This Is Cuba: We Can't Even Post a Scrap of Paper Saying "Puppies For Sale"

The paper was recently stuck on a wall in Tulipan Street: "I unblock cell phones," it said, and gave the phone number of the shrewd technician. More and more frequently, you see ads offering puppies for sale, auto parts, or offering the services of someone who repairs kitchens or polishes floors in your home. They've been placed by the more daring in the informal market for services, trades and offers, upon which we all depend. A stream of businesses that lack legal spaces where they can spread out, but who manage to show their merchandise with as much or more effectiveness than the official trade.

These little handwritten cards remind me of the workplaces and schools outside of Cuba where I was fascinated by the bulletin boards crammed with requests and offers. One, "cheap lodging," "someone who wants to buy a laptop," or a trip that needs "new riders to pay for the transport," were some of the classifieds that I saw posted on them. None of this can be read on the boring walls, covered with political slogans, that appear in the Cuban universities, factories or businesses. The students and workers are not authorized to have a physical space to post a little paper asking for a book, a computer part, or a room to rent. Nor are there any sites like that for the rest of the populations, just as there are no local radio or television channels that devote brief minutes to informing about trades or lost objects.

To me, not allowing these boards is one of the most visible signs of control over all kinds of spontaneous organization or interaction among citizens. Their absence is a real shame, because these columns or boards stuffed with ads energize a city and give life to schools, offices and shops. But instead of that, posting the smallest card to "sell this thing" or "buy that other thing" continues to be, here, an act of transgression, an action that you must do clandestinely in one night, on a wall -- in shadow -- while no one sees.

Here is a sample of some virtual bulletin boards, which we cannot have in the real world: www.revolico.com and www.cu.clasificados.st
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English Translation.

Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez

Comments

[Philclock]

Problem solved, I heard through a person who claimed to be aligned with a closely placed source not wishing to be identified because he/she does not have official authorization, that the Democrat Health Care Committees have negotiated with their consultant code named Fidel to have the "Committee for the Proper Distribution of Economic Activity that Does Not Include Posting Cards in Public Places" move to the East Wing of the White House and run the Government Option. Although Cuba does not allow job postings since, as the Communist Party has made clear, the Socialist Paradise of Cuba guarantees every citizen a job and therefore has no unemployment, one-sixth of Cuba's population has applied for the 48,965 new positions created by the Committee to Consider All Possibilities before Health Care Services are Distributed to the Teeming Masses.

[sandokan1]

Cubans are not allowed to develop economical activities by them self at any level, that means, if you start to fish and sell the fish you captured by yourself, you will by charged and judged for develop “illicit economical activities” The objective of the regime is not to create richness but poverty and in such way keep the people in total dependence and obedience. The regime will never allow the people to become economical independent because then they will lose the grab on the political power.

[RightWingMarine]

the worker's paradise. I look forward to having that system imposed on us here.

[DevonTexas]

No one is stopping you from emigrating. Need help packing?

[sticksnstones]

I know. I know. The system imposed on the US, say between 2000 and 2008, was more to your authoritarian leanings, no ??

[jl4141]

Ever get the feeling that when you're looking between your legs you're looking into a mirror?

[beatbox32]

RightWingMarine... you are definitely military. You have no problem entering enemy territory. :)

[RightWingMarine]

that may be the nicest thing ever said to me on this site. :)