The revolution will be blogged

Many argue that we are addicted to internet, and I am myself ready to admit the symptoms. Digital detox has become a buzz word, and in Cuba you will get one either you like it or not. Even if you really want to use the internet, despite the cost of ten dollars an hour, you have to queue up for it. Internet cafés are unheard of; you will have to go to one of Havana's upscale hotels and even there they only have a few machines, taking you back to the 90s when it comes to speed and looks. Most Cubans can't dream of having internet in their own home, and if they do it sure is expensive and, of course, censored.

Cubans waiting, lining up (which you see everywhere)

Just the more impressive is the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez and her blog Generation Y which I discovered before going to Cuba. Recently she and her husband (and fellow blogger) released their digital newspaper  from the island, «14 y medio», sprung out of the blog  Sanchez and her husband live in Cuba with their son. She’s one of the rare ones who left Cuba (she lived a couple of years in Switzerland) but came back to stay - To fight for a free Cuba, through spreading the word.

Photo from: yohandry.com

It’s impressive how she manages to blog and tweet from the internet vakuum that is Cuba, and she writes a lot about her daily struggles to get access to the world wide web (she took advantages of her «foreign» looks and knowledge of German and English to dress up as tourist, until she got more known, and even followed by the governments' men). She often has to rely on intermediaries to be able to post these very honest thoughts on Cuban every life and politics. I read a book based on her blogposts when in Cuba, and this way I was better able to understand the Cuban reality. It’s hard to get people to talk freely about the political situation there – there was often an awkward silence when I said I’m a political scientist. If you plan a trip to Cuba you should definitely read her blog to get a bit of insight on the local society and culture.

Here’s part of a blog post, on the (missing) value of time in Cuba:

«I challenge you to find a public clock in this city that tells the time or at least an approximation of the real time. I cannot find one. Not even on the facade of the Train Terminal, where immobile hands always mark five twenty. It is not that we have some sort of aversion to gears or digital display, but rather that to us time is worth nothing.

    We can spend an hour on line to pay the electricity bill or consume half a day to get a pair of shoes repaired. If, at the end of the day, we have completed at least one errand, that is reason enough to feel fortunate. Organizing or trying to make more efficient use of our time only leads to neurosis or masochim.

     But what adventures every day! Not knowing exactly when we can take the bus, receive a service, or buy a ticket. Bless us that we do not care whether it is half past nine or ten fifteen. Those annoying instruments that attempt with their tick-tock to measure the passage of minutes and hours will only give us a bad conscience and steal from us the pleasures of the placid sensation of wasting time.»

«On this island where aquiring cement, blocks, or steels is comparable to getting a bit of lunar dust, destroying in order to build has become common practice.» (Yoani Sanchez)