Legal Cuba Travel

Legal Cuba Travel

Cuba Education Tours

Cuba Education Tours are available to Canadian teachers who wish to learn more about Cuba.

http://CubaEduTours.net/

The portable Castro: Cuba issues Fidel dictionary

The portable Castro: Cuba issues Fidel dictionary

Sat Aug 8, 3:52 pm ET

HAVANA – Cubans accustomed to hourslong speeches, thousand-word essays and lengthy interviews can now get Fidel Castro at a glance, thanks to a new dictionary of El Comandante's teachings.
"Unemployment" and "History" are among the myriad words for which the 339-page paperback provides definitions — based on snippets of speeches, columns and statements dispensed by Castro during the 49 years he governed the communist-run island.
The publication, which the government says is meant to provide guidance to Cuban thinkers, calls to mind the "Little Red Book" of the late Chinese communist leader, Chairman Mao Zedong.
Unlike the Chinese book, however, the Cuban dictionary with the reddish-brown cover and the photo of an elderly Castro in suit and tie is not small enough — yet — to stuff into one's back pocket.
Presented to the public on Saturday, the work was compiled by Salomon Susi Sarfati, an oratory analyst at the Cuban Communist Party's high ideological school.
Castro turns 83 on Thursday. He hasn't been seen in public for three years, but publishes in state media frequent musings on mostly international issues, including the long-standing conflict with the United States.
Castro turned power over to his younger brother Raul in February 2008.

Cuba's Craigslist

Nick Miroff explains in "Cuba's Craigslist" how "Revolico.com takes communist Cuba's black market to the web."

HAVANA — On this Communist-run island, the black market is a vast, irrepressible force, an underground river of unlicensed services, goods pilfered from government stores and coveted items carried in from abroad. Cuban authorities go to great lengths to curtail it; they cannot.

Over the years, buying and selling en la calle — in the street — has been practiced by generations of Cubans forced to make ends meet in a state-controlled economy where official wages are woefully inadequate and most forms of private commerce are banned.

But Cuba’s informal economy is an imperfect marketplace. Without advertising, it relies heavily on word-of-mouth, and its commercial activity tends to flourish in small circles — among neighbors, coworkers and other trusted acquaintances.

Then came Revolico.com. Its name essentially translates as “disarray,” and while Havana residents jokingly call it “the Cuban eBay,” the site is really closer to Craigslist. For Cubans who make a living through the black market, it's a godsend.

Like its American cousin, Revolico is a free classified service that functions as a digital bazaar for a broad range of goods and services, with headings like Housing, For Sale and Classes. If you have internet access, and you’re looking for a golden retriever, a cheap housecleaner or the latest episodes of the HBO series "True Blood," then Revolico is your place.
Many of the ads on the site propose transactions that are perfectly legal in Cuba — or at least tolerated by authorities. One user posted a recent ad offering to rent rooms in his Havana home for $30 a night, emphasizing that he was fully licensed. Another ad offered $12 men’s razors — “GUILLETT (sic) MACH 3 TURBO” — from a vendor who clearly wasn’t authorized to sell them but probably wouldn’t attract police, either.

Of course, Revolico is also a clearinghouse for more serious illegal activities, including several that could lead to arrest and harsh punishment in this country — or in the United States.

“If you want to make a deal to leave the island, send me an email with your contact information,” wrote one user claiming to be a 24-year-old Cuban American woman traveling to the island with the intention of setting up a fraudulent marriage. “Half the money when we start the process, half the money at the end,” she wrote. “Price is negotiable.”

Several other postings were also targeted at Cubans looking to leave the island, mostly through fake marriages, while others sought travelers who could procure specific items abroad for resale on the black market — clothes, electronics and other goods. Satellite receivers linked to Direct TV or Dish Network accounts in the U.S. also appear to be in high demand on the site.

But the most popular category is computers and computer equipment. Some venders seemed to be operating a virtual RadioShack on the site, with a diverse stock of flash memory, hard drives and modem equipment, luring potential customers with promises of “home delivery.”

Internet access in Cuba is achingly slow and tightly restricted, but several postings advertised illegal dial-up accounts providing web access for about $1 an hour. One listing offered high-speed satellite internet installation for a whopping $6,000 — a fortune here — and suggested it could be used to start a business as a black-market Internet Service Provider (ISP). The posting drew several expletive-laced denunciations from the site’s other users — not because the service would be illegal but because the asking price was so steep.

As with Craigslist in the U.S., Revolico’s personals listings are a draw for lonely hearts and hookers alike. Many of the “casual encounters” postings appear to be created by foreign men looking to arrange for female company during upcoming trips to the island. Other ads offered anatomical paraphernalia and other sex toys not sold in Cuban government stores.

But perhaps the most surreal pages on the site are the auto listings. Because of title-transfer restrictions, only vehicles built before 1960 can be freely bought and sold in Cuba, so Revolico’s car section is a time-warped catalogue of classic vehicles in various states of preservation.

“53’ Chevrolet for sale in perfect condition, second owner, upholstery in very good condition … everything on the dashboard works,” wrote one seller who added photos of his sturdy black-and-white sedan. Another vehicle owner said he was looking to trade his 1948 Oldsmobile “for a smaller model.”

Interview requests to Revolico’s administrators went unanswered, but the site claims to be among the top three most-visited web sites in Cuba, with 1.5 million page views per month and 100,000 classified listings created in the past 60 days. If accurate, those would be impressive figures in a country that ranks toward the bottom for web access among Latin American countries, according to United Nations data.

While the classified listing are free, the site sells advertising space (in euros) for banner ads and other high-visibility spaces. There’s no indication where Revolico is based, but since it lacks Cuba’s .cu domain extension, the site is clearly not hosted by any servers on the island. According to its mission statement, it claims to work by “collective intelligence” and a spirit of “cooperation” that asks users to refrain from political discussions or postings. There are also no ads for drugs, gambling or other more serious criminal enterprises.

Still, vendors on the site are generally skittish about undercover police and it may only be a matter of time before authorities decide to block access on the island. If that happens, other Cuban classified sites like dicuba.com and cu.clasificados.st — which now receive far less traffic — will surely fill the void.

Revolico

"From sex toys to old Chevys, Revolico.com takes communist Cuba's black market to the web." - Nick Miroff, "Cuba's Craigslist," Global Post, July 24, 2009.

¿Que es esto?

Como bien dice el nombre esto es un revolico pero organizado. Literalmente organizamos "TODO EL CONTENIDO DE TODAS LAS LISTAS" para poder revisar y anunciar de manera mucho más cómoda.

Este proyecto pretende desde su modesta perspectiva, organizar un poco la extensa y activa comunidad que existe alrededor de las famosas e indispensables "LISTAS", y también por qué no, unir y fortalecer este fenómeno que quiéranlo o no ya forma parte de la vida diaria de bastantes cubanos, fundamentalmente habaneros.

Aquí pretendemos crear un espacio, donde se pueda anunciar cualquier cosa o casi cualquier cosa, de una forma mucho más organizada y asequible.

¿Un poco de historia?

"Las Listas" para los que por alguna extraña razón no las conozcan, son listas de distribución de correo electrónico que se crearon hace algunos añitos con el objetivo, en sus inicios, de anunciar la compra, la venta y el intercambio de hardware generalmente usado. Era una forma de apoyar el "cacharreo" o el afán y curiosidad, característicos del cubano, de adentrarse en el mundo de la computación de manera más informal y menos institucional. Esta tendencia fue creciendo, ya no solo era hardware, cada vez más personas tenían acceso al Email, hoy por hoy se anuncian muchas cosas, siendo ya unos cuantos los que nos apoyamos en esta útil herramienta para nuestra vida diaria.

De la manera más natural se creo una activa y cooperativa comunidad, la que funciona como un solo organismo, gobernado por la inteligencia colectiva o de masas. Todos y cada uno, protegemos nuestro intereses y por tanto los del colectivo, por lo que no es extraño que cuando uno o dos han querido venir a meternos ruido en el sistema y discutir de política, religión o cualquier otro turbulento tema, no han tenido cabida y la mayoría ha reaccionado. Sin estatutos ni reglas definidas, cada cual sabe lo que se puede y lo que no.

Pero al igual que a los niños se le queda chiquita la ropa, el soporte de "Las Listas" ya le quedó chiquito. A casi todas antes de acabarse el mes se le vence la cuota de tráfico que tienen asignada, ya hay mucho volumen de información diario y revisarlo se convierte en una tarea bastante engorrosa.

Ahí es donde se forma el Revolico.

Precisamente llegado a ese punto es donde surge la idea de organizar eso un poco. Revolico cuenta con un revolucionario e innovador sistema el cual analiza "TODAS LAS LISTAS", y organiza "TODOS LOS ANUNCIOS" por categorías para que sean accesibles de manera más fácil. Pero no solo organiza sino que también elimina las molestas repeticiones de anuncios, sustrae la inservible publicidad que traen muchas veces los mensajes y realiza muchas otras funciones para hacernos más placentera la tarea de revisar y anunciar.

La idea es que la comunidad se traslade paulatinamente hacia esta plataforma, pero de la manera más transparente posible, precisamente por eso es que aquí están "TODOS LOS ANUNCIOS de TODAS LAS LISTAS", para que usted no se pierda nada. Ni lo que se anuncia aquí, ni lo que todavía se anuncia allá.

El proyecto aún está arrancando, hay aún mucho por hacer y muchas ideas buenas por poner en práctica, pero necesitamos las de ustedes, las ideas de la comunidad porque nos debemos precisamente a ella, es nuestra razón de ser, por eso es que estamos ávidos de todas las opiniones, sugerencias, ideas y críticas que nos puedan hacer llegar.

Man trying to challenge Cuba travel ban still free

Man trying to challenge Cuba travel ban still free

LOS ANGELES – A U.S. citizen trying to challenge the ban on travel to Cuba on Friday bemoaned his inability to get arrested or cited — even after having his passport stamped in Havana and bringing back Cuban memorabilia.

Mytchell Mora, a 39-year-old freelance entertainment news producer, said he told U.S. customs officials he broke the law after flying through Costa Rica home to Los Angeles early Friday.

Officials punched some information about him into a computer and sent him home without punishment, Mora said. They didn't even confiscate his Cuba T-shirt or postcards.

"I am just so surprised nothing happened to me," Mora, who lives in West Hollywood, said in a phone interview. "What can you really do when you're saying, 'take me to jail or give me a ticket,' and they do nothing to you?"

Mora hoped to get arrested or cited after his fourth trip to Cuba so he could challenge the country's travel ban, which he says discriminates against anyone who isn't Cuban-American and punishes Cuba's people, not its government.

Mora said he hopes he may still be cited so he can challenge the policy in U.S. courts.

Most Americans who travel to Cuba do so on the sly, sneaking in and back without permission from U.S. authorities.

But Mora is trying to make a point.

He traveled to Cuba without permission in 1999 and 2000. About six months after the second visit, he got a letter from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control saying he had to explain why he went to Cuba, who he stayed with and how much money he spent — and could face fines or jail time if he failed to respond within 10 days.

He wrote back asking to exercise his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and never heard back.

Mora returned to Cuba in 2002 and told the Communist Party newspaper Granma which flight he would take to return to the United States. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, he was pulled out of line by U.S. authorities who said they were waiting for him.
After answering questions about why he went to Cuba, Mora was released and his bags were not checked.

On Friday morning, Mora said he immediately told U.S. authorities that he broke the law and should be subject to a secondary inspection and have his bags checked. Mora said a supervisor was called over and typed information into a computer, but let him keep his souvenirs and leave the airport.

The Associated Press left a message Friday for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees passport checks at Los Angeles International Airport.

During his eight-day trip to Cuba, Mora spent about $50 in government-controlled stores on a green and red Che Guevara beret, a Cuba T-shirt, Cuban flag refrigerator magnets, and postcards featuring a picture of Fidel Castro shaking hands with author Ernest Hemingway.

"They say if you buy these clothes or anything else, it goes to Castro's hands," Mora said in Havana. "I don't think $30 for a shirt is going to make or break this guy. The money I spend goes to the people and their homes, not the government."