How (not) to Help: Some Unsolicited Advice for Uncle Sam

In the past 12 years, since my frist trip to Cuba in the summer of 1997, I've been to the "forbidden isle" perhaps more than 15 times. On every one of those trips I have brought things with me to give to "the Cuban people," friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

I started with two or three boxes of donated medicines and multiple bottles of vitamins and asprins. Luckily, I was illegally renting a room from a Cuban doctor who brought me to the office of the director of his hospital to hand over the goods - so as to eliminate the famed desvio ("detour" or pilfering) of donations. Though, I have since learned that giving donations to such a person was perhaps the worst idea of all!

Still, I have not been discouraged. Since that first trip, I expanded both my repertory and generosity, and have always tried to deliver my donations directly to their intended beneficiary, without using intermediaries. I have brought scores of letters (back and forth). I have brought cash. I have brought all kinds of magazines - Hola!, The New Yorker, Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, Muscle and Fitness, PC World, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and even copies of the dissident publication CubaNet News, etc. (If you're wondering, Hola! was easily in first place with Muscle and Fitness, PC World, and Encuentro competing for second).

Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez Detained, Beaten

I thought I'd spend a quiet weekend away from New York City and away from my blog. However, it seems that we're seeing the first signs of a violent crackdown against Cuba's incipient independent blogger movement.

See the preliminary report from Juan Tamayo of the Miami Herald here.

Tamayo's longer, follow-up story on Cuba's blogging phenomenon was published on Monday and Tuesday in the Herald. It is here (in English) and here (in Spanish).

CubaEncuentro has it's own report on the incident here.

CNN also caught up with Sanchez at home hobbling around on crutches after her ordeal. The video with English translation is here. A second video is here.

Tremenda Peluca! Tremenda Cubana!

I did not come of age in Cuba during the 1970s and 80s. Nor was I (un)lucky enough to spend part of my youth in a boarding school. I never contemplated (illegally) leaving my country by raft, nor was I christened at birth with a name like Yaniseidi, Yoandri, Yusimi, Yuniesky, or Yoani. In short, I do not carry within me any of the personal or generational frustration that marks many in what la bloguera cautiva calls Cuba's "Generacion Y."

However, I can offer up at least three "Y's" of my own. My middle name is AloYsius (really, it is!). My blog, as you can see is entitled El Yuma. And, after watching the most recent YouTube video post on Yoani's blog, I have to join her and her husband Reinaldo Escobar in asking of the ICAIC and the magazine Temas, WHY?