Bueno Dia Companero...

"What's happening?...I really don't know"

"What do you mean?...I can't take care of my family anymore...my daughter has left the country in the arms of a tourist...my son took off on a raft for Miami and I haven't heard from him in three years...my wife has cancer and there is no treatment for her...we don't have the dollars necessary...

"Mentira...Maria went off with that old guy from?....y you haven't heard from Yusnel?...surely he's ok...one day he'll show up looking fine con mucho regalos. Surely with our health care there is a treatment available for Margot...there's health care for everyone!

"Oye Compadre...you said it yourself..."mentira"...it's all lies...I don't believe anymore...not even in myself...if I had been "hombre" enough...I could've taken care of them better...Maria wouldn't have turned to "jiniterismo"...Yusnell would've stayed instead of being eaten by "los tiburones" and Margot may have lived better and not gotten sick."

"I was once called the "new man" by the revolution...but in all reality I am just an old man con nada...no dreams...just a nightmare...

Chiclet...chiclet!

I have been travelling to Cuba since 1996...those early years I always would take lots of chewing gum. I was always asked by children for Chiclet...


I was in the area of La Habana near the Cuatro Caminos market...these boys had been playing but once they saw me coming they immediately asked for some and I stated that if they allowed me to take a photo of them that they would get their gum...


I could not have posed these kids this well if I had tried...and I didn't...this is exactly what they gave me ...naturally...each child is an image unto itself!

After about 1998, the kids stopped asking for chiclet...they asked for 'moneda'.

Conversations with my wife...

My wife returned the other day from Cuba...today we began the conversations that we cannot have over the phone for concern that all conversations are listened to.

Being pregnant, she arranged to buy milk...not in the store...but from the source, a farmer with a cow, at the risk of losing the cow. He's required to sell the milk to the "state" who in turn sells it to the people...in the past children seven and under were entitled to milk but even in the store there is no milk...at least in the Holguin Province of Cuba.

In the city of Holguin, the farmer's market that was near the stadium has closed...it's said that due to the higher taxes the State tried to impose on the farmer...they have gone with "el mercado negro" selling produce on the black market. The more the State tries to impose in the business and tax the farmers...the bigger the black market becomes.

This image was taken in La Habana at the mercado "Cuatro Caminos" I chose this image because in conversation...onions that were selling for a small bag of maybe 5-6 for 3 pesos are now selling for 3 pesos for one.

How does this system maintain food for 11 million people? Imaginate...