More Cuban prayers...solidaridad and some planning

From Auburn, Alabama. And from sunny California.
From the Tampa Bay area, contigency plans are being organized...

May be I should get a map and start marking with pins the sites of the world where prayers are working overtime and the champagne is getting ready to splash.

Oh, boy! That would be SO COOL! :)

But I am worried about Dad. He is still there. I can help but feeling stressed out about his well-being...

A public service note, and a prayer.

For the public service, the news is that Babalu blog is down, probably due to heavy traffic. The prayer is between the one up there and me; so, won't give public comments on that.

The topic is obvious: Barbatruco colgó los tennis, probably a few days ago, and they are cooking up the version to say it clearly. Or not? May be they are going to show us a verdeolivo dressed Muppet? Who knows... with Castro's regimen, you really never know.

Reporting from the front range hills at the Rocky Mountains, in Colorado: Mami just talked to my cousins in Havana and they said nothing is happening in that area. They also said it's worthless to call them: usually, here we get the news faster than them. And they are right.

The cousin in Tenerife, Canarian Islands, in Spain, also said she hasn't heard anything. That we have to call her right away, no matter the hours, if we hear something.

Sister in law from Miami said in a quick call that friends of her talked to relatives in Cuba and they said something was being cooked up. But we don't know for sure.

Should I climb Longs Peak or at least speed up to the Continental Divider, sothe "guy up there"can heard my prayers better?

Or should I rent him a UHaul for his move to "el reparto bocarriba"?
That would be a true public service action!

Keeping track of the events? Just go here.

Cubanita in Colorado out.
... but still praying.

Sometimes I just can not stay calm

I really do.
I breath and read over the quote I have on top of my blog. Then I lean back on my chair and say to myself that I am supposed to write mostly, about my kiddo and our family memories.
But sometimes I can't.
Especially, when I get emails from friends telling me about things like the latest column of María Elena Salinas on Cubans immigrants.
Click here if you want to read her column in Spanish.

I have to say I always try to give the benefit of the doubt.(I guess is the mix of law school and journalist ethics still living in me).

I Google more than one newpaper or media outlet online. I read the stuff over and over.
But sometimes I just can not stay calm.

I wonder why María Elena Salinas --or so many other people-- can not understand the difference between an immigrant moved mostly by economic factors and a refugee. Is that hard to understand that we are not immigrants, that we are refugees?

I wonder why she didn't write about the way her own people, the Mexicans, treat, betray, denounce and abuse other immigrants from Central American countries while trying to make their way to the promise land and have no other choice that crossing through México.

Everything your compatriotas are claiming here, it's being denied to immigrants and refugees arriving to México. So, it's like "haz lo que yo digo pero no lo que yo hago?". Humm...

I wonder why she didn't mention that may be, may be the reasons Cubans have to leave their homeland, risking their lives at every intent, are slightly different from the reasons the Mexicans have to immigrate to the U.S.

I wonder if she really knows that most Cubans refugees in the U.S. do not agree with those human smuggling operations: we know they are dangerous, we know that money it's behind them, we know all those things...

But we also know that sometimes Cubans in the island just don't have any other choices. They are not fleeing for food or a better paid job; they are fleeing for freedom and sometimes, for their own lives.

As a fellow journalist, I used to admire her job pro immigrants in the U.S.
Now I'm not that sure.
I guess that money and fame can operate wonders in a person's professional biases.

Ay, María Elena, es tan fácil nadar cuando se está fuera del agua!.
(It's so easy to swim when you are outside the water).

But it's good that we both ARE in the United States, isn't it?
You can have your opinion. And I can have mine.

You don't need to understand or even be sympathetic to the situation in Cuba.
I --and all the Cubans in the U.S. and spread all over the world-- have enough supplies to do for you, and for us.

Looking back to my reporter's desk

It's been almost a month since I switched careers and left behind the chaos of my reporter's desk.

It's been a month of learning to serve others beyond my computer keyboard. And feeling really good about it.

But I haven't been able to completely shut off from the journalism environment. And this blog is part of that connection that, in the back of my mind, I insist on keeping.

That's why I felt the need to share the most recent news affecting Cuban reporters working for Cuba's government-ruled and censored-media.

From fellow Cuban blogs Babalú and Uncommon Sense, I first learned about a recent report from Reporters Without Borders about the recently imposed requirements for reporters in Cuba to access the internet.

I don't know how I can be surprised.
This is not news for me.
But I still am.

Take a deep breath and read this:

At the behest of communication minister Ramiro Valdés, the Cuban Institute for Radio and Television sent a letter to the heads of state media on 13 August announcing new restrictions on their staff. They must henceforth use a portal created by the Cuban state telecommunications company, enet.cu, to access websites and email services. This will enable the government to easily monitor their online activity.

... the letter also instructed state media to make an “appropriate” choice of staff to update their websites and said the web-browsing facilities made available to “trusted” journalists could be subject to additional controls.

Not enough? Go to the Reporters Without Borders page and see it, with your own eyes.

Encuentro en la Red, a Madrid based web site, also reported about the guidelines to select those "trusted"journalists. Read the original story, in Spanish, here.

But the best concept the "hombre nuevo"can learn from Ramiro's letter is that "the Internet was a tool of global extermination that had to be “controlled".
"Yeah! Sure you will...", I said.

I wonder if ETECSA and its mother-company, Telecom Italia, would ever be held responsible --same way is happening with Yahoo for allowing the monitoring of Chinese dissidents and independent journalists that ended up in jail.

Caro mio... you better put your beard in water when you see your neighbor's in flames.

Those Cuban's "Japi Berdeis"

D-Day of my birthday, my-friends-the-Cubans-from-Loveland, make two delicious lasagnas for dinner. In this pic, we're just getting things ready to land in the dinner table.

I've told you before.

Everything is about having all the friends around the food --and, ideally, around a dominó table.

It's about the pleasure to set up parties and gatherings at your home without the need to give a month in advance notice.

It's about the luck to have friends that you can call any day of the week, either to ask for help to fix something in your house or to reply that you'll be "dropping by" after work to taste the congrí y las albóndigas.

Get yourself those items and you'll be able to gather all Cubans around you... even if you are in the middle of the Western plains of the United States, far, far away from our tropical island and its replica, our beloved Florida.

Birthdays in the front range..."a la Cuban"

We -- the Cubans in the Rocky Mountains Front Range-- have had a pretty busy summer celebrating a lot of birthdays, in a row. Literally.

The third week of July, after work, we had an "informal" reunion at a Mexican friend's house: food, endless chatting and cake and candles to celebrate her birthday and her oldest daugther's birthday.

Cuban recently arrived form Arizona were there. Cubans from Loveland joined. Cubans from Greeley were the first ones to arrive at the house.

On July 27th I hit "la tiñosa".
Bunch of people and chamas in my house. Lasagna, tostones and flan for dinner and the traditional cake to blow THE candle. Closing act with una partida de dominó.

(Since we've decided we're all just turning 28 years... we wanted to save a little and use only one candle with the cake. Sorry, old Cubans habits are hard to forget).

Following Friday: MDH birthday. Another huge meal, same bunch of people and chamas and a delicious cake with THE candle. Sweetie going nuts with all the kids running around her. Same closing act with una partida de dominó.

Last weekend, Cuban friend from Loveland's birthday. Her hubby and MDH made una paella marinera. Wow! It was good!. More cake, more candles, more "japi berdei". My pastelitos de guayaba y queso almost didn't make from the oven to the table. Same players, same dominó to close the party.

I owe you some pics. But it's good we're together, in this midwest plains so far from our Miami homeland.

Despite the unconventional ways we have met --but that's a story for another post--, we have managed to stick together pretty frequently, speaking --even thought it sounds like shouting-- Spanish, cooking our traditional food and raising our kids in the love for dominó, the respect to abuela and the "be careful con la chancleta".

I trully believe that, eventually, most of us will make back to Florida. But, in the meantime, we're having a good time with our food, music and traditions, under this freaking hot summer in Colorado, just before the the snow arrives.

Show some respect to Cuban history, or at least, to our food.

I just loved to sneak around my fellow Cubans bloggers' sites to see what's the hot issue out there every day. And I am so glad that I've developed this new addiction.

In a recent post at El Mizzoubanazo, I just got a sneak-preview of what was meant to be a Cuban restaurant in Baltimore, in the so "in" Nuevo Cubano style.

With the first click, I was intrigued. With the second one, I started laughing. With the third one, it just become another day when I feel extremely concerned with the world's chronic ignorance.

Ay, Martí!!!Debes estar echando espuma por la boca y revolcándote en la tumba, whenever your dead body is resting now...

So, I decided to write a letter to the contacts they are posting in their website.
And this is what I came with:

Dear Tim, Ron, Marc, Scott, and whoever else in related to Little Havana Restaurant and Cantina, in Baltimore.

With all due respect to all your amendments-given freedom to do whatever you want in your business, I have to tell you I am shocked that citizens from this great country sometimes can be so ignorant, cruel and clueless about the history and the traditions of other countries. Eg: Cuba.

Thanks God you guys are running a restaurant and not teaching at any given classroom in this country.
Thanks God. Again, again, and again.

I've got to tell you... love the intro in your webpage:
"Over the course of nine years"... very poetic.

But, over the course of nine years, you should have started by having a native Spanish speaker proofreading all the words in faked Spanish you're using in your menu and webpage.

If you were really a little bit interested in doing business with a Cuban flare, you should have known that in Cuba we say Bares, not Cantinas --those are the ones in Mexico.

Then, that non-existent authentic proofreader should have told you that parrilla is spelled with two r's; the same ones that most Americans struggle so much to roll.

Then, may be you would also have known something about concordance in the Spanish grammar: the ensalada es vaquerA (no vaquero) and that frijoles negros is only one soup, not several sopaS.

And you poor things really believed you guys are bringing Havana to me?
G-I-V-E M-E A B-R-E-A-K
Sorry to wake you up, but that is just SO WRONG.

Come on!!! You didn't even researched in advance, at least to know that nachos and quesadillas are Mexican and Mexican American dishes, but not Cuban. In Cuba's traditional food, you will never ever find anything with tortillas. Helloooooo????

And there you add the glorious final touch...the image of a murder as decoration and their names in your menu. I wonder what would happen if I decide to do the same, but then I add the images of Hitler and his crew?

I am so sad. But not for me, or the thousands of Cubans that have lost their beloved one in the hands of Castro, his regimen and under the bullets of Che.

I am sad for you.

And I am sad for all the Americans from Baltimore and near by places that go to your restaurant hoping to buy something authentic. Too bad for them if they also believe that you have any idea of what the Nuevo Cubano is.

And I won't even mention the offense to Cubans for your political implications.

But, what can I do?

Ignorance is killing the world, and is being vicious in the United States, with people like you.

FYI: I am not a "rabid" Cuban from Miami, eager to constantly shout against Castro. I am a young woman that was born and raised under that regimen, that has lived in the U.S. only for a few years.
Believe me, I DO know what I am talking about.
But you don't.

_____________________________

Then I signed with "Best Regards".
And now, I just feel so accidentally GOOD.
(sight)