Quite a familiar sight in Havana are buses stuffed full of people, smushed against each other so close you’d think they were sardines in a can – rumbling down the street. All hours of the day, every day. Roaring engines, lurching forward and screeching breaks. Black exhaust billowing behind, leaving the other cars and buses […]
money makes the world go ’round
In Cuba there are two currencies in Cuba’s monetary system: The Cuban peso also called Moneda Nacional or CUP. 1 CUP = $0.04. The CUP is what Cubans are paid in and it correctly reflects inflation since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 which led to a collapse in the Cuban economy, from […]
My Mother Would Be Horrified
Today I ate pig roasted on a spit with rice, beans, cabbage, tomatoes and bread on the side. Little Wilbur I called the fresh pink suckling; He had been frolicking in the sun in the morning but by noon he was on a spit, by late afternoon he was well-done and by evening he was […]
Heat in Havana
In Cuba, the sun is always shining. And even when it’s not, a sheen of sweat still covers you from head to toe, courtesy of the ever-present humidity. Your skin feels sticky – a mixture of blanketed exhaust, Havana’s population density, bumping into sweaty bodies on the street, and flesh flush on flesh in too-crowded […]
Using the internet is so stressful.
In the United States, if one has an iPhone or Android, you have access to the internet regardless of where you are, so long as you are not in a cave or on the top of a mountain. But Cuba is not like that. Internet is sparse, and where it does exist it is slow […]