16 June 2026

 I returned to the National Colloquium on Cultural Journalism. It has now reached its ninth edition. Inevitably, I found myself remembering the first one, back in 2018. A severe weather alert threatened to derail the event, but the participants came anyway. They crossed the country however they could to gather in Camagüey and talk about a profession that, then as now, was facing its own uncertainties.

16 June 2026

If a mass-casualty accident were to occur in Camagüey tomorrow, blood probably wouldn’t be there “listening to the conversation.” It would eventually appear, of course. Blood already earmarked for other patients would be redirected, and by the following day many Camagüey residents would likely be lining up outside the Blood Bank, rolling up their sleeves as they have done in the past.

16 June 2026

There was a time when world powers waited for Cuba to fall like ripe fruit. By June 2026, the fruit was no longer an apple, nor a geopolitical metaphor. It was a half-eaten guava, pecked away by a cheeky parakeet who watched from her cage as humans kept inventing new ways to make it through another day.