JUVENTUD CUBANA

CUBAN YOUNG PEOPLE DO NOT YIELD IN THE DEFENSE OF THEIR HOMELAND

2011-06-15T00:38:00.000-07:00

By Nancy Pérez Medina

Carlos Arce Martínez.

The historical generation of the Cuban Revolution has a guaranteed relief. The recent letter of one of the Five Heroes unjustly imprisoned in the United States to a student of the University of Information Science (UCI), and the answers of this one in an interview on the matter, confirm it

At the end of 2010, the student of UCI, Carlos Arce Martínez, received an E-mail from Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, one of the five Cubans arrested in 1998 in Miami and unjustly sentenced in 2001 to long terms in jail for fighingt against terrorism.

He is the one who is serving the longest sentence (two life imprisonments more 15 years), charged with espionage and conspiracy to commit murder, regarding the shooting down of the light aircrafts of the anti Cuban organization Brother to the Rescue, on February 24,1996, when Cuba was only defending its air space.

Bellow we reproduce the whole letter:

Carly brother:

Thanks a lot for the words you sent me through my friend Alina.

As far as possible I have tried to keep up to date with the task of the UCI, and I know some of the important contributions you do to the development of our country.

The homeland lives a historical moment, and all the Cubans, but especially the young people like you, must have a full consciousness of the role you have to play.

There are many —the same people as usual — that bet Cuban revolutionaries are not able to fix the house without knocking it down. Once again it is up to us to show them how mistaken they are, and for that it is required the efforts of everybody.

Please, give the greetings of the Five to the students, professors and other workers of the UCI, and our gratitude for being a part of that people that honour us with its support.

A strong hug,

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo

Federal prison of Victorville. October 21, 2010

22-years-old Carlos Arce Martínez studies the fourth year of Engineering in Information Science in Faculty number 4 of the UCI, and he works in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the Integral Diagnostic centers.

He told us he wrote to Gerardo through a friend called Alina, who is in touch with him. Carlos´s message offered Gerardo the unconditional support of the group where he studies. Knowing these details, questions and answers arose:

SJ: Why to Gerardo?

Gerardo and his bird in the Federal
Prison of Victorville.

“I must begin telling you I wrote to Gerardo through a friend who writes to him too. It was not any specific preference, that opportunity came to me and I did not hesitate in taking advantage of it. It was an experience I will never forget”.

SJ: What do they mean to you, as a young Cuban, those patriots and their fight?

“I feel a great admiration for them. Knowing that these men who have been in prison for more than 10 years, bearing some conditions that have attempted against their health, makes me believe more in my Revolution. These young people have known to defend their principles and have demonstrated to the world that in Cuba, the people is still ready for a fight, and the Cuban young people will never yield before anything or anybody that tries to end our dignity”.

”To those who do not trust the Cuban youth, these long years the Five have been in prison are an example of the sacrifice we are willing to do for our homeland, as our parents and grandparents did in their time,

”For me they are an example to follow. We are speaking of heroes of our generation, of the new generation of Cubans, and they are still fighting”.

SJ: How did Gerardo´s advices to the Cuban young people affect you?

“Every Cuban would be proud of receiving some lines in the own handwriting of Gerardo and their four brothers in fight. It was one of the most significant moments in my life. As soon as they gave me this letter I felt it was not only for me, and I felt the necessity to send this legacy to our University.

“The few words written in that letter were enough for me to understand we have to defend Cuba and the Revolution at all costs. It is impressive how such a great love for Cuba arises in a person who has been unjustly in prison for more than a decade, suffering psychological and physical mistreatments”.

“For the young people born and raised in the heat of the Special Period, this unshakeable force arising from Gerardo´s words is more than enough to show us that for Cuba we have to give everything”.

SJ: How the young people can be worthy of the trust those antiterrorist fighters have in them?

“The best way to be worthy of this confidence is to prepare us for the new times. These are not days of guns and battles of guerrilla. As our Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro would say, our battle in these times is of ideas, and for it many knowledge, values, principles are needed and, first of all, the humility and simplicity our main leaders have showed”

SJ: A message to the world on the Five Cuban Heroes.

“They will come back, I do not have the lightest doubt on the matter. There are still some decency and spirit of justice in the U.S.A.. I believe our people, with the solidarity of other nations in the world and especially of the Americans, we will get the release of the five prisoners in the Empire”.

SJ: Why do you think they have been able to stay firm in spite of such injustice against them?

“There are some values among men like the love to the homeland and its people, the unconditional loyalty to their principles and their historical leaders, the respect towards the heroes of their land who have offered their lives for our Revolution with dignity. But there are also men who cling to these values, offering even their own lives if it is necessary. The Five are among them.

“According to the friend who put me in touch with Gerardo, the support they receive from the Cuban peple and even from many places in the world, among them EE.UU., is an incentive to keep to their position before such an injustice”.

THE PRIDE OF BEING A PROFESSOR OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION

2011-06-13T00:58:00.000-07:00

By Alicia Centelles

How does a a sportsman think? What to do so that he reacts properly before the contingencies of a difficult match or in a competition with stronger or more experienced rivals? These are some of the questions the subject of Psychology applied to Sports takes care, and it is given in the International School of Physical Education and Sports (EIEFD), located in the municipality of San José de las Lajas.International School of Physical Education and Sports (EIEFD),

One of the professors in charge of this difficult subject is Osniel Urquijo González, who, in spite of his youth —24 years old—already accumulates remarkable career in teaching.

He recalls that “when I was a child I did notI like sports. My father was an athlete from a School for Sports Initiation (EIDE),he played baseball. He wanted me to get where he could not. He was guiding me. First I went through a lot of sports: judo wrestling, rowing, until I discovered that the one I liked was volleyball.

“I was short for the sport and I had to make a big effort. When I finished high school I had very high scores, more than 99, and I was in the first places on the scale. My professors wanted me to do the test to enter the Vladimir Ilich Lenin Vocacional Institute of Exact Sciences to become a lawrer, an engineer or a doctor later.

“But I did not study enough and I got low scores in the test, so I was disqualified. As a teenager I was not sure what I wanted to do. Everybody around me was giving advices, but everybody told me something different. Finally I was interested in physical education and sports, particularly in Psychology”.

Osniel entered a course of Physical Education and Psycology in the Provincial School of Physical Education of Mulgoba, where at 16 I was student assistant and was giving classes. In that center he began his working life. “My parents said to me: ‛A technician in Physical Education? No way at all. And with those scores? You must go to college”, he remembers smiling.

“I found my true vocation, and I do not regret. If I had the possibility of chosing a profession again, I would have chosen this one, in which I feel extremely proud; first, due to the complexity it has, because it allows to know man from diverse angles. Sometimes the Physical Education professor is very questioned by educators of other fields of knowledge; even when he arrives at a school there are some that look him or her over the shoulder. But that happens because they do not know his or her work.

“Studying Physical Education nowadays is a way to be realised professionally and to demonstrate we are very valuable professionals, because of the knowledge of many sciences we must use to teach a boy how to dribble, to throw, to run, and be a better human tomorrow. We did not only create physical abilities, but also values, thoughts and very many characteristics of personality”, Osniel explains.

As young as his students, but with experience
Despite his youth, Osniel accumulates already a certain experience in the educational field: “At 18, I was giving classes of Psycology and Pedagogy to a group of inmates during six months, with the purpose of preparing them for the Olympic Games of prisoners that are held annually in Havana. I had the pleasure of one of them, when he was released, majored in Physical Culture in the university center in his municipality”.

Regarding the difficulties of working with his contemporary ones, he points out: “Working with students of my age, and sometimes even older than me, I have had many enriching pedagogical experiences. For example, the students I had in the Provincial Physical Education School were high performance athletes, and at the beginning some of them rejected me. But little by little, ‛squeezing‘ here and concerning by their problems there, I was getting closer to them; later I tutored some of those controversial boys for their works of diploma, and nowadays many are trainers in the School for Sports Initiation and the Superior Schools for Athlete improvement (ESPA).

But without question, the climax in Osniel´s career is now his work as a professor of Psychology and Psychology Applied to Sports in the EIEFD: “At this moment I have students of 34 countries, except of Australia and Europe. During this course I worked in seven groups, three of fourth year studied Psychology applied to Sports.

“At the beginning my students doubted I could contribute, with my little experience, to their professional training., but later they changed their minds. In the end they wrote to me some phrases hat touched me very much, I still keep them.

“We managed to creat a student scientific circle weith more than 20 young people, who at the moment are doing some researches in the field of Psychology of Sports and have attend international events.

“Also it was important for me to iexchange with them, and to know their cultures and traditions As the school is unique, unique is the experience you acquire working there”.

A young man 101 percent Cuban
That is the way this young university professor describes himself. He is also secretary of Young Communist League of Cuba in the department of Applied Sciences and head of the brigade of solidarity with Cuba made up of students.

He also speaks about his likings: “I spend my free time listening to music; I like a lot Silvio Rodríguez, Buena Fe., the Charanga Habanera. I love to dance, to go out, to have fun with my friends and my girlfriend (she studies Library Sciences and Sciences of Information).

Osniel has also got municipal and provincial important prizes in several editions of the Science and Technology Forum, and was awarded in the 2007 National Forum for the multimedia “Psychology accesible for you”, generalized today in all the country.

As a result of his researching on stress in sports, sports and senior citizens, and the athlete´s behavior under strong physical loads, he atended international congresses as Sport for All (2005), the Ninth International Summit on Physical Education and School Sports (2007) and the First Congress of Children´s Psychomobility (2007).

In 2009 the Council of State gave him the "Builders of the Future" pin, the highest decoaration given to young Cuban researchers, and he has been chosen as best worker at municipal and provincial levels.

This instructor professor, graduated with honors in the Commander Manuel Fajardo University of Physical Culture Sciences and Sports in 2004-2009, has very precise ideas on the relevance of teaching:

“Teaching is a difficult profession, and in these times it is much more difficult still. If education does not walk with the times, the student remains behind the times. There are phrases of eminent educators that are always with me. Of them I remember the one that says that schools have to become places where they not only teach, but also where men are prepared to face the world, the life in a general sense.

“In the International School of Physical Education and Sports it is three times hard, because the Cuban student lives the Cuban reality, he laughs, he suffers, he cries with you, he has your same problems. But the students in the EIEFD come from capitalist countries, with habits, values and customs different from our model. This requires the professor has a certain level of preparation”.

Osniel´s message to other Cuban young people like him cannot be clearer:

“I would like to tell them that in life things are reached with great efforts and great sacrifices; that they must fight and always try to reach their goals even if they find many obstacles. Also they should always defend the Revolution, and to trust our leaders, because they trust us a lot. That everyone from his or her trench (the factory, the furrow in the field, the military unit, the university, the sport fields) feels pride of being a Cuban.

And in the end, a request: “Please, if it there is some space left, I would wish to mention something very important to me: I was born when my parents were hardly 15 years old. My father´s parents raised me, Rolando and Adelaida are their names. Everything I am today I owe to the education they gave me; if it rained, they put me a raincoat on and sent me to school. They did not go to the university —they threaded tobacco leaves in the tobacco plantations of Pinar del Río — but they are my paradigm”.

RECOVERING THE PAST

2011-06-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Summary: At the moment, the rescue of some offices makes possible new faces for old cities.

A la izquierda, momento de la restauracion
de la escuela. A la derecha,el centro ya reparado.

By Isabelle
Photo: Wildy

The Historical Center of Havana has acquired a renewed air for several years now. Thanks to restoration, their old buildings are being renovated and many signs of the passage of the years are left behind.

For more than a decade, hundreds of young students from the Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos School-Workshop in Havana fill their old rooms, because to restore aged doors, windows, pipes and walls is their responsibility.

The beginnings of a project
In Spain, in the middle of the 80´s in the last century, the necessity to fight against unemployment generates a project. Young people who were unemployed begin to approach the art of the job, and dedicated themselves to recover ancient buildlings.

The idea fructifies, and on the occasion of the anniversary 500 of the encounter between two cultures it extends to those Latin American where there was a Spanish presence.

Under these principles the School-Workshop of Havana is founded, in 1992, with the collaboration of the Spanish Agency of International Development Cooperation (AECI) and the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana (OHC). The agreement was effective until 2003, when it began to be sponsored by the last organization.

The school on the inside
The School-Workshop of Havana shows a lot of activity. The coming and going of the students are usual: some carrying a bucket with cement; others, white by the use of some material, but all of them buried themselves in the practices of the job. And it is that, from its beginnings, the institution applies the principle of learning working. For this reason, 25% of the time id dedicated to receive theoretical knowledge in the classroom, while 75% is used in the links with factories or different works.

Without question, Old of Havana´s architecture seduces. The center tries to perpetuate the passion for each piece of street or wall through an accurate reaining program. The old secrets on materials and ways of building are revealed the future bricklayers, carpenters, glaziers, restorers in stone.

Mathematics, Technical Drawing, History of Architecture, General Culture and Practices of the Specialty are some of the subjects that contribute to the curricular training.

For two years, under the advising of a qualified staff, the students receive the knowledge they need to graduate as qualified workers in restoration. Once the period of learning is finished, the colonial part of the Cuban capital will be the main labor destiny of the graduates.

According to the director of the institution, engineer Eduardo González Delgado, the school guarantees jobs, because the courses or workshps are called following the needs of the different companies dedicated to restoration.

Day by day the students practice even the minimum learned detail. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for which they form a very demanded staff.

The Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos School-Workshop, since its foundation, has taken part in more than 60 works, including the Historical Center of Old Havana mainly. When walking by Old Havana, beautiful details that are hidden hidden by the great age are visible again.

Thanks to these young people, the old part of the city has got in full dress again, perpetuating the past.

JOURNALISM IS ALSO WRITTEN IN BRAILLE

2011-06-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

by Lázaro Manuel Alonso Castro (Journalism student)

That October 14th fate wanted, in a premature childbirth, to take off from Susan the privilege of existence. Their lungs, almost suffocated, did not respond to the body. It was then when a cradle without any stuffed toys nor marionettes, surrounded by devices and strong lights, protected the childish constitution of the newborn baby

For more than eleven days, her relatives were keeping vigil on her, hoping the recovery. After such a long uncertainty, the group of doctors tore off death the life of the little one, but the oxygen provided during the recovery left an injury in its green eyes that today prevents her to discern between lights and shades.

Nineteen years after of being blind, this girl says that to overcome shyness was a quite complex process. Today she is safer, and you can see her walking as she leans on her cane and carrying a Braille typewriter.

SJ: How independent is Susan?

I´m enough, but I still have some steps to take. I can leave, take the bus, to sweep, to clean and do other household chores. I don´t need someone to take me by the hand; nevertheless, I´m afraid of going to the kitchen.

SJ: What message would you send to those people who have some kind of handicap and they don´t decide yet to incorporate themselves to society?

To get to success it is necessary to break the psychological barriers, they are the truly harmful ones. We can reach everything we set out to.

SJ: You arrive early at the Special School for Blind y. How much did it contribute to your formation?

There I discovered the value of friendship. Perhaps the teachers could do a little more for their students were more independent, like, for example, establishing relations with children from other school. That spacing out, to call it in some way, was the cause from which the educational changes were abrupt for many disabled ones.

At the moment they have improved in that aspect. The kids know more about towards the outside, it exists an interaction and the passage from a level to another is not so shocking.

SJ: We know you studied to be a librarian before going to the university.

I wished to attend to senior high school, but my scores weren´t good enough. Studying to be a librarian was one of the options to value, and as it was related to journalism, I decided to do it.

SJ: So, it was already clear to you your preference for journalism.

One of my grandmother´s sister, who took care of me while she was doing the household chores, encouraged my interest As she always listened to the radio and I had my visual deficiency, the magic of the sound came over me. Later I began to analyze things from another perspective and my enthusiasm about news information and the speakers´ expressions increased. I understood how necessary is to be clear when you´re communicating.

SJ: After your entering to the university, which are the bigger difficulties you face?

It´s reading. In house my family helps me a lot, but there are many times when they cannot d´edicate me enough time, because they work. Also the use of Internet is very complex, since I cannot accede to navigators due to the lack of a program that gives sound to texts nor you can´t read in Braille either.

SJ: Reading by that system requires effort and dedication for the learning.

Previously I could see some great letters with my right eye, not with much clearness, but but I was able to recognize what was written. When my vision deteriorated I had to use the Braille. At first I rejected it, because I couldn´t get used myself to total blindness, until I finally managed to use the hands instead of my eyes.

SJ: How you manage to meet the challenges the society imposes to you?

It´s impossible to have a professional who is afraid of interacting with other people, even though he or she has a physical limitation. I just imposed myself

“My family´s support and that from my classmates at school, where my passage through high school went by, were crucial. They provided, without realizing, the opportunities so that I could become more agil and and lost fear.

SJ: What dreams you would not want to stop realising?

There are many. A very big one would be to have a family with children. Sometimes I imagine my full home of kids surrounded by love. Another yearning is to work as a journalist on the radio, an exciting media that, as I told you, has captivated me since I was a little girl.

SEARCHING A DREAM

2011-05-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

By IWC

Photo: Elio

Marlys Reyes Sánchez is an authentic young girl from Camagüey. Tall, self-assured, very clever for her 19 years old. She´s an art instructor, majored in Theater, although she confesses that whenshe was a child she preferred other field of arts: dance.
“Since I was a little girl I felt attracted by show. I spent hours before the mirror trying to copy the steps ofhe dancers in the television. There was not any artistic tradition in my family, but a lot of love, yes; perhaps it was why art infíltrate into us, because only where there is peace it can flourish. And thus one day my mother decided to take me to some ballet classes and I was there very at ease, I was constantly practicing the

different positions. Later I wanted to explore other artistic areas and there was no opposition. So there was Marlys in contemporary dance and later in Spanish dance. I loved to be on the stage. I danced, I sang, I felt as if that stage were my place. And today I am surer than ever”.

Nevertheless, the field she chose in the first call to Art instructors was the theater.

“It was a hunch. I have to confess you that I had gone often to the theater, but almost always they were dance shows. I have certain theater bent, I was attracted for all the field of arts that could be contained in one. Theater can incorporate all the elements you wish: dance, painting, photography and, of course, acting…

“I took the tests and was accepted. I felt as if my dream began to become true. At least a part of it. I was adentrando a long way that just begins. On the one hand it was acting, direction (that is what I´m really interested in), and on the other hand, teaching. To learn how to teach. The better you are, the better you will know how to educate. It is a balance, first that learns when it distributes is the same teacher. To be an Art instructor allows me of knowing every day, to discover where I have certain difficulties or ignorance, and then, to be able to go deep in those zones, to be a better instructor and at the same time, a better drama actress”.

The daily study is the secret of this girl. She counts on her family´s support, mainly from her mother: “Without her I couldn´t be who I am, and much lesser that one that each day tries to improve oneself. Time lacks to me. Every day I read, mainly on theater. I prepare the classes. I do acting and concentration exercises. In the school we have created a group among the students: they attend the practices, the staging.

“I also study f Social Communication in the course for workers in the University of Camagüey. I learn there still better how to transmit knowledge I can acquire. It is a beautiful major because it has to do with people, the way you can reachthem”.

As if it were not enough with this, Marlys has also been in the radio. “In Radio Cadena Agramonte broadcasting station I passed a course of actress and I learned a lot there, especially on diction. It is an advantage to be able to listen to your own voice, to analyze it and to discover the modulations that fail or are inadequated. I liked to work in the radio but I prefer theater”.

The relation with the students has been a different school for her. “Perhaps fear is not the word to define my first day of classes, but I felt a great nervousness. I wanted to be an example for them, to give them the best part of me and they felt attracted by theater. At the beginning it was something difficult because of my inexperience. But while the course advanced, the relation was changing. It was a patient work. Today they see me as their professor and I am very glad with them, who are the fruit of this effort. Something of their cultural training belongs to me. And this is a great incentive to be better every day, to understand and to know more. It is a mutual school. We all learn when classes begin”.

DEDICATION TO MUSIC

2009-10-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

Thousands of symbols cross through the musicians´ minds while they are executing some piece. Several are the theoretical subjects they need to get or at least to approach to excellence in performing. Lieta Molinet García is just 19 years old, but she has the responsibility to settle these knowledge in the future instrumentalists

.
By Isabelle

The lights go out and a silence precedes to the multiple chords of guitars, violins and metals. The concert has begun. The most delicious sounds cross all the theater under the accurate baton of the director of the orchestra. The right confluence of sounds and gestures is the result of years of training, in which the theoretical matters have a leading major character.
Lieta Molinet García, the most outstanding student in her course, approaches us to one of those specialties not very known by the public, even though they are indispensable to settle the musical knowledge in any person.

Theoretical Subjects is a specialty that form the future musicologists or of music scientists. It prepares you essentially for research and also for teaching. It is strong, because besides studying the piano to a full extent, it is necessary to know all that is related to the history of music and other specialties like solfa, choral direction, counterpoint, harmony, orquestration. In short, we are the base to be able to play in a perfection way. Behind a conductor or an instrumentalist, there is our hand.

In addition, we are the vehicle to know the most novel aspects regarding music. That´s why it is so hard, difficult and incredibly unknown. Almost when you speak about musical studies, people think about a piano or a violin, but they never think you can be some day an researcher or a professor.

A trip to the origins
Lieta Molinet García was very small when she did the tests to enter the Manuel Saumell Conservatory in Havana. Her dream would be delayed again and again, because some of her scores prevented her to enroll there. She dreamed about being a singer, but it wasn´t singing the focus of her activity and success.

I always was fond of music. Singing delighted me and, the same at school or even in the day care center, I always took part in whichever activity would appear. My grandmother tells me that with hardly 15 months of been born they turn on the radio and I laughed enjoying its sound. Of course, when they turn it off me my weeping was tremendous. So it seems that my taste by music was born with me.

Singing was my first favorite. No instrument had drawn my attention until I entered in school. There It´s then where the piano shows up, and it has become, as singing is also, in my means of expression.

Because of her academic results, this girl had to dedicate many hours to the study of solfa and harmony. Nevertheless, it was until she was a teenager when Lieta began her musical studies.
When I entered the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, it was as if It had arrived at Paradise. Every year mean something wonderful. Whenever it entered to school or shared a new knowledge with a friend, I felt something special.

I remember that in the first years I asked about everything; those things my classmates have known for a long time then, were unknown to me. Some were surprised when listening questions about subjects on which, supposedly, I should have mastered. And that´s that while they had begun at seven years of age, I began at 15.

When I was 11, the Mnister of Economy and Development of Germany invited me to sing at the Hannover Fair. I believe that her interest and my family´s made me possible to fulfill my dream about singing, even though I had surpassed the right age to begin to. I had a special learning program of five years, instead the normal fourteen the three levels lasted. I´m deeply thankful to Professor Miriam Lay, the great Cuban musician Rafael Lay´s daughter, whose work was essential in that process.

The small school in Cerro: a group of raw diamonds
Lieta rewards everybody with her smile. It is difficult to see another expression on her face. However, when she talks about her present students, her face lights up like the one of a mother speaking about the her children´s virtues.

During all my life I´ve tried to always participate in contests and some other activities. I like a lot the idea of trying myself. But one of the things that demands the more from me and gives me more pleasure is the opportunity to give classes to children

I began in the Manuel Saumell School with high school students and others even smaller. Then I was transferred to the Paulita Concepción School, in the municipality of Cerro, because they needed Solfa professors.

Every day I gather the fruits of my work. To know they understand me, that there is a lot of chemistry and interaction between us, and feeling they love me as much as I love them, is wonderful. I have many plans for them. My present students prefer the strings, so I am thinking about playing a didactic piece where they can show all they have learned.

Next year we´ll have a Festival dedicated to José Martí (the National Cuban Hero ) and I want to encourage them to participate with some research works, novel things. I believe they can do many things, because they´re good people, very active and smart. So I hope to continue gathering fruits.

A new concert finishes. The last chords are sent to the ether. An ovation rewards the excellence of the sounds. Each member of the orchestra thanks for the applause and, of course, they´ll dedicate some thought to that one person who, taught them in their childhood hundreds of symbols and notions indispensable to learn music.

I GIVE MY HEART TO MY STUDENTS

2009-10-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

by Yainerys Avila

It was very complicated, but not impossible, to arrive at La Gloria, a community in the mountains of the province of Sancti Spíritus, where Germán Alexis Rodriguez Guerra lives. Last year, he received "Los Zapaticos de Rosa” Award (this prize is given in Cuba to persons or institutions with an outstanding work related to children and youth).

After my arrival, conversation arose spontaneously, while eleven students made their duties. The skilful hand draw up letters on the blackboard. Here, an exercise for the little ones of the third degree; there, another one for those of fifth; there, an equation for those of sixth degree.

Besides the subject he teaches, Germán never neglects the spelling and constantly uses education means that he himself has designed for his students, along with the television and the VCR.

I graduated in 1987 and I was assigned to a multi-level school in the municipality of Jatibonico. After nine years I was transferred to this primary school, named José María Padrón. I always dreamed about being a teacher. Since I wa a child I learned from my educators the love to this profession. Thanks to them my vocation to teaching increased.

SJ: What importance do you attribute to teachers at primary schools?
This is the most difficult stage for the students. It is necessary to be very careful, because what they learn now decide their future. To the teacher in a multi-level school the experience is still more complex, because you have to work with several matters and to obtain a good performance many extra hours of study are required.

SJ: How do you manage to give classes to students from three different degrees?

At the beginning it is very hard, but with a lot of patience and preparation you acquire more skills and learn to know each boy. In addition, in this type of school if you realize that some student has some difficulty, you can correct it in a personalized way, because the groups usually are smaller than in other cases.

SJ: What means do you use in the classroom?

José Martí´s work, first of all, and from our pedagogues, like Raúl Ferrer. I take advantage of tongue twisters, songs and proverbs, that allow me to tie a matter with another one so that they feel motivated. Sometimes midnight sees me copying some pages from a book they don´t have in the small library I´ve created little by little, so that they can read it.

SJ: We know that you hoard several awards as an exemplary teacher. Are you satisfied?

The greater prize than I´ve received in my life is the children´s affection. To them I give my heart. But my pride is to have attended to the IV Congress of the Pioneers Organization, where I represented the countryside´s children and expressed their concerns.

SJ: And “Los Zapaticos de Rosa” Award, granted by the Pioneers Organization?

That is the greatest recognition a teacher can ever receive. I will remember it all my life. From the thousands of teacher Cuba has, 13 of us got such a high distinction, and from that very small number, only two of us belonged to schools in the mountains. You can imagine how I feel.
SJ: What will you feel when you can no longer be in the classroom?

I hope that day doesn´t come soon at all. I will miss a lot this board, the chalks, the bustle of the children. But mainly, their questions and their comments. Each student makes you to feel alive, necessary. When the day finishes I´m always unsatisfied because I think I could teach them more, that every day passing is one left less with them.

PASSION FOR UNRAVELING THE PAST

2009-10-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

The Cuban young archaeologist Yamilé of the Carmen Luguera González is focused in doing research in subaqueous contexts and littorals. She tells us some details about her studies related to the Sánchez Barcaíztegui, a ship that played the lead in one of the most frightening wrecks of the XIX century in Cuba

By Pavel Lopez

Yamilé likes to have the past clear. To this specialist from the Archaeology Department, belonging to the Study of Sea Bed Direction in the SERMAR S.A. company, is mandatory to throw some light on those zones of the Cuban history that still remain in the shades.

Whether analysing the cultural evidences that Cuban waters contains, or devoting to the meticulous study of the pieces collected in archaeological campaigns, the purpose of this concientious scientist is always the same: to retrace the treads left by the human beings after their brief passage on Earth and unravel their secrets.

Yamilé´s day can begin whether in the Preservation and Restoration Laboratory, or the Exhibition Hall and Warehouse of Evidences, or in the open sea, on board of some of the yachts used to do research. This kind of transportation allow her to get to sites of archaeological interest, and also guarantee the transfer of the found pieces to dry land (sometimes they have great size and weight). In any of these spaces Yamilé claims to feel “completely at home”: Each day makes me sure that I was born for this”, she asserts.

Somos Jóvenes´ reporters surprised her just when she was working in a huge piece of artillery of almost two meters in length: a Krupp cannon, made in Germany, that belonged to the Sánchez Barcaíztegui, a warning ship used as a warship, that was sunk in the Bay of Havana in 1895. In those years, the public opinion was shocked due to this naval catastrophe´s magnitude, and it appeared in the pages of the most famous newspapers.
The research around this ship kept Yamilé busy for many months, although the effort was worth the problem. Nowadays, the accumulated knowledge, along with the contact with a very large collection of objects extracted from flotsam, makes possible to her to revive the events as she was actually looking at them.

The research
In the 50s the archaeological works began on the Barcaíztegui, that is about 24 meters of depth. Several institutions excavated in the zone of the sinking, and at the moment there are some pieces in several places of Cuba, like the Naval Museum of Cienfuegos, the Historical Military Park Morro-Cabaña, the Anthropology Institute, or our own organization, for example.

When I did my research I had access to infinity of sources: documents, articles, photos, engravings of that time and radio programs, among many others. Many people have worked on this subject, but from the point of view of the accident. Nobody had been dedicated to reconstruct the history of the ship, that was what drew my attention. Iin Cuba there´s not much information about it. Almost all the files are in Spain, because the Spaniards took them when they retired from here.
The ship
The history of the Barcaíztegui is very rich. It was a military boat built by order in France for the Spanish Navy in 1876. Two years later it was assigned to Havana, where it fulfilled important missions. In fact, it was the one that went to receive Eulalia de Borbón, member of the Spanish royal family, when she visited Cuba.

The Barcaíztegui received her with 21 salvo cannon shots, and escorted the cruise she came, the Reina Maria Cristina. Later, she visited the Barcaíztegui, because at that time it was a curiosity because of its excessive luxury, unusual for a military boat.
The ship was named after Captain Victoriano Sánchez Barcaíztegui, general commander of the North Fleet, killed in action in 1875 during the Carlist wars.
The accident
The wreck was very commented, because it happened at 11 p.m. at the Bay entrance, almost before everyone. Thirty one members of the crew were eaten by sharks and that was what people recalled, because it was in the press of the time.

There are several theories about the causes of the catastrophe: some comment that the Barcaíztegui was leaving the Bay in the dark, chasing a Cuban revolutionary expedition, just when the merchant ship Mortera was entering. Others affirm that the Barcaíztegui remained accidentally without light and, by error, someone ordained to change the course, which caused both boats to collide.

The most accurate version is the second one, since by these months there wans´t any Cuban revolutionary expedition. The first one was after the shipwreck, in the Eastern zone of Cuba. Nowadays, the rear admiral of the Spanish Navy assigned to the port of Havana, on board the Barcaíztegui, is the only one who is buried in the Colón Cemetery, in a tomb located at the entrance and belonging to the Counts of Mortera.

The collection
At the moment, the pieces extracted from the flotsam and kept in SERMAR tells us a very clear vision about life on board. Among them there are tools like hammers, tweezers; a large quantity of medical instruments, this is one of the most interesting collections we have. Flaks, her bottles can be found, jars of ointment, thermometers, hypodermic syringes and, even, we found a tapeworm perfectly preserved in formol.
We also have collected a sample of inkpots, lamps, bottles, objects, personal belongings, cosmetic bottles, perfumes, a doll´s head (a very peculiar thing in a military boat), armaments and navigation instruments. In short, it is one of the most complete collections about life on board a ship that exists in Cuba.

Somos Jóvenes magazine says bye to Yamilé, a young scientist who has still many stories to discover:

The number of flotsams to study is big (…) and each found piece is a rich source of knowledge. With each of them a degree thesis could be realised”. By the sight, its thirst by ignoto is insatiable or, at least, it does not seem to forget the lessons the men of science preceded who it, like that one Isaac Newton who a day expressed: What we know it is a drop of water; what we ignored is the ocean.

HOMOSEXUAL… AND SO WHAT?

2009-09-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

By IWC

That was the answer the famous English writer Oscar Wilde read in a public letter during the most well-known trial of the XIX century. The middle-class in Victorian England was scandalized by his behaviour. Wilde, who had maintained an intimate friendship with Lord Alfred Douglas, was charged with sodomy by the aristocrat´s father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde was convicted in the trial, held in May 1895, and was sentenced to two years of hard labor.

Prison ruined Wilde material and spiritually. That was a lesson for all those “deviated” that dared to fight publicly, a clear warning so that they remained in the shade in a society that didn´t accept them.

Sexual orientation, homosexuality and society
The human being is born man or woman, and according to his sexual orientation he or she can be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. On the other hand, the transsexualism includes people who biologically have a sex, but struggle in the conviction they must have been born with the opposite sex.Homosexuality doesn´t describe an uniform population, since men and women with this direction form a group so different inside as heterosexuals and bisexuals from the point of view of education, occupation, life styles personality, and physical appearance.

Homosexuality and its causes: genetic, hormonal, psychological or social?
There is a great diversity as for the definition of homosexuality in scientific literature. The attitude towards homosexuality has varied from its acceptance in old Greece and the tolerance in the Roman Empire, to the absolute condemn in many societies, western and eastern ones.

In the XIX century the German neuro-psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing considered homosexuality as a “hereditary neuropatic degeneration” that supposedly worsened with excessive masturbation; while Cesar Lombroso - one of the most outstanding representatives of the Criminal Anthropology- on the basis of Phrenology, sustained the degeneration theory. Thus, crazy people, delinquents, prostitutes, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals were degraded, excluded and marginalized under the auspices of science.

The Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud postulated the existence of a constituent predisposition, although he also emphasized the determining effect of experiences during the childhood (like for example, the lack of an ancestor of the same sex with which to be able to identify itself) and the frequency of masculine homosexual experiences during the adolescence, that considered like sexual deviation.

The scientists are not able to agree among themselves. Diverse theories have tried to explain the causes of homosexuality although without any definitive answers. The most popular have been as follows:

1. The genetic theory: It was one of the first scientific explanations about homosexuality. Displayed by Kallman, in 1952, it assured that the homosexual orientation was dictated by the genes; that is to say, people inherited homosexuality. Nevertheless, there isn´t any proof to confirm the study, and its conclusions have been, therefore, discarded.

2. The hormonal theory: Some scientists have suggested that the origin of homosexuality is the i hormones´ imbalance in the fetus or the introduction of unsuitable hormones. The fault of this theory is it hasn´t found yet any physical proof of such hormonal disorder in new born babies nor in adult individuals.

3. The psychoanalysis : It proposes several postulates. The problem with them is that they have been put never been tried nor verified in an ample sector of people, but only in small groups of individuals submitted to therapy.

Freud thought that the homosexual tendency was a natural stage it was due to go through to reach maturity. According to this principle maturity meant, among other things, a heterosexual direction,. A homosexual adult was somebody whose psycho-sexual development had been interrupted. Freud´s reasoning was that when boys discovered that girls did not have a penis, they feared to lose his if they maintained contact with them. And, since the men did have it, they would not be in danger if they maintained contact only with those of the same sex.

The sexual direction has also been attributed to the distant and hostile relations with parents. Males, after those tending to this theory, look for a homosexual relation to obtain the masculine love they never received from their fathers in fact. Also females approach other women to compensate the feminine lack of love on the part of their mothers. Similarly, lesbianism has been attributed to have distant parents, which caused that the girl did not know to make contact with adult men.

Masculine homosexuality, some researchers maintain, can be attributed also to have had too protective mothers, who have not released their children in the competitive masculine world and thus, these have not learned to fight to get a woman in equal conditions.

The most recent and popular among the psychoanalytic theories is the narcissist one. According to it, children, in their stage of development, are sometimes so lured by their own endearments that look for sexual mates similar to them.

Nevertheless, all the theories about homosexuality and the relationships with parents seem to come down when they are put under experimentation. A same rule for father-mother relationships, and father-son or mother-son relationships can generate homosexual or heterosexual children, no matter if these relationships are intimate or distant.

Respect, homosexuality, and diversity
It has been difficult to obtain a space to vindicate homosexuals in a predominantly heterosexual society. Two facts, at least from the point of view of professional diagnosis, put an end to the fight against the discrimination and marginalization of the relationships between people of the same sex: in 1973, the Psychiatric Association of the United States eliminated the homosexuality of its list of mental diseases; and in 1980, it also disappears in the Manual of Classification of the Mental Diseases of the World-wide Health Organization (WHO).

Nevertheless, in many other countries, the fact of being homosexual or to practice homosexuality can make a person to lose a job, the discrimination when renting a house, social rejection and even jail. During the past few years, the groups in favor of the gays´ rights have focused their fight in securing a greater acceptance of homosexuality on the part of the public opinion.

There´s left a long way to walk yet. A state of “tolerance” has gone in ascent in the last twenty years. The fight that gays has maintained with their feelings on themselves does not have anything to do with their condition, but with the point of view of the society that consider them as inferiors, lacking of human dignity and as individuals without any right and unworthy of being respected.

As a principle, the society must maintain the respect to the sexuality of everyone, whether he or she is homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual. What´s relevant it´s to recognize and accept differences.

THE SEED OF ITS HISTORY

2009-09-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Leyvis Yero Rodriguez, Yisenia Ochoa Sanchez, Hailier Cobo Cruzata and Ernesto Red Almaguer, are two young girls and two boys from the Cuban municipality of Jesus Menéndez ,who in the 2002, along with other young people from Las Tunas province, started off for the Cuban capital to become General Integral High School Professors in a project that at that time acquired the name of Los Valientes (The Brave ones).

Por Yaíma Puig Meneses

I knew them some years ago. We were only kids and life seemed to us so immense that we played to be great in spite of innocence and child´s fantasies. That´s why I´m not sparing emotions, surprise has got me suddenly and those I remembered as children show up as men and women, immense not only for the height they have reached, but also by the form they face its daily tasks.

I could never figure them in front of a classroom, with the enormous responsibility of teaching and preparing young people. Seven years ago, they did not supposed their professional races in that way: they were hardly a group of rebellious youngsters with aspirations for anything related to the world and the wealth of teaching.
Now they remember their days at Salvador Allende School and they all agree that, in spite of homesickness and the distance of the family, had incomparable experiences with which “we learned to see life in another way, to make us greater”.

As for this matter it was very relevant Edelio Rondón´s guidance, a professor from the Pedagogical Institute of Las Tunas, and also the experiences that everyone conserve about their days in front of a class, trying to direct and understand students whom they only surpassed in a few years.

Their first obstacle in the classroom was the parents, most of which did not believe them able to teach and help their children in such a difficult age as adolescence; but they, like so many other young people in the country, managed to prove their preparation, disposition and confidence.

To Leyvis it was a little more difficult that for the others, because she and another Valiente had to face a group “and at the beginning each day´s work was scary. Nevertheless, we were adapting ourselves and we managed to prove we were worth to be trusted, up to the point that many parents were grateful as for we did for their children”.

To other people it was less complex, Ernesto confesses: “I, for example, had the opportunity to work with an experienced professor and that helped me a lot to be related to the group and face up to the kids”.

Many parents recognized that these inexperienced young people were persistent and daring in their social work. “At first”, comments Yisenia, “it was common that the children missed some classes; and when we were to visit them to know why, it was usual to find them even in a roof building a pigeon house. Later they understood that it was not worth the pain to remain, because we were always going to fetch them, and I believe this was determining in many cases for the parents really understood why we had invaded the classrooms and which our mission was”.

They had there some sad experiences, but also moving and beautiful. For example, they all will always remember the opportunity to talk to Fidel, to greet him and interchange ideas about this project. Besides, Hailier kepps proudly his memories about the Fourth International Congress of Science, where he could exchange opinions with educators from different regions of the world.

Eventually they all returned to their native land to distribute to perseverance and education lavishly. The challenge has also been great for Leyvis and Ernesto: besides the beginning of their professional life and the responsibility towards the students, it was a challenge to work next to their old high school professors.

“If something has helped us, it was that the former principal of Hubert de Blanck High School accustomed all the academic staff to try us as if we were older professors”, confesses Leyvis. "For example, to me it was a very great challenge to see Gloria Ferreiro, but most of all to think that years back she had been was my prof”. Graduated in 2007 with a Gold Title, Leyvis is now a principal professor of eighth grade in the same.

Yisenia, on the other hand, began as a professor in 28 of Januaryhigh School, and from October 2008 fulfills the function of integral supervisor. “This responsibility demands me to be better prepared, that´s true, but I always do my best,” she emphasizes.

When graduating, Hailier had the opportunity to choose where to begin to work, and he chose the Country High School of the Pozo Blanco community, an establishment with different characteristics from the other centers in which he had worked until that moment. “And I do not regret, this has been a wonderful experience. Here, as in Havana, whenever I stand in front of a classroom or I share with my students, I understand truly why it was necessary that we appeared in Cuban teaching and why I never regret the decision I made almost seven years ago”, indicates Hailier, now a head of departament.

They all agree in one thing: they can´t imagine their days in another way anymore, teaching has grabbed them completely. “It is beautiful to be in front of a class, mainly when you discover the desire to learn in so many eyes staring you. And when a constant interaction with the students is obtained, the relationship becomes still more special, because you realize you can really help them to go forward, or at least to try hard to do it it”, Ernesto says. He is the only one of these four youngsters that is surrounded by its students in a classroom every day and discover them next to him, growing by the life.

They are still young, but enthusiastic, well prepared and enthusiastic, worthy of admiration and respect. And although others like them walk along the path of the General Integral High School Professors, founded at the beginning of the first decade of 2000, “Los Valientes” will be always something a kind of symbol of perseverance and disposal, to those that daily, in spite of their youth, face up to the responsibility of teaching and understanding our teenagers in any corner of the Cuban archipelago.

HUGS FROM A LITTLE CUBAN POETESS

2005-04-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

By Alicia Centelles

When she was in sixth degree, Raquel Perez Cross, a girl born in Havana in 1991, wrote several poems and poetic texts that her parents have compiled under the title “”Collection of my hugs”, classified in six parts: Patriotic hug, Green hug, Familiar hug, Loving hug, Special hug and Fantastic hug in a simple prose.

This teenager, who studies in Camilo Cienfuegos High School, in Havana, tell us in her verses about her family (her parents, her brother Ale, her grandmother), of her teacher Lucia, her country, love, the nature, the Spanish dance... nothing escapes to their sensitivity.

She has won Literature and Spanish contests, and love Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer´s poems, and she´s a real fan of Harry Potter´s books and the adventures novels by Emilio Salgari.

Here you have some of the works of Raquel, a true poetess:

Ad looking for a sister

A sister is looked for
who when I grow up
she mst be willing to love Granma.
She must be sweet and very affectionate,
and if she is inquisitive, I do not ask for anything else.
If there is a reward?
Of course there is!
A noble grandmother, wise and comprehensive;
and sweet, very sweet, as an anise grain.

Love

What is love?
A boy ask me about while he´s toying
with a flower .
What makes a mother laughs,
that a proud man
cry,
what defrosts the coldest blood,
what makes the world turns without stopping.

It can be the esteem by a friend,
also the affection to your professor,
your untiring love for your beautiful Cuba,
all that and more love contains.

It is your love to Nature,
your love to the people who saw you grow up,
but the most beautiful love in Earth love,
is that one between a man and a woman.

But lately love is lost,
There is no longer a conscience about how important thing
it is,
the crazy person of Bush has dismissed it,
every time there is less than it should have.

Hatred has seized hearts,
hatred, money and interest,
there is hardly love among people,
the world, my child, is almost upside down.

You have to promise me, my dear child,
Hat you´ll always have your heart open
to faith, love and affection
our country and to the Revolution.

The boy looks at me very respectfully,
He kiss me sonorously on my cheek
And tell me: I promise it to you!

A BLACK CUBAN TEENAGER AND THE OPERA

2004-10-08T06:59:00.000-07:00

By Marietta Manso

I think that my future is in the operatic singing, and I know I must to sacrifice to get it, not stay out at nights, take care of my voice and, of course, never to smoke.

These are words of Oscar Castañeda Trujillo, while all the dreams of the world escape through his black eyes.
At first sight he looks like every other boy: he´s thirteen years old, a mulatto, studies eighth degree in Fulgencio Oroz High School, in Havana, and get good grades... but there is something else, and it is he knows very where he´s heading to and how to get thereI was studying at the elementay school when my teacher Mercedes told me I had a nice voice and she encouraged to me to sing before my classmates. I did it, and people liked it, and then I realized I could sing.

Later, her mother made contact with professor Hugo Oslé and for a year more or less, every Thursday Oscar is discovering a world of sensations that improve his spirit, no matter how many sacrifices he had to do.

In the beginning, I didn´t like much to uit playing to study singing, but now I don´t even remember that, because I´ve understood that to reach the place I want, I must resign to other things.

The first time that he did a performance for the public was at the Astal movie theater, I´d never do it, but I followed professor Hugo´s instructions and everything was O.K. Later it would come presentations at the Amadeo Roldán Auditorium Theater, the Hubert de Blanck Theater and El Cacahual Tribune.

Supported by his school and his family, Oscarito goes ahead in a path he knows is hard, and sometimes he has to face some misunderstandings. My friends tell me I´m crazy because I like operas, and meanwhile, his eyes dream about Aída, Pagliacci or Mefistófeles, and from the bottom of her illusions he sings an aria.

THE CUBAN SENSE OF THE WORD "SOLIDARITY"

2004-10-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

By Luis Marín Lopez

Sometimes there are some words or concepts we used them in our daily language, without reflecting about their meaning or reach.

Have you ever thought what solidarity means and which is its importance? According to the Larousse Dictionary, it is the feeling that impels men to help each other, and it is also the mutual dependency between men that prevent some ones of begin happy, if the others aren´t.

This feeling and its consequences are directly tied to our history and our nowadays reality. It was that feeling that made go to the Cuban battlefield to the Dominican Máximo Gómez, the polish Carlos Roloff, the American Henry Reeve, the Chilean Pedro Vargas Sotomayor, the Catalan José Miró Argenter, to thousands of Africans who integrated the mass of the Liberation Army in the nineteenth century; to the Chineses, among which there was never a traitor nor o a deserter, and to which a monument has been built. José Martí and Antonio Maceo also showed their solidarity with the independence of Puerto Rico.

Cuban solidarity with the peoples of the world is only paying back our debt with all mankind, with the men who coming from other parts gave for us the only thing they had: their blood.

So we have now a new concept: Solidarity is not to give what we have in excess, but to share the little we have with our equal ones.

That´s why there are our health workers, teacher, trainers and other Cuban professionals in many underdeveloped countries, offering their valuable help, even though we also need their attention. They are separated from their families, but they´re teking to other peoples the knowledge, health and sports.

This revolutionary attitude creates, of course, some disadvantages for us. When we´re looking for the doctor we like, and we learn he´s working abroad, we feel dissapointed.

But when we see in the media how miserable many people live in those countries, and how grateful they are to our doctors, because in any cases they had neve had one, we must be highly proud of our countrymen, who are abel to do such human tasks.

It´s them who have to do the greater sacrifices, far away from their beloved and adapting themselves to new and hardest living conditions, for an unique rewrad: the satisfaction of having accomplished their duty.

THE PLACE THEY LIKE THE BEST

2004-09-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

This is what it means the sports area of San Rafael and Hospital St., for the teenagers who live in Cayo Hueso, a little neighborhood in the center 0f Havana. has become for them.

By Alicia Centelles

Every afternoon, after two o´clock, the corner of San Rafael and Hospital St., in Cayo Hueso, is full of shouts and laughter with the presence of children and teenagers who practice sports in that area of the capital of Cuba.

Thanks to the initiative of Jose Luis Bos Rodriguez, professor of Physical Education in Salvador Cisneros Betancourt Elementary School, that place has become the center of the c
ommunitarian project entitled “Defending my community”, by means of which children between six and fifteen years old not only play baseball and soccer, but they are also interested in their surroundings.

Always headed by their enthusiastic professor, students from Republic of Bolivia, Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, Pepito Mendoza and Maria Diaz Bersón schools integrate a combative sport club, up to date the only one of his kind in Cuba, named after of the young martyr Paquito González Cueto.

Those teenagers have worked in the remodeling of the emblematic park of the locality, named Quintín Banderas, and participate in the celebration of the birthdays of the grandpas in the community. At this moment, the members of the sports club make a research about the monuments in their territory dedicated to famous athletes.

Odelkis Tapia Quintana, president of the enthusiastic group, and Lisbel Arrastía Branches, its vice-president, say: We not only practice soccer and baseball. The girls prefer the kikinbol, that is played with a soccer ball of soccer but following the baseball rules. We have helped in the cleaning of the Trillo Park, and we put flowers before monuments and statues. In addition, we integrated ourselves to the cheering commission in the Latin American Stadium, to support to the Industrial team, and gave trophies made by ourselves to outstanding baseball players.

Then, Daniel Escalona Robles, the vivacious historian of the club, explains that its objective is to unite students from quarter to ninth degrees so that they dedicate his leisure time to sports and healthy ways of recreation. He adds that they also have a chess club, named Jesús Rodríguez González: We made the first teenagers encounter massive in the district, with the participation of three teachers of that discipline.

The activity displayed by the communitarian project headed by professor José Luis extends all over Cayo Hueso and other districts of the neighborhood. As much Odelkis as Lisbel and Daniel think that thus it must be: Even, it is an initiative that should be practiced in other schools of the country, because all of us, as Cuban children, have duties and rights as well. For us, this is the place we like the best in our district.

A FAMOUS CUBAN SINGER IS SURE OF THAT

2004-09-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

DON’T THINK STAYING IS AN OPTION

By Fidel Díaz

I ran into Carlos Varela in Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Centre during the memorable celebration of Victor Casaus' sixty birthday. Obviously, I would have preferred, then and now, that he could be singing his songs in the cities of the United States. The fact is that it was really beautiful to have him there, sharing with the elder troubadours, with his pairs, and promoting a group from Bayamo, ormed by very young people and under the name Nubes, influenced by his legacy. Considering the fact that we are what we are, and some many things have been said overseas after the news of his visa denegation to perform in the U. S., so then, I asked him to keep the record of the following questions

How many times have you been in the United States, up to this time that won’t be possible?

Twice, in 1997 and 1998.

Where?

In Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami.

I’d like you to tell me about the relation with the non-Cuban audience, which is suppose to have a different communication.

When I was in Miami, New York, where there were more Latinos, and Cubans among them, there was a closer connexions with the lyrics, with the song itself. However, when I played in other cities, as San Francisco or Chicago, where there were very few Latinos, the reaction was wonderful because no translation for the lyrics was required. That did impressed me, I thought my songs only had only one way of understanding, and it wasn’t so. Precisely, in my first tour I found out that even if I could not understand the details of the lyrics, communication is wider, is beyond that. It happens to many of us when we listen to English songs.

I liked both experiences. The United States is a huge country, beautiful, of an astonishing culture, they are at the same time so close and so distant from us, where one feels all the time the influence, above all in terms of music, I mean of the Cuban music. I plugged up very easily. I felt it took me a while to go to that country for first time, and it is natural that Cuban musician could visit that country on periodical basis. I don’t mean only to those cities where Latinos have an important presence, but to all the cities of the huge country.

What were your expectations when going to Miami the first, second and present time?

The truth is that the first time Miami was not even included in the tour. I had some days off and a couple of friends invited me over. They organized a couple of private concerts, in private residences for three or four hundred persons. Most of them were Cubans. It was fun, seeing so many people again, those who I haven’t seen for so long, even those who I thought were lost. People I had met at high school, at the university... and they were there. It was very beautiful, because they sang in chorus, wept , they all wanted to hug me at the end, they brought me drinks to the scenario and in general they said:“Brother, I’m fighting here, you don’t even think of staying, it is so good that you came to sing for us, but you stay there”.

In a way, I think that in this opportunity, six years later, I’ll return with an organized concert in a great theater, Guzman Center in down town. That would have been my first public concert in Miami. Well, it is a fortune to know that despite all the shit it is said by some people and some newspapers, a week before my trip, the theater’s tickets were sold out, considering we had not publicity at all. I mean a 1700 seats theater, a place very well considered there.

Although the tour would continue by New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Port Rico, for that occasion we had prepared some songs especially for Miami, songs that we’d not sing in other places. Those which are related with the exile, with the Cuban family, with the two seashores. It was not possible due to the decision of the Department of State, and I would say as some day my epitaph would read: “My music and I go somewhere else”. I have other tours, I hope that there would be other opportunities, above all because of the thousands people who remained waiting for me.

Is it evident for you that one thing is the Department of State and some other is the people who loves you and follows you?

Absolutely. Neither the organizer of the concerts, nor me could think a year of election in the U.S. could be so bad. I’m not the only one whose visa have been refused during this year, we are many Cuban musicians in that position. Organizing a tour to the U.S is very difficult. No matter the kind of music you play or the form of art you do, no matter if you are Ibrahim Ferrer, who have been there a thousand times, or Chucho Valdés who has been there two thousand times.

That decision is unfair, because any decision avoiding Cuban artist travelling to that country produces no effect, but the separation of two peoples, two cultures. It is a shame to deprive American people, and above all the Cubans who live there, of their right to enjoy and listen to Cuban music, to exchange with the artist of the island. They are demanding so, they’re crowding the theaters.

I have received a lot of letters in my web site during these days, they are complains of Cuban young people. They have dreamt of living in the land of freedom, however they have restriction on listening some kind of music or an specific artist.

I heard a good news yesterday. Jackson Brown, an American author and singer who was recently in Cuba, dedicated me a song in his last concert. We have planned to sing together in Los Angeles. When he knew about the fact that the visa had been refused, he said: “It is amazing to live in a country that feels free to send troops and bombs to another country, and later on it feels the same freedom to prevent an artist to come to sing here”.

I thank the thousand young people who have bought the tickets for the concert, mainly in Miami. It is a shame due to the decision of some dinosaurs from the Department of State I couldn’t sing to other people. Anyway, I may not be there, but my songs are, as I always say, they need neither visa nor passport to be on people’s side, on the heart of every person that listen to it.

Was is the significance, for this people, as well as your artistic project, of this experience of shutting the door in your nose?

Thoughtful songs, as Silvio said one day, is under the risk of men and countries. I’m not the only one. Evidently, one feels the pressure of living in the island, but I consider that in this moment those who are on the other side feel it more. It doesn’t cut my wings at all.
Of course, the band and I had the illusion of working at least two weeks in that country. However, we have many other tours during this year. It gives me strength to know they are waiting for me there, and the trust is that in my very heart I know I’ll go, maybe next year, when all this storm is over. I expected so, in a way. What surprises me is the role the media in Miami have played after the news.

Anyway you have people from Mexico, Argentina and Spain. I imagine you’ll go to give it all.

Absolutely. We are going to those countrioes to promote a new disk called 7. It was also our aim in the United States.

The last question. Is it true that in Cuba you’re not interested in singing outside of Havana?

I have had a lot of interviews on the radio and I have talked to several people in other provinces. I have explained that there are cities that does not have available the conditions to take the technology. Why we won’t make the concerts in those places with the same technical conditions we do it here in Havana, at the Karl Marx theater or any other? Why to underestimate other provinces? I consider everything has to begin with mutual support, to have concerts with all the professional rigor used in Madrid or in Havana. Why not have the same?

Unfortunately, there have been some contradictions, and the cultural institution usually have limited to say: “ Come only with your guitar”. I think it isn’t fair, in those discussions the people is the one who looses, because they finally don’t have a proper presentation.

It is a shame that people thinks that one doesn’t want to go. And it isn’t so. However, we have played in some places. I hope that during this year we could solve some disagreements. Both, the band and the technical staff are interested in making a tour in the island.

SOME MESSAGES

Good afternoon:
I wrote this e- mail this morning, worried about the concert, it is inevitable now. I called the theater and they say it is cancelled. Those who were looking forward it feel frustration and impotence.

Carlos Varela means a lot to us, and once we are on this side of the seashore, listening to him brings bitter-sweets memories of our days in Cuba, going to his concerts which touched us so deeply. A lot of sadness is combined today, we are still stock on one side and the other, with very little to do facing these violations of rights and freedom of speech, unbelievable, in this country
Tomorrow is my birthday, I only wanted to be Wednesday. I confess that when I bought the tickets, after work, I played the CD Como los peces, and I went listening on my way. I could not help some tears.

Finally, God permits Varela can come in any form, to have this expected wonder happen. We’re many the ones who love you on this side of the seashore.
Sincerely,

Ariadna García.

Carlitos, your lyrical messages are always present here, there and in other borders. Next time ―as always — but, it will be sometime.

A warm hug, maestro,

Fernando

Good evening:
Today is the saddest day of my life, after my departure from Cuba, eight years ago, specially today when I was looking forward Carlos Varela ‘s concert.

When I read the news in The Miami Herald that the concert had been cancelled due to the refusal of the visa by the United States, I felt myself offended and as well as my freedom to listen to such relevant singer and author, followed by all the Cuban youth in Miami. Why do they always have to mix the stupid and disgusting politics with art and music this two clean forms of expression of the human beings?

Thank you very much, and best wishes, from a Carlos Varela’s follower. Good bye from my youth in Cuba. Reply, please, just to have the new disc called 7 and listen to it, so that I could not attend the live concert.

Thanks so much,

Arnaldo.

Hello:

What happened with the tour to the United States? It was cancelled, I know, but what was the exact reason, because I don’t believe many of the sensationalist news here. It is a shame these things happen. Carlos, thanks anyway for trying to bring your music, and keep going. Good luck, Carlitos.

A great fond of you, I will always listen to your music.

Lucky.

Carlos,

I am really sad and angry to hear of the refusal to allow you to sing in USA. This is so petty and anti human, and an indication of how right-wing the US government has become. I hope that this decision will be reversed soon.

Many good wishes.

Your friend always,

Paul Brady.

CUBAN TEENAGERS TALK ABOUT ADDICTION

2004-09-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

By Miriam García Hernández

- Riiiiing, riiiiing!

Another useful day in school is finished. Boys and girls left high school for today to return home. Glad and boisterous, they comment the incidents of the day, make plans. Suddenly, a group stops full of curiosity: very still on the turf of the park, there is a man. Some of the youngsters approach expectantly:

- Is he dead? – one of them say.

-. No, another boy answers , worse than that: he is drunk.

- How can you say “worse than that”? There is nothing worse than be dead! – a third boy complains.

- Well – a fourth student takes part- he meant that it is worse because to be drunk it is to be dead in life.

As a journalist, the subject interests me. I approach them.

- Excuse me, if you´re not in a hurry, I´d like to talk to you. I´m a journalist.

Introductions, kisses, handshakes, and soon after we are seated and willing to talk.
Journalist: -Do you like to be free?

Ana Sofía: Of course! That´s out of question.

Ismel: Yes, but there are some young people that likes libertinism.

Lena: Oh, boy! We know there are some people that confuse terms- To enojoy freedom it must be regulated, in order to respect the human beings.

Delis: So, it is like peace. Somebody has said that it is the respect to the other people's rights.

Endy: Gee, how many philosophers we have here! I had thought we were going to talk about the drunk man, but now I see the subject is another one.

Journalist: No, you will see the subject remains the same; but since you went ahead, please tell me, do you know what is a toxic substance?

Endy: That one that damage health and alters the people´s behavior, like alcohol and cigarettes, for instance.

Liz: Aah! And if you know that, why do you smoke?

Tania: Because he wants to be a man in advance. .. but the cigarette has dominated him!

Endy: Why are you kidding me? I do not need cigarettes to be a man and nobody dominates me! I smoke because I want to, because my parents also some, and some friends of mine.

Liz: So, you like to imitate bad examples, you let yourself to be taken by the excitement. That isn´t intelligent. Leave it, boy, you can!

Amaury: Let me say something. There is no reason that justifies the addiction to a toxic substance. My grandmother doesn´t smoke nor drink, but if she doesn´t drink a a whole coffee pot a day, she complains she´s nervous and she has a headache; and if she drinks, then the excess of caffein prevent her of sleeping and she´s upset. It´s a repetitive cycle.

Journalist: It´s a mistake to think that drugs don´t create an increasing habit more and more and that they help to calm the nerves, when it is the other way around. It has been scientifically proved that alcohol and nicotine, for instance, have an exciting effect on the nervous system; therefore, they increase the level of anxiety in the people. We musn´t forget that they cause serious diseases, like cancer. Only imagine how much damage several of those combined substances do to our health.

Ana Sofía: You know Renecito´s case, the student in my group. The poor boy, he´s deadly ashamed about the way his father walks drunk and scandalizing.

Ismel: He says that his papa drinks rum and it´s him who is drunken. Between the pain he suffers and the arguments at home, he´s so upset he hardly slepps and he can´t pay attention to classes.

Journalist: Before approaching a toxic substance, you should think there´s always a beloved one at least who´s going to suffer terribly by that cause. To those that have already succumbed to the consumption, we must persuade them so that they leave it; we must help them so that they understand they have a serious problem, and is very important that they are put under an suitable treatment, in order that they can obtain a better style of life. The only solution is to avoid the toxic addictions at all costs, to know how to say NO on time, because alcohol and cigarettes open the doors to the addiction to other drugs.