suitcase when you are vacationing in Cuba.  And please, don’t even think of sending it by mail.
Software both free and licensed.  Especially those programs that are used to process images, audio, and video and that optimize internet connection time.  I want to remind you that we cannot buy these programs in any store or purchase them through online transactions.
Digital cameras and video recorders, especially the little Flip camcorder that lets us discretely film situations in our everyday lives.
Digital recorders for interviews and telephone recorders to capture the voices of those who call from the provinces to dictate their texts.  An example of this is the blog of the political prisoner Pablo Pacheco, whose texts are read over the telephone.
Books about citizen journalism, manuals and programs and every kind of documentation that can help us to better understand the blogger phenomenon.
The path for channeling this aid is directly to each blogger.  Write an email message that appears in the blogs from within Cuba—see the list of links in my sidebar—and organize, without intermediaries, this type of solidarity.  The slogan of this help movement could well be: “Oxygen for the Cuban blogosphere!”

[Jammyisme]

When the KGB fights the CIA, the police always win in the end.
Joaquin Sabina

This is not the first time I’ve heard that MSN Messenger is blocked for Cuban users.  Almost three years ago a friend furtively sneaked me into a state office where she worked so I could connect to the Internet.  I wanted to write an article and I was missing some data, so I asked for a few minutes in front of an obsolete computer at her company.  Those were the days when I pretended to be a tourist to connect to the network at hotels, and that week I didn’t have the convertible pesos to pay for an hour of access.

My friend read me the list of what was prohibited on that institutional connection and added that MSN wasn’t working because it had been blocked for months.  “You can’t use any email or chat services that aren’t local,” and “don’t even think about going to El Nuevo Herald,” she said, eyes open wide.  When I asked about the limitations on chatting with Microsoft software she explained that I should not use any interface that the network administrators couldn’t control.  Hotmail was banned because it was almost impenetrable to the recording software that kept a record of all the employees’ correspondence.  A little bit later Yahoo and GMail would also be banned at work and educational connections for the same reason.

Now the prohibition comes from the other side, precisely on the part of those who built a program that helps us escape government control.  “Windows Live Messenger IM has been disabled for users in countries embargoed by the United States,” reads the note that Microsoft published announcing the cut off.  I feel with that once again we citizens lose out, because our government has its own channels for communicating with the rest of the world.  This, clearly, is a blow to internet users, we outlaws of the web, which includes nearly everyone who accesses the Internet from Cuba.  Surely at the company where my friend works the censor who monitors the connections must be delighted: Microsoft has just done his work for him.

[Jammyisme]

For alternative bloggers—within Cuba—the only common thing that unites us is the use of the Internet to hang our opinions, chronicles and questions.  We are tired of people trying to capture us in a neat package and expecting us to behave as “one people, one party, one idea.”  When we come together we do it with the assumption that we don’t have group discipline, nor are we obligated to adopt common positions.  If there is one thing that characterizes us it’s the polyphony, the diversity of dreams and desires, the urge to stress the plurality that in the real Cuba is hidden under the mask of unanimity.

So when I read the call for a cybermobilization that claimed “to have been called by several Cuban blogs and websites,” I was surprised that this news was unknown among those located in the national territory.  An idea should be—at the least—discussed among or agreed to by that varied and fragile part of us who write from the Island.  Maybe the call would have been enriched, then, with other demands or with a different order of priorities.

Nevertheless, I share the need to achieve the three requests suggested by those who issued the call.  As every practice has its beginning, I trust that the next cybermobilization will be better organized, that prospective participants will have been consulted and, above all, that it will contain that margin of freedom and creativity that is inherent in the blogger spirit.

[Jammyisme]

A stage divided by the Berlin Wall on one side—seeming so much like Cuba today—a group of people who fight to buy, love and subsist. Through the language of contemporary dance, we Habaneros could review the history of the two Germanys united “like Siamese twins but separated.” The company Sasha Waltz & Guests performed last Friday in the Garcia Lorca room of the Gran Teatro and deployed a daring choreography around the concrete structure that separated, for nearly forty years, a single nation.

The dancers’ use of phrases from our everyday life contributed to the intense communication established with the audience. Nevertheless, I think that the frayed and tense atmosphere was more than enough to make us identify with what was happening on stage. The stubbornness of people continuing the course of their lives despite the iron curtain separating them was familiar to me. The tendency to forget the threatening shadow and to take refuge in intimacy, dedicating oneself almost entirely to survival. Twenty years after the fall of that arbitrary frontier, Cubans keep on desiring the elimination of the impalpable boundaries that surround us.

If at least our wall were like that one: of stone, concrete and barbed wire, we could take a hammer or pick to demolish it. If we could touch it and say, “Here it starts, here it ends,” I am sure we would have already torn it down. In our case, however, this barrier that separates us from so many things is intangible and reinforced by the sea. If, for one moment, this wall of controls and prohibitions that surrounds us would materialize, it would be a pleasure to paint an enormous graffiti on it. We could bring a ladder to look over to the other side—as the dancers did on Friday night—or dig a tunnel in its hard concrete. If none of that worked, we could take an abundant and challenging pee against the cold structu

[Jammyisme]

CUBALSE and General Motors

On June first what everyone predicted was confirmed: General Motors declared bankruptcy.  National television aired reports on the fallen giant while in our streets the old models, from fifty years ago, are still rolling.  The tall silver tower that houses the headquarters of the firm has become the symbol of the current global economic crisis.  Within Cuba there are other signs of these bad times: the blackouts return, tourists are scarce and public transport suffers another cutback.  Financial shares don’t crash because they don’t exist; companies hide their bankruptcies because being state-owned they don’t report their finances to the public.

Another business conglomerate fell apart on our side, but the national news avoided mentioning it.  The powerful CUBALSE, which had among its powers that of employing those who work in embassies and diplomatic residences, has just disappeared.  Even the most absent minded Cuban knows that to be a gardener at an embassy or a manager at a foreign exchange store you have to pass a powerful ideological filter and, in certain cases, monetarily reward those who select the staff.  CUBALSE had been a pioneer in selling in convertible currency in a country where the majority are paid in Cuban pesos, its employees seeming to be a mix between capitalist entrepreneurs and soldiers in a commercial army.

A discrete document detailed the dismemberment of the Company for the Provision of Services to Foreigners, whose pieces went to other institutions.  A whole structure of powers, loyalties and personal interests must have come crashing down when they announced the death of this “small giant.”  The requiem was played in hushed tones, however, so as not to unduly alarm us.  We don’t need to look at the collapse of General Motors to make unnecessary comparisons, to conclude that this is happening not only outside our borders, but also within them.

Junio 11th, 2009 | Category: Generation Y | 5 comments | Printable version
Party without guest of honor


A couple of days ago we held a small celebration with friends, in honor of the completion of the installation of new elevators. The party was well deserved because for more than seven months we had to climb up to our fourteenth floor via the stairs.  We let everyone know by phone that there would be merrymaking until late and everyone brought something to contribute to the fun.  It was a shame that they arrived so tired and with an expression on their faces of having been cheated, because  the brand new, recently installed Russian elevators announced with the flashing of their red lights that they were broken.

The officials who traveled to Russia to buy the new equipment had decided that it wasn’t necessary to spend the money to acquire the lateral guides for the elevators, a kind of track for where the car slides.  They had diagnosed that the old structures, installed more than twenty-five years ago, were compatible with the new equipment and they began to install them.  I’m not going to speak metaphorically or draw parallels between electromechanics and politics, but applying innovative transformations on demonstrably worn out tracks sounds familiar.

The end result has been little compatibility between the old Soviet elements and the new Russian equipment, which makes horrifying noises when going up and down, in addition to constantly breaking.  Supposedly the installation is already done; in the business plan it must be put in writing with the word “completed” and soon the mechanics will be off to another building.  However, we continue ascending most of the time by the stairs and we look like jokers to our friends, who think our party was a joke in bad taste, to inaugurate the elevators that don’t move.

[Jammyisme]

Hilda Molina and I share a couple of rare “privileges”; we were both mentioned in the prologue of the book Fidel, Bolivia and Something More and we were both denied, on several occasions, permission to leave Cuba.  In her case the immigration authorities justified this refusal based on her past as a scientist.  They spread the rumor that she was in possession of classified information that should not be known beyond our borders.  Many of us suspected, however, that this wasn’t the real reason for keeping her here, rather it was the whim of a man who demanded her forced imprisonment.

My “crime” is located in the future, in that part of tomorrow where neither the well-known prologue writer nor the limitations on leaving the Island will exist.  My detention is not about what I’ve done but about what I might do; the “fault” falls on this citizen I am not, yet, but who is incubating in this blog.  In any event the punishment is the same for both, because a system based on limits, controls and closures, knows only how to penalize by locking up.  For Hilda this sanction just ended; although one accused never again sleeps peacefully, faced with the fear of returning to her cell.

I am happy for her family and for her, but troubled by the existence of those who decide who leaves and who enters Cuba.  I feel sorry for someone whose reunification with her family depends on a long negotiation between parties, governments and presidents.  I see an aging woman who will finally be able to meet her grandchildren and whom nothing can compensate for so many years of loneliness and anguish.  I can only suggest that she not harbor resentment against her jailers, because they are imprisoned today by their power, their fear and the inevitable proximity of their end.

Junio 14th, 2009 | Category: Generation Y | 9 comments | Printable version
Another generation that waits


I’m thirty-three with two gray hairs.  I’ve spent at least half my life wishing for a change on my Island.  In the summer of 1990, I peeked out the shutters of my house at the corner of Lealtad and Lagunas, when people’s shouting made me think of a revolt.  From there I saw rafts carried on shoulders to the sea and saw the police trucks controlling the nonconformity.  The anxious faces of my family foretold that soon the situation would evolve, but instead the problems became chronic and solutions were postponed.  After I had my son, between blackouts and calls of “don’t despair,” I understood that it would only happen if we ourselves could make it happen.

This June has begun very similar to those dark years of the Special Period.*  Uneasiness, power cuts in some neighborhoods, and a general sensation that we are going downhill.  I’m no longer that fearful and passive teenager whose parents said so many times, “Go to bed, Yoani, today we have nothing to eat.”  I’m not inclined to accept another era of slogans and empty plates, of a city stopped by lack of fuel and stubborn leaders with full refrigerators.  Nor do I think of going anywhere, so the sea will not be the solution in my case for this new cycle of calamities which is starting.

The restless seed of Teo will soon fertilize a woman to create another generation that waits.  I refuse to believe that there will be adults looking out the window hoping for something to happen, Cubans full of dreams deferred.

Translator’s note:
Special Period: The extremely difficult era after the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of its

[Jammyisme]

What is happening in Iran and its dissemination through the Internet is a lesson for Cuban bloggers.   The authoritarians of the court also must be taking note of what great dangers result from—in these events—Twitter, Facebook, and mobile phones.  Seeing those young Iranians use all the technology to denounce the injustice, I notice everything that we lack to support those who maintain blogs from the island.  The acid test of our incipient virtual community has not yet arrived, but maybe it will surprise us tomorrow… with the aggravation of low connectivity.

In our blogger meetings, which we hold every week, we watched a small video about the Iranian cybernauts.  I watched it again today in lieu of the images of the demonstrations that our official television refuses to show.  I haven’t contemplated the faces painted green, nor heard any announcer speak of the seven dead, but with this brief animated short I can imagine everything.  I visualize an entire generation weary of old structures that it wants to change, a people—like me—who has ceased to believe in enlightened leaders who lead us like cattle.  In the midst of all this, to our satisfaction, are the bytes and screens modifying the form of protest.

On days like this I greatly regret not being able to be online; I feel like I’m choking having to wait to hear all the news.  If there’s still time for me to extend my solidarity to the Iranian bloggers, then here is a post to tell them: “Today it’s you, tomorrow it could well be us.”



Junio 17th, 2009 | Category: Generation Y | 10 comments | Printable version
Quixote is spelled with “K”


A news release has delighted some and annoyed others: spelling will once again be taken into account in the assessments of Cuban schools.  The reign of the missing accents and of “s” replaced by “c” is about to end, according to an announcement made on TV a few weeks ago.  Students could fail an exam or even have to repeat the school year if they don’t master the rules of spelling the complex and beautiful language that is Spanish.  We linguists, as expected, are giddy with relief.

I had already become accustomed to deciphering strange words composed according to the personal tastes of each writer.  Even on the blackboards, written by the teachers themselves, the terminology of a new language appeared, adhering to no rules or standards.   Not even my self-assured phonetics, where the “h” has always seemed unnecessary, could remain calm in the face of five-letter words with four errors.  I’m not exaggerating; once I reviewed a history exam where someone had written “sibir” for “civil”.  Of course in that case they were talking about a concept little known in a society like this one, where citizens are considered soldiers, not entities with rights.

One day I got a major fright, however, when I was dictating to the amusing students at a secondary school in Zanja Street.  I happened to come across, on the list of words, the title of the greatest classic of Hispanic letters.  It was a way of reviewing the figure of Cervantes without overloading the test with complicated words such as “shortages” or “proposition.”  The truth is that on reviewing the sheets from that day I found at least a couple of students who had spelled “Quixote” with a “K”.  I could not believe that someone would use a letter with such a small presence in the Spanish dictionaries to write the symbol of our Spanish heritage.

Since that day I understood that spelling is the expression of a general culture that has its basis in reading and books.  How can one ask them to use the appropriate consonants if they don’t even know the meaning and history and certain words?  The officials of the Ministry of Education sensed the same thing when they chose to remove spelling from the evaluations.  Hence, Sancho came to be called “Zancho” and Rocinante… well… who can venture to say what they turned Rocinante into.

[Jammyisme]

San Lázaro is the saint of sores and dogs; his saint’s day is December 17. His name has been given to a long street in Central Havana, filled with scars and abandoned animals. It doesn’t have the magic of the avenue that borders the Malecón along the waterfront and between its peeling facades flow the lives of thousands of people. For some years it was the street most commonly used to go to Vedado, and so enjoys the affection of a well-known place. To traverse it is to see the real Havana, that which the tourist ads show in different colors.

A few weeks ago I made the video I’m showing you today, because I have a premonition that a day will come when everything will look different in this street. My prediction doesn’t come—this time—from pessimism, nor from the belief that half the houses will fall down before repairs start. San Lázaro will heal and shrug off the ochre colors you now see. I will be there with my camera, to show it to you then.

* Music from the CD “Libre” of Boris Larramendi.

[Jammyisme]

We’ve gone from one extreme to the other.  Three years ago we had a president who spoke for long hours in front of the microphones and now we rely on another who doesn’t send a single word our way.  I confess I prefer the restrained style, but there are a lot of explanations outstanding which, in the face of so much discontent, are urgent.  Someone has to stand up and explain why the wage reform failed, the reason for delaying the handover of the so critical supply of land, and the reasons that prevented them from reducing the gap between the Cuban peso and the convertible currency.

A face must show itself to give us an account of what stopped the elimination of the need for permission to travel outside Cuba, what happened with the repeated slogan of reducing imports, or what path was taken by the so-called business improvement program.  The same voice that in 2007 declared that hopefully there would be “a glass of milk within reach of everyone” needs to reveal to us now why it has become so difficult to put the precious liquid into the mouths of our children.  This man who reignited the illusions of many of my compatriots, must now express himself and confess his failure or at least tell us of his limitations.

I am waiting for a clarification about why he hasn’t accepted Obama’s proposal for U.S. telecommunications companies to provide Internet to the Cuban people.  I demand, like many around me, a convincing argument for why we are not going to join the OAS, or the reasons for not implementing, still, the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The list of unanswered questions is long and to hide from so many questions is not going to solve the problems.  Please, let somebody—with answers—show his face soon.

[Jammyisme]

A television personality has lent his name to an amusing adornment in the shape of a dog that is placed inside cars.  Always agreeing has caused this host to be compared to the bobble-head animals who nod with every rattle of the car, as if to say “yes”.  Said gentleman always approves what his bosses say, so much so that his neck turns into a spring when he presents one of the programs with the fewest viewers on Cuban television.

A Mexican friend gave me this turtle who says “no”, which reminds me of the negatives that citizens have never been able to express in public.  To the rhythm of this nice chelonian, I would like to emphasize everything that I disapprove of but that I’m not permitted to decide through the ballot box.  Moving your head from side to side when you don’t agree implies a greater share of value than agreeing or consenting all the time.  The sport of saying “yes” has cost my generation, which suffers the consequences of agreements and commitments made by our parents, to lose too much.

We could start by saying no to centralization, bureaucracy, the cult of personality and the absurd prohibitions of the gerontocracy.  As a fan that turns from right to left, so would I move if someone consulted me on the management of the current government.  “No” is the first word that springs to mind when people ask me if the Cuba of today resembles that which I was promised as a girl.  They will not broadcast my disapproval on TV, nor will it earn me obliging pats on the head from some boss, but at least it’s not automatic like the “yes” of the little plastic dog who looks out through the windshield.

[Jammyisme]

You spend your life wishing for the dessert you see through the glass and when they invite you in to offer you the slice you want, it turns out you’ve lost your appetite.  Permission to hold more than one job has ceased to be a popular demand among us for many years, because it was assumed to be impossible.  Its authorization has come at a time in which it is difficult to determine if it’s a step forward or a gesture of desperation.

Throughout the text of the Official Notice published in the newspaper Granma, I was pleasantly surprised to see that students at the middle and senior level are permitted to look for work while still qualifying as students.  Five years in which you couldn’t work and earn a salary has led many to forgo entering the university because they don’t have a family that can afford clothes, food and transport during their student years.  I know well what I’m talking about because while studying Philology—and being a mother—I had to work illegally as a city guide to support myself.  Only then could I obtain the title I keep in the bottom drawer of the dresser.  I know of many who until yesterday had to do the same, driven by economic reasons to skirt the laws or drop out.

The acceptance of moonlighting, however, has come late—even though it’s welcome—and has as its main obstacle the low level of wages.  To have two occupations will not mean that we live doubly well, nor even a quarter part more comfortably.  What the baker receives for working at night as a guard will not be enough to save his family from the black market, the diversion of resources or from emigration.  The question isn’t the authorization to get a job in various labor centers, but what products  can we buy with the devalued national money.  The days would have to have some thirty hours, because only then would moonlighting provide us the necessities of life.

[Windsortraveler]

does anyone besides Jammyisme get to post here?  Like, ask questions?  Or is this just something we are supposed to read and believe?
Sorry if I don't understand.