Farid @ Cuba

Changes

2009-10-14T17:26:00.000-04:00

my life has changed ever since ive gotten back from europe.
everything is just a little bit different, some things that used to entertain me before no longer fulfill a purpose whilst other things that didnt now do. Will this happen all the time?
I still enjoy going out to Sandino to drink a little, meet some old friends and go dancing. but no longer want to do this until 3 in the morning and then go run to see if we can get on the first bus to school. Its like 300 times cheaper than a car but somehow im still not willing to trade in my luxuries just yet.
I allso have to survive on a 300 euro budget for the next 10 weeks, 70 days, spending an average of 4.28 euros a day. changing it into local currency I can survive off it quite fine. its the 14th of october today, 2.5 months left. we have a big exam on the 25th of december(only in cuba) and then 10 days of vacation. Marc is coming on the 26th of december. that will be nice spending new years with him.
Sadly though I think most of my friends are going home for those 10 days. the only one who hasnt expressed interest to go home yet is David the negroid. im thinking ill take him along but as we all know he would become a third wheel so Im offering him an extra person, a +1, so he wont have to feel left out for the whole time. sounds like a plan right? so we will drive about, stay here and there, do the cool stuff. one thing at a time because marc will be coming much more often in 2010.
but this is all dec/jan so in the mean time I will have to entertain myself, on a budget. my creditcard will be finished somewhere next week. but that means it will be in suriname, so it will have to get to me somehow. considering the fact that most of my packages have disappeared in the last few months, it wouldnt be such a smart choice sending it here by mail, so were going to send it to marc, and have him bring it over to cuba. it seems fair. and yes, I do trust him

anyway, all things aside
school is becoming annoying with all these secondary subjects, i have all kinds of presentations this week and its not cool. well its not difficult but it does require studying. fine, i will get the videoclass in 10 minutes and start studying. geez. its not like I came to cuba to study. it was for the booze and the bitches.

Ive also started training again, it was about time, i want my appearing love handles to disappear again, if I want to look like marc when im 30 something, I might as well start now before I lose most of my vascularizing capabilities.

Weve been plagued by power outs and lack of water. according to the dean, the well has run dry because it hasnt rained in forever, which is kinda true. but thats no excuse, its called water storage, invest.

so i have almost no clean clothes. tomorrow is a definite laundry day.

I feel like tea, and today is a historical day, my tea has officialy run out.

anyhow, im done bitching about my life
see you in the next episode of

Cubas next top doctor (scrap the top part)

Constipation, Blood, Vomit, Realisations and Disaster

2009-10-06T14:04:00.001-04:00

Its an interesting title I have to say, even for me.

Its 11.48 PM, and its also friday night. there are two things wrong with this situation. First, I am not on the road, at some party or whatever, and secondly, I have no alcohol in my cardiovascular system. It is quite funny, Its my first real weekend back in Cuba, last weekend I spent in Isolation and the weekend before that I was in Antwerp and Rotterdam, having fun, partying, and Marc. I should be so depressed right now, looking at the bottom of the empty rum bottle. But im not, which is one of the strangest feelings.
One of the things that has definitely changed since Ive gotten back to the "real world" is my diet. In europe it mostly consisted of meats and vegetables, no real carbs. The only real carbs I consumed in europe were fries from mcdonalds. Rice doesnt count because I only ate rice like three times that month. Anyway, its back to rice and beans here. It causes some serious changes in my intestinal fauna. And the most immediate effects are already showing. Constipation. Severe constipation. This all brings me back to the time I had to adjust to cuban life, my first few months in cuba were the most painful. Nothing was more difficult than getting my peristaltics to work. I remember the months and months I didnt take a crap at regular intervals, and when I did, it was pure torture. bloody torture, literally. And now its back. And still as painful. I hope you understand what I mean. But if you dont, I could technically be more blunt. The low IQ version goes like this: All this crappy food is making my crap hard as steel, and trying to pass a lump of steel through your anus can cause anal tearing and bleeding, which is exactly what happened to me just now. There we go, now I got it off of my chest.

Anyway, as I was trying my best not to scream out in pain (we share 6 toilet stalls among about 40 students, its by all means a public restroom) I heard a door open, someone running, and a faucet opening. moments later I heard an all too familiar sound, the sound of gagging and the splashing of fluid hitting another fluid. Yes, one of my roommates was vomiting his brains out. Funny, normally one runs to the toilet to vomit, but he did it in the sink, which is also communal. we use it to brush our teeth, clean our food (when we were still allowed to cook) and wash our clothes. And he vomited again. and again. This is where the weirdest thing happened, I got goosebumps and a little bit grossed out. Which is the weirdest feeling, I felt conflicted. Because that used to be me. Who am I kidding, that is me, that was supposed to be me. But it wasnt. I was the one that was soberly crapping my brains out.

That is when I realised that I didnt want it to be me. I didnt want people to recognize me as that drunkard thats always vomiting. As that faggot thats always drunk with the eroded liver. I do not want that anymore. I realised for the first time in a long time that drinking really kills you. It kills everything. Now im not saying that I will judge others, I dont, and I will still enjoy the drink or two, but thats as far as it goes. Im done with the binge drinking, its not worth it. I feel like I want to be a better person. a stronger person. A healthier person.

Fuck me, it feels like im going insane. But I want to do it, will I prevail?

So then the vomiting stopped. the footsteps disappeared into the dark (half of our lamps dont work, and nobody does anything about it) and I cleaned myself. Then I flushed.

Big mistake.

The toilet, once again, plugged, ran over, and spilled EVERYTHING on the floor. it was disaster. im lucky to have avoided the mess. The next person to enter will not be so lucky I fear.

Thank god. No wait, lets just call it pure luck that we have cleaners that come every 12 hours.
theyre just farmers' daughters from the neighborhood that have decided that studying isnt for them, so they clean our crap. thats the best job ever. getting paid 10 USD a month for cleaning after some foreigners' crap that they refuse to clean themselves

She is doing it Again

2009-10-01T13:46:00.002-04:00

September 30th marked the day Kylie started her KylieUSA2009 tour, and its fabulous.
From the pictures i can safely assume that she masterly mixed the best parts from her previous showgirl and X tours, and turned it into something better, and she also changed her wardrobe. she is fab.

Island prison

2009-10-01T13:44:00.001-04:00

The machine will be churning out some more pretty soon

Sooooo where did I leave and where do I begin?
I am very sure that most people who read my blog have no idea that I have a facebook profile, and I would love to share the link with all of you but there is a small problem ofcourse. Even if you send me a friend invitation, there is no way in hell that I will be able to accept the invitation, because I have no normal internet. And besides, most people on my facebook I actually know, I dont randomly accept people I dont know.

Anyhow, so yeah, I went to europe for a whopping 28 days, thats a new record for me. Its funny really, considering that I have visited europe more than I have visited my own country since ive been in cuba. So that means in the 23 months that ive been here, I have been to europe more than Ive been to Suriname. It has even evolved into people saying that im more dutch than surinamese. I dont know why, but I am taking it as a compliment. it makes me feel so international.
So yeah, Europe. Holland for the first 6 days, france for the next 12 days, but during these 12 days, I visited germany for two days and I also did Italy for a couple of hours. I had pizza in the mountain town of Susa, and I did NOT like it. It was a mixture of the jambon cru and olives that I didnt like. The Jambon was too cru for me. cru means raw. But I must say, the mozzarella was fabulous.
What else was notable, I passed through luxembourg and bought cigarettes. like every other european does, its like 50% cheaper there. liquor, cigarettes and gasoline. Considering that I was drunk for most of my time in europe, I wasnt really thinking straight so I didnt really buy much alcohol. I did however buy a pack of cigarettes for my friends who smoke. carrying a bottle of gasoline wouldnt make much sense im afraid. I also went to belgium several times. Im not sure how many times. was it two or three? it doesnt matter. the important thing is that I fell in love. Not with the Godiva pralines (the only reason im so obsessed with the brand is because theyre Kylie Minogues favorite.....ive never told anyone this before) but with Marc. my new belgian Lover.
Anyway, so yeah, France, Paris, Metz, Albertville, Marseille. Ive seen so much, eaten so much, done so many things for the first time. I finally do understand why it is that everybody likes france so much. Ill be honest, like the 40 million people that visit france every year, we all pass through paris. Everybody loves paris. But really, I think its overrated. DOnt get me wrong, I really did love it, and once in my life, I will live there for atleast a month. But its not as fabulous as everybody says it is. First of all, you cannot see the eiffel tower from every window in central paris. That was a dud. Second of all, there are too many stairs in the city. I mean helloooo, its supposed to be a flat city, why so many stairs, my extensors in my legs were killing me. What else, yes, the Jardin de les tulieres, I dont remember the exact name, why does the sand stick to everything it touches. it took me weeks to get rid of all the white stains that sand left. I mean, 40 million tourists. Why has this not been taken care of?
But really, its an amazing city, Le Quartier Latin, The Louvre, The Eiffel Tower, Champs Elyssees, Le Marais, sigh, c'est Paris.

Metz, and the french TGV. what a piece of shit, they say the trains travel at 300kmph. And yes, they really do, but this supposed 1.5 hour trainride took three hours, because we literally stood still in the middle of god knows where for like 2 hours. I was in luck, I passed oud from tiredness. And Metz, a beautiful and quiet city, nothing wrong with it. Besides the fact that I probably got a nasty souvenir from the local gayclub.
ALbertville and the Alps. Simply amazing, there are no words for the variety that one finds in the french landscape. the first real mountains that ive seen up close. I dont count the andes, because i was on the plane everytime I saw them. The Alps, after Annecy (which is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, and it has a lake that just makes you want to cry) all the mountains around me were over 2km in height. It was impressive as the talles mountain we have in suriname is 1234m high. Me and my friend nicolas, we drove over the highest driveable point in france, le col de l'iseran. At 2.77km high, its the highest ive ever been. Not counting airplanes or alcohol. And as we got there, it actually started to snow. It was very emotional. Oh and it was somewhere between 2 and 0 degrees. celcius.
An hour later I was eating pizza in Susa, thats Italy. In 36 degree weather. My body is not built for this shit. All these changing temperatures make farid a dull boy.

So then Marseille. One of the most interesting places ever. There was not one cloud in the sky for the entire 5 days I was there. Thats Mediterranean climate I guess. beautiful calanques. So beautiful. Its the stuff poetry is made out of, but its real. the wind, the colors of the sky, the hills and cliffs and the ever present sea. Simply beautiful.
Dont even get me started on Mediterranean eating habits. Never again will I eat coquillages. well, maybe I will, but lets just say id prefer a big mac. What else was amazing? I took a great picture of myself hahahaha.

Germany, well, from the parts I do remember, Frankfurt was beautiful. so modern. I loved it, but somehow i just think germany is funny as a whole. They speak german, though I only understand 70% of written german, I dont speak it, and whenever I hear it, I have to giggle, it sounds like bad dutch. and this is only because i speak dutch since birth. Yes, I came out of my moms vadge talking. I got so drunk in a gaybar that i painted the town red. With my vodka and jagermeister vomit. I also barfed all over myself and my friends new car. I guess the scent of my insides will never make him forget those two funny days with me.

Luxembourg, what can I tell you about luxembourg, its really small and they have great ready made sandwiches at the gasstation. Thats it hahaha.

Belgium, its a beautiful place, Antwerp. Theyre central station is to die for, and the town square and the guildhouses are also very beautiful, there is an excess of leafgold everywhere! talk about european decadence, but who cares, if you have it, show it, flaunt it and fuck the rest. its not my fault africans are poor.

and then I was back in my trusted rotterdam, where im not afraid to go out of the door alone. Everybody speaks dutch, well no, most people speak dutch, and you can actually complain about those that dont speak it, the way it should be! I partied, drank and shopped like there was no tomorrow.

And then I came back. To Cuba. My Island Prison. The only good thing about cuba is that the food is so bad that Im losing my vacation weight. Im getting toight again. its about time, I always get holiday weight. And the studying is happening at full pace again, were now doing the cardiovascular system, complete with embriologic origins, pathology, malformations, characteristics, the whole 9 yards.

What else is new. I havent shaved in the longest time and now I look like bin ladens long lost cousin, twice removed.
I accidentally erased the content on my ipod, that basically sucks ass. Its not like I lost the music, but its kinda divided around 3 HDDs. I am also pissed that allison did not win ANTM cycle 12, because she obviously walked better than Tyena (is that her name, it rhymes with hyena) who looked like she was walking for a marching band.

I also read that the canadian CEO and co founder of Cirque du soleil is earths newest space tourist. I got so excited, the idea of the first homo in space. But then I realized that he isnt gay at all and that he even dated naomi campbell. I dont know why I was under the impression that Cirque du Soleil was all gay. Why does everybody think that?

I want to eat in space. this one time I saw the diet of the astronauts in skylab (that was in the seventies) and I got so hungry that it wasnt fair, those fuckers should eat granola bars and vitamin pills and save on weight. they get t-bone steak into space and they cant even fucking open a mcdonalds in cuba. so unfair.

Well I think ive ranted enough for a good entry. I am definitely getting back into the blogging.
later bitches

F

Isolation... again.

2009-09-30T14:26:00.002-04:00

Thursday September 24 2009

What can I say, I havent been writing for over a month now. the only reason for this is ofcourse the fact that ive been busy on facebook while I was on vacation. All the pictures are on my facebook.
Either way, this is day two of six of my isolation, only this time its different. the entire institute is filled with students. to my luck it is full of guyanese and antiguans, my least favorite people on this planet.
Last night when we arrived we were told that the food was going to be brought up to us, but that never happened, turns out we had to go down to get our food. either way, we didnt starve to death, i have all kinds of bullshit french ready to eat meals. the only problem was that we didnt have spoons or forks, so we just folded the metal cover hahaha. its called survival.
My health is severely deteriorating, i have several infections, my left nipple, my chin (a gaping wound) and under my tongue. i just hope I heal on time.

on the positive side, marc calls me everyday and he is coming to cuba in november. I cant wait. now i will have to lose weight a lot faster, atleast I have an excuse now hahahha.

The weekend of the infected nipple

2009-09-06T10:27:00.002-04:00

Havana, Sunday August 23rd 2009

T-minus 7 hours and counting first of all, I just woke up and I dreamt that I found the perfect shirt to wear on the airplane.
I also dreamt that somehow I managed to open up my inbox somewhere and I had written many cool articles. I dont know why the hell I dream these things. As I was waking up I dreamt that I grabbed my phone and it said 4.29 PM. which is fucked up, because thats my check-in time.

My last entry is dated thursday. What did I do that thursday. Jesus and I went shopping and manwatching. if looking at girls is called birdwatching aka ornithology (right?) what do we call skeezing on guys??

We went shopping, I made chickend and we stayed in, again. Atleast I was happy, I made caipirinhas. I got drunk in the house again. i dont really remember what it is that I did, but I am pretty sure it involved lots of masturbating and new porn. I mean, damn, 37.2GB of new porn. That is nothing to joke about.

On friday, woke up late, as usual, and went down to jesus his room and he was connected to the internet! so as I took tips from him slutting himself out on the internet (well it was more like a mutual thing) the hours passed by. It was fridaynight so we were supposed to go out. Well was I wrong. He decided to
hook up with his buff friend and I decided I was going to go out by myself. Which I did. I went to the malecon and I just sat down next to this tranny, which was the only space left, I reached at about 10 PM at 1 in the morning heshe starts talking to me. hisher name is eric or something. Anyway, so heshe and her brother were hustlers. like everyone else on the malecon basically. so she was offering me her brother but I told them that I do not pay for sex, so we just settled on conversation. she introduced me to some of her other tranny friends and whatnot. At about 3.20AM I left for the busstop. Got on the wrong bus and ended up having to walk like 30 blocks. Which was fine, when I reached the corner of jesus' street I realized that it was a cruising area. and I was walking without a shirt. Who knew piercings reflected that much light. If the guys cruising were atleast hot I would have done some, but that wasnt the case so I just walked home, turned on the pc, and watched some more porn.

Enter saturday.
woke up at 2, went into jesus his room, and like weve done every day of the week since ive been here. we were slutting around on vanguardia, planetromeo, guerrillero and gmail. And before we knew it it was 7pm already so we got ready and left for the city. WE went to eat at the cafe in habana libre, I had spaghetti bolognese and he took the tiki chicken and pork with rice. Cool presentation, in a bamboo stem. Anyway, we then went to the malecon where we met David, no not the jamaican, david, the other brtish guy who makes a great great great conversation, there is no love interest there, david is 63 years old but still looks like 47 or something. we went to walk around for a bit and we met alexander the lawyer and his supercute boyfriend the italian. I never got his name, but omg he is cute. They are the definition of a swingers couple. They visit cuba like 2 times a year, stay for two weeks. they even rent seperate apartments so they can do whomever they bloody please. Its strange but I guess it works for them. After having met the british couple, Jesus, David and I went to the lesbian party. The lesbian party which is usually full of fags anyway. It was on 23 y 28 on the roof of a 5 story building. it was nice, although there wasnt as much excitement as usual. We went back to the malecon at around 2 in the morning. Now what did I do then. Right, I was plowing my way through all the italians that decided to visit cuba simultaneously. talked to some friends, but nothing exciting. I said goodbye to david and took his emailaddress and walked to the busstop with jesus. I was hyped up on beer, mojitos and red bull. Apparently it really does give you wings. and hightens your libido. We walked past the cruising area again, this time there was this tall black guy who took off his shirt so we could see his tattoo but he wasnt that attractive so we just walked home. I watched porn again and I woke up just now. End

Update at the airport

The pre-vacation

2009-09-06T10:25:00.001-04:00

Havana, Thursday, August 20th 2009

Well I have been back in havana since last tuesday. I got all my documents and like I had decided before, I came to havana to spend the last 5 days before my flight.
It is now T-minus 3 days and counting until I leave for europe, I cant wait.
So far I havent done much since I have gotten here. The first day we went out shopping with the spanish guy who is marrying some other cuban. the bitch asked me if I was in love with myself.
We spent the night in the house cooking and having like lots to talk about. that same night two other friends of jesus came over, and I have this thing for one of them. He apparently had something for me too, and he told me that, so we started making out. He is really tall and cute, well, at least to my opinion, he then pushed me into the bathroom and locked the door. we were kind of in a hurry so we didnt go all the way. we did go far enough though.
Yesterday I was under the impression that we were going out to see alexander, the british lawyer who once suggested i take a ride on his dick. I was kind of excited, but jesus, found tail and decided to stay, i wasnt desperate enough to go out by myself, so I drank a little. Ok I drank a lot and went to watch porn and dr. house. More porn than dr.house.
Now its 2pm and I just woke up. I hope today is more interesting. I am sure that I am desperate enough to go out by myself if I have to. Its thursday, and I aint getting any younger....

I wonder if Jesus' date is still here. I actually met the guy on the internet as well hahah

Anyhow, im having a blast. And I cant wait to get to europe.

Fuck Microsoft

2009-08-19T04:50:00.002-04:00

Sandino, Monday August 17th 2009

Yeah

Apparently my license just expired. who the hell cares, notepad works just as fine.

so where was I?

yeah so I passed morfofisiologia III. I was so happy I just couldnt stay in school
and wait for my documents, so I rallied up the other fags in class, David and Josh,
and we all went to havana. On me. We stayed at Jesus' place in Playa, and then we went out to the malecon on fridaynight after we were done there at about 4 in the morning, we went to a friend of jesus' place who lives on neptuno. Not the planet, just the road. He is a fashion designer and owns lots of sunglasses. albeit brandless, sunglasses nevertheless.
We then took all of davids bags, who is now back in jamaica. He left earlier today and is probabloy choking himself on a juicy beef patty. Apparently thats a fast food chain. In Jamaica.
My word goes out to my undercover pal David. We hope he doesnt get killed this time.

Saturday we all went to Mi Cayito. The only gay beach in Cuba. It wasnt very busy. I think its because TS Charlene or was it Charlotte passed by that day. It rained and rained and rained some more. I wasnt going to let a small tropical storm ruin my first white sanded, blue watered, palm treed beach. So I went to swim anyway. it was cool. And a bit rainy, cold and sunless. The rain is my friend, it doesnt burn my skin and make me look darker

That night we went out to the party on the roof of a building, they had great music and everybody loved the new hair. well. atleast they said so. I was hyped up on red bull because i hadnt really slept much. speaking of which. I still havent really slept much. I should probably get to that before I die.

Got back on sunday and got three new pornos. a brazilian one, one with marines and one with Francois Sagat, my alltime faavorite pornstar. He is so fucking hot, but i dont know why he looks like a hot pregnant muscle man in whats that movie called again, Collin O' Neals world of men: Lebanon.

I jacked off 4 times in an hour. it was too hot. I didnt get laid this weekend. which is kind of sucky. I apparently have this super hot stalker. Well, atleast he has the tightest abs I have ever seen in my life. And a sweet ass. oh and last but not least, a SUPER HUGE COCK. Why do I know this? Well when I was at the beach last saturday, he saw me and apparently thought it was time to man up and come and talk to me. So before doing that. he took off his pants and showed his ubertight underwear. it was packed, front, back, side to side. man, i wasnt sure if I wanted to suck/fuck it, or feed it a peanut. He said his name is Carlos. HE knew I was from suriname, knew my age *im still 19 until proven 20 ppl* and he also had a record of every time I visited havana since I have been back. I was a bit freaked out. I then saw him later that night with some tourist. proving that he is a whore, like everyone else on the malecon.
oh and I had a nice conversation with this old perv from london called David. Yeah what a coincidence anyway, he kept on asking me what I was doing later. The only thing that was going on in my mind was that I wont be doing him. So I tried to sail around the question. it was funny really. he kept on talking about India. I told him that I am indian. That does not mean that I am from India, which he knew as well. And Also, I have never been.

either way, here come some pictures

oh btw, I have all my documents ready for travelling. I am so excited.

When fags find glasses at 4 in the morning

2009-08-19T04:37:00.002-04:00

Now 4.03 AM

2009-08-13T04:58:00.000-04:00

Sandino, Thursday, august 14, 2009 3.40AM
Stardate, ok I will stop this stardate bullshit, it is annoying me.

Soooo, yesterday I had my practical exam which was easy as hell. I scored 5/5. I am happy that its behind me now. All that’s waiting is Fridays written exam. I still have 6 classes to read and study, but that’s why I am awake right now.
Last Tuesday I stayed up the entire night. I was studying histological slides till 4am, and then I went to my room where I intended to masturbate, but instead I just watched star trek till it was 7 and time to get ready for my exam.
You can imagine that I was sleepy so after my exam I watched some more star trek. Ok yes I know, im addicted, but what can I do, the DVD finally started working again, it was the killing game part I and II. The Hirogen and their shit, yes, I really heart sci fi.
I slept past lunch so when I woke up at 4 I was hungry, at 6 we all left for Isabel Rubio to go and eat, which is where I met my friend who had been waiting there for me for like 5 hours. I didn’t know she was going to be there waiting for me, so she was pissed. She made me donuts. Oh btw her name is Lourdes, and she is a bolivian student here.
After eating I drank cheap moonshine wine. I got a little high. I discovered that I was very drunk last Saturday and didn’t remember half the things that had happened. Apparently the whole town of Sandino was introduced to my piercings and I was basically throwing myself onto some people hahahaha, yeah, that’s me, drunk. I bet that that’s why my ex got some hope of restarting whatever it is that we once had. That will never happen.
Aside from that, I went to sleep at 10pm last night, woke up just now at 3 in the morning with the intention of studying. Its 4.13AM and I still havent studied. But don’t worry, I will. And I will also cook some sausages with cream corn, I know it sounds shitty, but consider my alternatives. Any self cooked meal is a treat here in cuba haha, well, atleast schoolfood sucks ass.

It is now 4.26AM, I was watching my drunk videos. Yes I am ashamed, but what can I do. That’s a part of me now.

Anyway, so that’s what I have been up to lately. I will write later.

INTERMEZZO

2009-08-13T04:54:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Monday august 10 2009
Stardate 256

I havent written in forever. Yes I know, im sorry.
Atleast I made patrick put up some pictures of my trip to suriname. I hope he put them up already, havent heard from him in a while, I hope he didn’t die. Are you dead patrick?

I decided to stop studying on Friday, because my brain needed a break. I started studying a bit yesterday, I ended up staying awake until 5 in the morning, and I had accomplished only 30 minutes of studying. Not cool.

Today I have 550 slides to look through. We don’t use microscopes for histology so we just look at slides, many many many slides.

INTERMEZZO

Forgot to put the time on the first part of my entry. Irregardless, it is now 4.11 AM. I have read 1.5 classes and finished 216 slides. I feel accomplished enough.

Last Saturday I went out to sandino and had lots of fun. I will upload the pictures.
Its also strangely cold for a summers night, im guessing it’s a 20-19 degrees outside.

What else is new in my life, ugh yes, my argentinian ex is so in love with me, this after 1 year of having broken up with him, but he was the one that cheated on me, twice!

I know, boring entry, but that’s my life for now, boredom and lots of studying. Cant wait for europe.

Random pix 2

2009-08-11T07:36:00.001-04:00

Random pix 1

2009-08-11T07:33:00.002-04:00

Voyager

2009-08-06T07:19:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Thursday 6th of august 2009 4.27 AM
Stardate 167.2

Today I saw scorpion part I and II. Episodes of star trek voyager season 3. They really were worth all the hype.
What else happened today? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I slept a lot, was woken up by a loud peruvian roommate. I so want to kill him now. I mean, fathead is in havana having sex with men (I wonder what his god will have to say about that) and that means peace and quiet in the room.
I was wrong.
I made a cheesecake today, I was planning on going running afterwards but the cheesecake was so heavy on my stomach that I just decided to watch some more star trek in stead of doing excercises. I don’t want to be fat when I get to Europe. Help me diarrhea!

Oh and I have been studying for a good 3 hours now, I have managed to finish the biochemistry part of this trimester. Today I did class 3 to 6. So that’s 4 classes. Yesterday I did 1 and 2. And I already did 11 to 17. So Yeah, im on my way. I will re-do 11 to 16 when I get to them.

What am I saying? You don’t care about this.
Patrick helped me with booking my train ticket to paris. My first trip on a TGV. Cool isnt it?
Oh and I found Kylies promotional poster for her KYLIEUSA2009 aka For You, For Me Tour. Is fabulous.

My nipples seem to attract a lot of attention here in school. Apparently nobody has ever seen nipple piercings before. Yes, I do live in a backward school.

Anyway, since im just babbling about nothing in specific I might as well just go to sleep

4.34 AM

Happy b-day

2009-08-05T08:00:00.003-04:00

The Noisiest-Most-Annoying-Bedroom-In-The-Western-Hemisphere

2009-08-05T07:57:00.001-04:00

Sandino , Wednesday the 5th of august 2009 12.34 AM
Stardate 111.1

According to Ms. Simpson, my high school english teacher, all words in the title of an article should start with a capital letter. Ok, a small intermezzo, I forgot how to say capital letter in english so I had to ask around, being surrounded by anglophone people sure reminds me that english is not my first language. Ms. Simpson also included that there are no periods in titles. So there you have it, I just thought that yall should know that.
I am happy that I finally have some time to write again. It seems like forever since the last time I wrote something. Its kind of true.
So what has happened in the mean time?
Well last weekend I went to Havana. I did not do anything constructive there. I realized that visiting Havana can be done in a cheap way, that you can feed two people on 2.5 CUC and that I don’t care if I get sunburnt anymore. I walked on the malecon during the day, it was very hot so I took of my shirt to show off my newest metal assets. That’s where David and I met this guy from Tijuana. We knew he was some tourist out for young flesh hahaha. Why else do old guys come to Cuba?
I came back to school and I immediately had to catch up with all the classes I missed during my trip. I had to do an oral exam for the three weeks I had missed. On Sunday evening I was evaluated on pregnancy, childbirth and lactation. On Monday I had a written exam about coagulation. And I also had to do two oral exams on the properties of blood and immunogens. I started studying but I couldn’t finish it all on time so I took the orals for the properties of blood and did those. I begged my teacher to let me do the immune system on Tuesday. He said ok. Little did I know, the class was huge, I was up till 4AM studying, I passed out and woke up at 8 and went out to take my exam. The doctors werent there. So I just didn’t waste any time and went and arranged my travel documents, lets see how long it will take them this time.
I took the test, it went great and then I passed out, slept through lunch and woke up at 2. I spent the entire afternoon watching most of Star Trek Voyager season 3. And then I had dinner, I was very hungry. I then slept again, woke up at 9, I went and jogged 200 calories off and then I took a shower. I normally run 400 calories but since I havent run in such a long time I really couldn’t keep up, tomorrow should be easier.
So now im sitting in class, writing and studying for my final exam. We have the practical exam next Tuesday and the written will be that Friday. I have a lot to study but I am very confident that all will end well, I have the motivation im sure.

Anyway, Patrick will be putting up some pics of my birthday. Maybe I will send in some new pictures at 4 in the morning.

That’s it for now.

Oh wait no there is more. I realize I havent written about the title yet.
Yeah so as I slept through lunch, OMG, from people screaming and a couple fighting to people playing guitars and fathead’s annoying laughter. Oh I don’t know if you know fathead, he is this macro-hydrocephalic closet-church case that is in serious need of a suicide. It’s the same fathead whose eye fluid I contaminated with capsaicine.
Oh that was so annoying, I kept waking up but yeah, what can I do, it’s a shared room and it was in the afternoon, if it was past 11pm I would give them a scolding. Ugh, I hate what this is doing to my social skills, but who cares.

We already knew my life sucked.

Signing out for now. 12.45 AM

Isolation day 9

2009-07-31T15:14:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio. 28th of July 2009 

Stardate 49 

  I have almost reached the end of my incarceration. I guess I am happy that I am not showing any symptoms of the swine flu.  I am still convinced that it’s a big hoax. Every flu season kills people. I think this is just another way for the man to make some money off of us. There are two ways for multinationals to make money, war and disease. I am not paranoid, it just doesn’t make any sense. To be honest with you, I am sure that I actually did have the swine flu before I left cuba. I came down with this HUGE cold, sniffles, sneezing, red eyes, everything except a major fever. Ok maybe I didn’t have it now that I think about it. But according to what ive read it only kills people above 60 or under 5, those with weaker immune systems basically. 

 Anyway, I have been here for 9 days. It seems like an eternity. 
I just woke up. I havent written an entry for yesterday. Well basically I woke up J, Josh and David and they left at around 8 in the morning. As I woke up to the banging on the door, I walked towards it. It was the regular morning shift bringing breakfast. But as I was still sleeping and walking at the same time, my perception was a bit off, and I leaned against the open door. In one swift move I almost ripped off my left piercing as I turned around. It hooked on the door. IT was painful. It started to bleed and I started to cry. I have stabilized the wound, It doesn’t seem to be very damaged, I will check out the extent of the wounds as I wash away the coagulated blood later today. Its fine really. I hope. I don’t want to lose a nipple.  

That was all yesterday. I also studied. Nude. 
Somehow, being nude clears your mind. I had a new understanding of life. Or so it seemed. I studied pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Also the rest of the characteristics of blood. Concentrations of eritrocytes and leucocites.

Anyway, that was yesterday. I just woke up and decided that it was time to write again. It is now 11.31 am, I am listening to oldies. A womans worth by Alicia Keys.  About to shower and see what the day brings. Expect an update.

  The only thoughts in my mind are about what I am going to wear when I get back to school. I have to make like an impression and shit. I still havent uploaded the pictures. I will definitely do it today.  

I think im less fat again. Not where I was, but definitely getting there.

  Health tip for the day 
Icterus is the medical term for jaundice, and it is in every way, a bitch.

Isolation day 6 and 7, don’t know what happened to 5

2009-07-31T15:13:00.001-04:00

Stardate 47 

  When spending so much time in solitary one loses track of time.  I have no idea what I have been up to the last couple of days. I have been entrenched in the likings of Star Trek Voyager and Fringe. I hate it that I don’t have all episodes, Fringe ends at episode 1.14 The Ability, which is total crap because Walter discovers that he himself wrote ZFT. Ok you need to watch that series, its like Xfiles-on-triple-adrenaline-gone-2009.  One of these missing days I got out money for J and C, I borrowed money from them before I went back to Suriname because I was flat broke. So now that’s done.  

The coolest thing happened today. I got a call from J, she came to visit me along with Josh and David. As you might have noticed, I refer to her as J because she had expressed a problem with her name being on my website bla bla. Anyway, theyre still here hahaha, there is no transport back. So I guess im getting drunk with all of them with my bottle of Black Cat. Surinamese rum.  

There is however a small complication, they might have to stay here for 10 days for having come to visit me, but technically it doesn’t seem like that big of a problem because its day 7 and I still havent shown any of the symptoms, so I am swine flu free.

Today I called cuban W. He wasn’t in his house in Camaguey. Stupid. I felt stupid and needy, but what the hell am I to do. Oh well, it doesn’t matter really, he will call me back when he gets the message. He is probably screwing someone else with that 9inch dagger. 

 What else is new. I took a huge crap. It was also today that I realized that britney has converted herself into a has been. And Lady GaGa took in her place. Man, that’s how you realize that youre getting older, britney was my generation.   

Sigh.

  Medical tip for the day. Take vitamin C. Its really important. Trust me.

Isolation day 4

2009-07-31T15:12:00.001-04:00

Stardate 42   

Today I studied. Immune system. Its not complicated perse but it’s a lot of different details to remember. Cd4 Cd8, the whole nine yards. I also slept, and soon I am about to do abdominals and chest muscles. I cant run, My ankle is still sprained. My nipples are healing and I am pretty sure they will be fine.  My mother also called and she seems calm, I am happy about that.  Did I mention that on the day after my birthday I drunk called my malaysian ex because for the first time in 4 years he hadnt called me on my birthday. Turns out he did but he called my cuban number, and since he didn’t know I was in Suriname at the time, that caused some confusion. Aside from that, he still hasn’t called me on my cuban number, which he said he would, he must have forgotten. That’s ancient history I guess. Somethings I just have to realize hahaha.  W hasn’t called for today. Is he going to? Why do I even care? Hahahah, Its funny how some things can actually keep you occupied for a while. Today I am going to upload the pictures on my PC, see if theyre cool or not.  F out.

Isolation day 3

2009-07-31T15:11:00.000-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio Wednesday, july 22nd 2009 
Stardate 41  

Last night I felt like jogging so I put on my new pumas and went jogging, I ofcourse installed my new sports kit. At about 130 calories, I seemed to have slipped and cascaded down to a very shameful end. I fell and very much sprained my ankle. I couldn’t walk. Now, about 24 hours later the pain seems to have gone and my walking skills are back. Its due to the high doses of ibuprofen I have been taking. On a side note, today has been very unproductive. I havent studied. I should. I have three weeks of missed classes to pick up on. And a final exam to study for.  Today W called on the phone. I don’t know how I feel now but when he called I was happy and excited to hear from him again. He seems different. He makes me feel different, but im not letting him in. not yet. Its is way too early. Maybe its all due to the fact that I am all alone in this huge javascript:void(0)building.  Jesus also called today, he is working on some commercial gig in the city of pinar. Oh and my bag, the one I forgot in the taxi, has been brought to W’s family. I have to go get it someday. Which reminds me. I have to get him a gift for his birthday. I am now not sure if its on the 4th or some other day of august. Let me see if I own chat logs. I realized that we had chatted much more than I can remember. I have been reading for hours and I still haven't come across anything specific. 

Isolation log 1

2009-07-31T15:04:00.002-04:00

This is day 2 of isolation here at ELAM 11. Its normally a hub for the rest of the schools, every Saturday they have church services and whatnot. Its also the location of a minimart and an el rapido, which are all closed right now due to the nature of the facility at the moment. Cuba istaking the whole swine flu tjing seriously, every medstudent coming back from abroad will be isolated for 10 days in their centre. My centre is the centre of sandino containing 12 medical schools. I just came back so they told me to come here.

I arrived last night. Oh yeah, let me tell you a story. My friends were supposed to pick me up at the airport when I arrived early Monday morning. I told them not to pick me up then, but to pick me up at 2pm at the bus terminal in Havana. Funny thing was, that I had other plans. I met this Cuban on badoo I think, which is by far the most interesting place to meet people. And he is a vet and licensed pharmacist in Spain. He was coming to Cuba last Friday, and he had offered to pick me up at the airport. Funny, I didn’t even know the guy and I was changing my important schedule for him? Well let’s just say I might have taken into account my fascination about a certain 22cm part of his body. It’s hilarious really, I normally am afraid of those big things, but man was I wrong.  He picked me up at the airport, I had my doubts though, but he showed up. He is a cool guy, funny, flirtatious and he knows what he wants. And he wants me to have something serious with him. Granted, I don’t mind but I need time to get to know him better, and he understands or something.  Either way, we went to his family’s place in some part of Havana where I’ve never been before. He commanded his cousin to warm up some chicken and beans for me, which was fabulous. I showered and entered the room where we started kissing. Man he knows how to use that tongue of his. He is a mulatto, just as tall as me, a bit on the thick side but who cares :P
So we had sex for most of the night, I passed out, so did he, and then at 4 in the morning we were at it again, but the condoms ran out. And yeah, im not a BB kind of guy so I said no. he got pissed and I told him to let it go. I woke up at around twelve, showered and ate. He gave me my birthday gift, CK eternity for men, which was nice. And then it was almost two again, so I had to leave, the taxi was already coming, but then I had to kiss his discostick, which obviously didn’t stay with a kiss, so there I am trying not to gag and the taxi starts honking the horn hahaha, but I had to finish.  

we took down all the bags and left for the terminal. Upon exiting the taxi I remember W asking me if I had everything, I said yes, the taxi driver asked me again and I said yes. Little did I know, with my airhead, that I left my goodiebag in there. The gifts I had bought in the duty free zone in POS and in Panama. 5 sets of headphones, Bacardi razz and Wrapped with Love by Hilary duff, for J, since she is so in love with her.
I met my friends at the terminal, but it didn’t stop there, I had to carry this pack of money and documents to a Cuban who is going to work for RPBG, this Surinamese company where my sort of stepmom works. He was a no show and I still hadn’t recharged my cubacel sim, so I sent my friends to go and finish their things, they needed to pay airfare to go home at some booking agent, so they left and on the way bought me my credit. I stayed at the terminal with W to see if the Cuban would show up. He eventually did, and he was so happy, it was his golden ticket out of Cuban jail. Hahah, anyway, so my friends still hadn’t come back so W stayed with me. He is a sweet guy. Ugh but im not sure now. We will see how it turns out. Either way, my friends then came, I said goodbye to W, and then we headed back to school.  I dropped my friends off in school, and I continued on to Julio Antonio Mella. Which is the official name for ELAM 11. It’s a similar building to my school, only its not a school like I explained earlier. It doubles as a hotel for family of the students living here in Sandino.   

I am currently on the 4th floor. We just had a major thunderstorm, Ihave severe lumbar pain due to the discomfort of sitting on these shitty beds trying to watch Voyager, fringe, the fifth element and knight rider episode 1.15

  I arrived last night at 9pm, they gave me two pieces of bread with luncheon meat and a pitcher of fake apple juice. I stayed awake until 4 in the morning. I woke up today after sleeping in my underwear, and I opened the door and saw this really cute guy who brought me bread with mayonnaise. I was happy and I think I had a hard on hahaha. Anyway, so then I went back to sleep, they brought me lunch as well, rice beans and chicken. I ate it in the bathroom. I still haven’t brushed my teeth yet, I left my toothpaste at home and the rest is in my real school.  

Tomorrow they are reopening the cafeteria and the store so I will buy toothpaste then, until then im heavily chewing on trident white. I am tempted to eat the candy I have but I am starting vigorous exercise again today, I gained about 14 pounds in that one week back home.

so later today im running on the field they have, that is if they let me out of the building, doing my abs and my pushups, I hope my new piercings don’t cause any unnecessary pain or discomfort.

Lets see if I can attach some pixx….  

Farid out. Man that was a lot of yapping, I hope it will be more flowing in tomorrows entry.  

so until tonight, its 5.37pm already, ill be masturbating, watching movies and massaging my back.

Vacation log

2009-07-31T15:03:00.001-04:00

Stardate 28 

If I recall correctly, I left school to go to Havana on Thursday July 9th. Wait let me get my camera so I can be sure of what I am saying. At my advanced age (20) my memory is not as good as it used to be so I use photographic evidence to show me what really happens.  The dean confiscated all my travel documents the day before I left because she felt the need to exert her power over me. Fine, I knew all my documents were ready so I wasn’t worried. I was right, the following morning I got all of my documents ready. I wore a polo shirt that was given to me by David. He is a friend. I might have already mentioned him. I think.  Just the day before I left school I made a huge booboo. You see, we have practica docente every Wednesday. That means, we leave school to go to a local clinic and then we observe and get presentations, and sometimes we even get to participate. It all depends on the class of the week. That week we were doing pregnancy and birth. So they took us to the maternity ward to interview the patients, ask them all kinds of questions bla bla bla. Anyway, that never really takes very long, and since the bus comes to pick us all up at 11, we usually have two hours of free time, so we use that to go shopping. I was planning on making a red Thai curry for J (female friend) so she bought me the beef. Granted, I was supposed to cook it for her so we could share it. I cooked it, and in some crazy frenzy I just started eating it, and eating it and there wasn’t much left, and so I told my roommates to finish it. Nuff said, J walked into the room, looked into the pot and surprised, she asked me if I cooked. Though she already knew the answer, she hurtfully said that she didn’t expect this from me. Ok fine, I fucked up so I sent her an email, apologizing for what I did, because she usually just retreats into her room when these kind of things happen, and then I got this blaster email back, which basically ended the friendship. You see, when someone tells me something I assume they have thought it through and mean what they say, so when she told me that she didn’t consider me her friend anymore, who was I to doubt that.
So I just went to sleep, the next day, David, Josh and Louisa (my other friends) went to accompany me to Pinar del Rio. I borrowed an extra 50 dollars to make sure id have enough money for the whole trip back. Yeah I was broke for the longest time. But I have money now and I will pay them back. Anyway so me and J made up and she came with the rest of us to drop me off. Well, first of all, it was noon and the sun was blazing. It’s a 1km walk from school to the bus stop. Which we reached on time I guess. Only there was no transport, once again. So we waited for an hour, but then we just stopped a horse cart and put all of my suitcases on it, and 5 of us mounted it as well. That was funny but we reached Isabel Rubio on time. Isabel Rubio is a town about 4km away from school. It was there where we took a taxi to the city of Pinar del rio.

You know what I just decided. I don’t need to go into all the small little details. Let me just give yall a grand summary

I did get my threesome, it was awesome, I walked 40 blocks in the rain to get back to jesus’ house which is where I ate rice with meatballs, it was delicious. And then I went to the malecon where I met two germans, one had a 1foot long penis. No lies. And the other was a pervert, which reminds me, I have his email address. At 3am I went back to the house to collect my stuff and then I left for the airport. I didn’t have to wait long, I bought cigars and then went for border control where I was detained. Apparently my documents were not correct, after a few phone calls I was let through and I boarded the plane, where I passed out. I woke up 15 minutes prior to landing, and breakfast was done already. Either way, I ate some ham and cheese thing and then I got off the plane in panama. That’s where I met this peruan who was in transit from BA to Newark. He wanted me to transfer some files from a flash drive to his mp3 player. But since my laptop was a piece of shit, it didn’t really work out. He had this funny American accent, he acted like the average African American teenager. Spoke like it as well. He was cute though. So after he boarded the plane, there was this north Korean who invited me to his house in north korea. Funny, his English sucked. He was explaining to me in sign language that western medicine sucks and that I should study acupuncture.  I left for Trinidad where I fell asleep on the plane, again. I had my rice with ground beef and then I woke up in port of spain. I got off the plane and then got my bags and had a subway sub, it was nice, I bought one for my brother as well. That’s when I started waiting and waiting for my connection Which was 7 hours later btw. I then bought some books and started reading, im not exactly sure what else I did but eventually I was in the departure hall. My pictures don’t really paint the picture either.

I reached suriname, and I entered the new arrivals hall. Its nothing special really, you keep wondering why it took so fucking long to build. Its excessively cold, and its just a hallway and a new hall for baggage reclamation.  My brother and my mom were there outside and I was happy to see them, hungry as well. They brought me spicy shrimp and sweet and sour fish, it was fabulous, I ate it all like there was no tomorrow.  I was planning on going out to the YMC Gay night at club Mystique but that never happened as I was tired and my friends had gone to sleep according to my mom. She was lying btw. So at 4am that night I fell asleep.

Isolation

2009-07-31T15:02:00.000-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Río, Tuesday July 21st 2009

It feels as if I haven’t written in ages. How long has it been, 10-11 days?
Where do I even begin to write? I was going to keep a daily journal of my 9 days in sunny Suriname but that never really happened because I deemed myself too busy to write. Something kept telling me that I would have 10 days in quarantine, without internet, so I’d have enough time to start writing then. Nothing could be more right.  I will keep the quarantine logs and the vacation logs separate so it will be easier to read and understand.

Confessionals

2009-07-08T03:11:00.002-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio, Tuesday, june 7th 2009
Stardate 14.4

Today I told my friends that I have been writing again. It might not have been the smartest thing to do, it wasn’t received that well. But who cares, I do not owe an explanation to anyone, and since I havent been using any last names, im out of trouble

Anyway, two cool comments were made today. By Jen. But sadly because im like a little drunk I don’t remember them.

Oh I finally got my passport today, that’s 75% of the things I need, I now need a declaration for my new laptop so I can pass it through customs, I need a declaration of membership to this school and I think that’s about it, im supposed to get them tomorrow. I cant wait to start packing.

Today to celebrate a bit I went out of school to eat fried chicken and drink beer, a common ritual in elam schools of sandino.

Anyway, the whole passport thing didn’t go without trouble, there is this belizean friend of mine who is also leaving this week, but she isnt coming back, she is continuing medicine in barbados, UWI. Anyway, they didn’t want her to leave yet because one document wasn’t signed yet. Its funny because apparently if one person is missing here, the whole factory stops. The secretary had to sign her last document but she wasn’t in school. So they caught her as she was boarding the taxi, a whole caravan of students followed and almost caused a riot. The lady from foreign relations got fired because the dean (on a power trip) said that she never gave permission for her to leave or get her passport. The passport was given by the lady from foreign relations, funny, because she doesn’t need authorization to give passports. It kinda sucks because she was the one that always helped me surpass the system, anyway, atleast my exit has been arranged for now.

What else happened today, I think im getting swineflu hahahaha

It sucks

Anyway, wait for a nicer post tomorrow
kisses

Diarrea squared

2009-07-07T07:43:00.000-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio, July 6th 2009
Stardate 14.3

Yes, It happened to me again, the second time in one week. This time due to guilt.

I didn’t feel like going down to eat, so I asked a roommate of mine *I have 8 of them, some of them I don’t like, some of them I do* to go to Isabel rubio to get me some chicken. He went and brought me some, but I had completely forgotten about this. I went into the room at about 1 in the morning and I saw the Tupperware filled with food, I knew it was probably spoilt, but I ate it anyway, because it was chicken. I woke up this morning thinking nothing was going to happen because it didn’t feel strange. I was wrong, right after lunch it hit me. It was a very gassy one. One that causes crippling pain. I took another muscle relaxer and the pain went. But I still feel it inside of me, bubbling.

Oh yeah, and my documents ARE STILL NOT READY. I will kill them tomorrow. I really will, im not kidding, my next entry will tell you all which fucker I killed first.

Oh I am totally in love with star trek again after having seen the movie. I think Zachary Quinto is hot. Not THAT hot but his eyebrows, not the one in the movie, his real ones, just warm me up. Oh and I want to get my hands on 7 seasons of star trek voyager.

Helpful tips:

Don’t eat spoilt food twice in one week and vote to revive stargate atlantis.

Stupid quote of the day

2009-07-06T11:22:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio, Monday, july 6th 2009
Stardate 14.1

“Bread makes you fat because of the yeast in it, that’s why cheese gets you fat as well, it’s the yeast”

--Janique, 1st year medstudent, bachelors in either microbiology, biochemistry or organic chem—

Sometimes I wonder why the hell these people are studying medicine. These are the same kind of people that call for an excorcism instead of a doctor when someone is having an epilleptic attack.

I go to school with these... people.

Oh btw she is jamaican and studied at UWI

OMG OMG OMG

2009-07-06T08:05:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del rio, July 6th 2009

Stardate 14

Im so fucking freaking out, I was sitting down and as a regular checkup I was pulling on my skin where my lovehandles once were and I feel a fat deposit growing.

Am I really getting fat again?

This cannot be, not now, not 4 days before travelling, not three days before my threesome, no not now, this is impossible.

I am now running more, and easing off the carbs, its impossible, it has to be an ilusion, maybe im bloated. Last week I ran 5km, I walked 14, I had diarrhea which made me lose like 2 pounds, why is this happening?

Aside from the fact that im having a small nervous breakdown, my passport still isnt ready yet. Its t-minus 4 days and my passport isnt ready yet. Im getting one of
those fits again where heads will roll, planets will fall, solar systems destroyed.

I have already cleaned out two suitcases, I havent started packing yet.

Last Saturday I went out to sandino, I took 10 dollars I wasn’t supposed to spend. I drank beer, I danced, I was happy for a while, but I was so tired afterwards that I passed out (sleeping, not hipoglicemic alcohol induced coma) on my friends’ lap. I got to school, put on my ipod, with only 1 heapdhone working because all my other 7 sets of headphones have been broken by others. Im never ever lending out my stuff again, ever! And I danced in front of the mirror to some real music.

So I guess that’s like a summary of my weekend, sorry its like unstructured but im writing this in a hurry, I have been studying for the majority of the night, so now I have to go to bed, this is strange since I slept the entire afternoon.

Helpful tip number 67

Epispadia makes you pee towards your face, so sit down before you pee. Another tip, do not scratch your balls yoo much, it causes lesions and cheese under fingernails.

My first new comment

2009-07-03T14:07:00.000-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio, Friday, June 3rd 2009
Stardate 12.2

Hello Yordan guy, you see, since I don’t really update my blog myself, I cant reply to your comment, so I'm posting something as an answer.

Eres el Yordan que vive en suriname, que recien estaba aqui en cuba?
En comparacion puedo decir que la vida ‘abierta’ es mas facil aqui en cuba que en suriname, quizas es porque me iluciono con la cantidad de gente, pero todo depende de tu punto de vista.  bueno, espero que disfrutes mucho de la vida surinamesa. Te deseo muchos exitos en todo, y gracias por escribir….

Bloody Fermented Mess

2009-07-03T11:56:00.000-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio, Friday, July 3rd 2009
Stardate 12.1

As I have gotten confirmation of all my documents, I am now ready to travel. Ok wait, they said my documents are ready, but where are they? Ive been told they will be arriving here later today, we will see how much of it is true, either way, I want my stuff today.

In a happy spree I decided to go and clean one of my suitcases. I always use that one when I travel because of its 4 point independent wheeling system. It can rotate around its axis, its really easy to push around. Anyway, I was using it for food storage in the meantime, so I cleaned it out. In January of this year I had a major soy sauce incident. The bottle doesn’t close well, stupid lee kum kee. Although it’s the best brand, they seemingly forget to mention that the popcap can pop open at any given time, and considering that I never really kept the bottle upright, it all leaked out. So I cleaned it in January, and as a precaution I folded up a failing pair of jeans that I had, and used it as a boundary.

So now that the boundary had been removed and thrown into the trash (I am SO sure the workers will just take the pants, wash it and use it) I start to clean the suitcase. And I believed I did a good job. So I put the suitcase in an upright position, and within 5 minutes, a pool of fermented soybeans was under my suitcase, it was like it had a gunshot wound, that’s how much it was, then I realized, the suitcase had been in a lying position for 6 months, the sauce must have pooled in the auxiliary compartment, which is occupied by the pop up bars.

Man that was a big clean up, but I am convinced I got rid of it all.

In the meantime, I smell like soysauce, im listening to kylies greatest hits, and im trying to figure out how my new feeding card works. Apparently when we go down we have to carry it with us so they can stamp us off.

Oh and on a sidenote, apparently we got a new set of rules today. And just like I expected, all the faggios in class *a faggio is someone who is obviously a flaming homosexual, but goes to church to hide it, and doesn’t admit it to himself* started a riot, complaining, failing to comply, blablabla. Fucking homos. Ok I know I am gay, but geez, they just fuck it up for those who know how to handle it.

I just hate it whenever it happens, they always have the biggest mouths. It just disturbing, I mean, come out already, everybody knows….

Helpful tip for the day

Come out! Oh and thai food is spicy, so don’t drink through your nose!

Unknown entry event

2009-07-02T11:15:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio, Thursday July 2nd 2009
Star date 11.1

Have you ever felt like you do not know what’s going on around you. I mean, assuming that you normally feel like you have everything under control. I am that kind of person, I do not believe in luck nor destiny, I believe that we are the ones in control of our immediate future, fueled by decisions we take.

I thought I had it all under control, but somehow everything is messing up. My grand scheme 2009 is at a critical point. No wait a minute, I did what I had to do, this is all due to incompetence of others. Hahaha, blaming is always the best way out isn’t it?

I now have 7 days remaining until my flight home. My passport is still not ready. This is not my doing btw. Incompetence of others, once again. Now, to speed up the process of preparing my passport, I was told to make a statement saying my mother is terminally ill, and to prove it, I had to ask her to send me an email telling me that she was dying. Now I didn’t have a problem with this, since I have no morals, but my mother, who thinks she is Muslim (hey, that’s funny, spell-check says Muslim is with a capital M, is atheist also with a capital letter, aha, no, those discriminating fuckers), did. So she didn’t write the letter. I kept begging and begging, but in the end I just assumed she wouldn’t write it. So I was about to send an email to my brother telling him to access her account and write it for her, without her knowledge . And so coincidentally, 5 minutes before I was about to write my brother, I get an email with the letter I needed.

As I read it I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. It was funny. Wait, would it be morally incorrect to put the letter online? Hahahah, ok, no I wont do that, id hurt my mother in the process, that’s not how I roll. Not with my mom atleast hahaha.

Anyway, aside from that, I’m suffering from food poisoning. But this all happened consciously. Yesterday, jenny came back from Havana. She went to go book her ticket to go back home in august. She came back and bought me real hamburgers, the ones that only exist in real civilization (Havana). They apparently were spoilt when she reached school. But I ate them anyway hahaha. I knew, but I tried to convince myself they weren’t as I was eating them. Anyway, im dealing with the infection, I took in a buscopan, which effectively shut down all my smooth muscle tissue in my gastrointestinal tract. No more pain hahaha, and because there is no motion of the fecal ball, the water gets reabsorbed, thus slowly treating my affliction. Though I know there are much better pharms for this kind of thing, I prefer this one.

Helpful tips of the day

Diarrhea is the second best diet ever, and be happy you do not have Kleinefelters syndrome.

2009-07-01T13:36:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Wednesday July 1st 2009

Stardate 10.1

Last Monday I went out to a birthday party in Isabel Rubio. Isabel Rubio is an idolized truck stop grown into a small town. The center of my activities there is the Cupet, which is the truck stop slash tanking station. Anyhow, I got ready at about 8pm and left with my Jamaican friend David, but there was absolutely no transport to be found, so we decided to walk. It’s a 3.83km walk from my school to I.R., this is according to my IPod. Anyway, so we walked and arrived fashionably late, we were met by the Bolivians *they also go to school here in this area, there is a common saying stating that the entire Bolivian youth is studying medicine in Cuba*

The party wasn’t fun, they were playing shitty music, and they only had like one cd. And the cake smelled like raw egg, which seems to be a specialty on this side of the island. So I just decided to get drunk on the wine, but not get passed out drunk, just drunk. So I drank a glass of red wine, and then a glass of white wine, and then another one, and another one. After 5 glasses I decided to kick back and enjoy the sights hahahah. But then I was forced to drink more, so I told them, I will drink but I will have to purge hahaha, so I purged. I now have this way to induce vomiting without sticking anything down my throat. Its never a nice feeling but it had to go out hahaha.

We walked back to school again, at midnight, and arrived at about 20 to 1.

The next day, which was yesterday, wait

Stardate 10.2 now hahahaha

Yesterday the lady who had to prepare my passport, yes I actually have to send my passport to go prepare it before I leave the country. Its genius actually, its what prevents us from escaping the country without the Cubans permission. Hey wait, by explaining this process, am I being negative towards the Cuban revolution? Just yesterday they came into class reading us our rights and stuff, I cant do anything counterrevolutionary. Boo, I don’t consider this worth anything hahaha. Anyhow, so I entered the country on a tourist visa right, which expired after 90 days, after which I was illegal. But now they gave us an identity card which is all the legal documents I need as a foreign student. But I still cant get over the fact that its genius. They have to send my passport with an official request to some office so they can prepare a salida for me. Salida literally means exit. It’s a non stick visa for exit and reentry into the country which they confiscate after reentry. So even if I got a ticket, id still need a salida to leave, otherwise they’d arrest me at the airport. Oh the shame.

Back to the lady, she never prepared my passport for me to leave, which severely pissed me off, my flight is in nine days and nothing is prepared yet….. well fine, I apparently had to buy stamps for 25 dollars (which I didn’t even know could exist since nobody can pay that), anyway, so I left for the town of Sandino to go get the stamps.

There was no transport, I waited 1 hour at the busstop, took a bus, which dropped me 4km later at the military base, where I waited another half hour for another bus that dropped me 4km from the military base, and I had to walk the rest of the way, which is about 2.5km.

All this time I have been avoiding the sun in an attempt to bring back the normal color of my skin. All was in vain, I got burnt badly.

Once in sandino, I go to the post office, and as I suspected, the woman had no idea what I was talking about, so I got so pissed that I just walked away. I called my roommate (no not the one Iwant to kill) to ask him where his girlfriend got her supposed stamps, but she, being the regular airhead that she is (she will kill me if she ever reads this, but who cares, she is naïve) had no clue, she said she bought it from a friend. My eyes rolled obviously, because she could have gone to her friend and asked her, but instead of me telling her this over the phone, I decided that I was just going to let it go. She is older than me btw, much older….

I got some soft drinks and walked to the main bus stop, which is where they told me that all the buses were broken. Yes, it also happens in Cuba, all the possible buses are broken.

So I walked to the main road in the scorching 4pm sun and waited for two hours, nobody wanted to pick me up, it all has to do with the foreign thing.

That’s when I decided I was just going to walk to school, all the 12km. And I did, I walked 11km, and then this guy on a horse cart thought I looked dead so he offered me a ride for the last km, so I took it, my feet had blisters, I looked like death basically. Did I mention that the last time I ate yesterday was lunch, and it was 8pm already, as a matter of fact, I still haven’t eaten as of yet, 24 hours later, my body is in an advanced state of ketosis I’m assuming. Woohoo burning fat.

So that was yesterday, today I just told the lady to get my things for me, because I am not leaving this school unless its towards the airport. 9 more days…. Later on the woman told me that it wouldn’t be done on time, she doesn’t know what she is saying because if It isn’t done on time, heads will roll, schools will burn, computers will break, and then I’m never coming back. So in an attempt to try and calm me down they suggested the following, saying that my mother is terminally ill. Which is funny really, the same thing as last year basically. So that’s the new strategy, my documents will all be ready by this Friday, two days from now.

We will see how things will develop.

Oh I wanted to put some pictures up, but the peruan I have living in my room kidnapped my camera because he had something to photograph in Havana, odd isn’t it? So I will now upload some pics from my mobile and use davids computer, its nothing special, its actually quite sucky, but it has ubuntu and Bluetooth drivers, mine doesn’t right now, its missing most drivers. I just recently installed office 2007 on this one hahaha. So ill be right back.

Shit, my pc doesn’t detect his upload inbox, ill have to mail myself the emails. Need more time, why am I writing this anyway, you will never know anyway….

Today was a tiring day

2009-06-30T07:29:00.003-04:00

Sandino, Friday the 26th of June, 2009
Stardate 3

I wanted to sleep the entire time. But I never did. So now I am tired. I have managed to install Warhammer 40.000 on my piece of shit laptop so now I can entertain myself for a little while instead of studying. This way I can utilize my laptop to the max before my processor burns down or before I get another critical system failure.

On a sidenote. today I accompanied Jenny, my belizean friend, to the bank so she could get out money for her ticket. As a sign of rebellion, she has decided that she wants to fly back home via Cancun, and take the bus from there towards Belmopan. I think its a great idea, but not so great after all since earlier this year they like robbed a bus and raped all the women. This was a bus coming from Guatemala City into Belize, in Linea Dorada which is supposedly the safest way to travel in between Guate and Belize. Whatever happened to the armed guards on the bus? I guess its true, Guatemala, gente mala!

Anyway, after getting the money out we went to eat some fried chicken (swimming in oil, courtesy of El Rapido *trademark reserved*) at El Rapido. Its like the cuban version of KFC mixed with BK. IT has a plethora of ham and cheese sandwiches, hotdogs are available seasonally and also a whole variety of cheese pizzas. They mostly have ham, chorizo or tuna toppings. yes, it really is nasty. But I just got fried chicken (unseasoned, and then dunked into hot oil) and a beer. After two years in Cuba, El Rapido is as good as it gets in my part of the island. Its pretty far from Havana, which is the closest thing we have to civilization around here.
Anyway, we got back to school, and in the last 5 minutes we got hosed down by the possibly developing tropical depression in the northern caribbean sea. It has a 30 to 50 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression, and considering that I live in western Cuba, its wonderful news! photoshoot!

sorry, I just needed a 5 minute interlude. I heard Madonna's Get Together and I just had to sing and dance.

Oh yeah, my condolences to señor Jacksons family. Terrible loss, a hole in human culture has been left. Its a pity really, wasn't he about to perform in the O2 in London in two weeks?

Week 2

2009-06-29T17:34:00.001-04:00

Sandino, Pinar del Rio, June 29th 2009
Stardate, ehm, 5 or sth, no, make it 7

It seems that I have been able to pump out texts for like a week now. I have a feeling that this is becoming a routine, which is a good thing, this way I can actually get back to writing the way I used to do it long ago.
Anyway, this weekend, well, the one that just passed sucked ass. As I might have posted earlier, there was a 50% chance for storm development in the northern caribbean sea, which is just below my province. In stead of a real storm formation we just got a hell of a lot of rain. Which completely screwed up my plans. Let me Explain.
Where I live is jacked up. Its the westernmost municipality of Cuba called Sandino, after some revolutionary from honduras was it? or Nicaragua? its probably nicaragua. Anyway, this is the polo for the province, meaning, this is where they built several medical faculties. Now you have to understand, when I say medical faculty, I mean a big double building with habitations for about 500 students, a schoolbuilding and a canteen in the middle. Thats where I live, when I am in my room and look around, all I see is bush, farmland and other schools. There are about thirty of these structures in my area, of which 12 are filled with foreign students. There is one main road, which is the extension of the main east to west highway in cuba. Luckily my school is located about 500m of this road, other schools like the one filled with Ecuatorians is like 15km away.....and transport is a bitch, either by horsecart or by hitching a ride on a transport truck.
As I was saying, when I go out, I mean I go out to Sandino, the town, which is about 10km away, now there is a regular bustransport that drives past the busstop on the main road. Usually, if its full or about to be full they give preference to cubans. And other transport usually gives them preference as well. I think its mainly due to the fact that they think life is severely unfair. We study here for free, are being fed yada yada yada, its just a stupid situation. The cubans dont really like us but they need us here, otherwise nobody would have a job or money. All the people here, because its so rural, work either in the school or in an institution linked towards the schools.
Anyway, to get to a busstop you have to walk, and because it was so rainy, nobody went out, which is funny, because I did. I went to sandino, had my fried chicken and beer, and then I came back to school, it was nice though, because I hadnt walked in the rain in forever.
I came back to school and because I felt too overdressed to go to sleep immediately I decided to turn on my pc and start slutting around on the net. I met some interesting people last saturday. I do not have regular internet access, you have no idea what kind of strategies I have to put in place to atleast have some feeling of normality. I acces cuban forums and thats how most people find others over the web, since its the only thing we can access freely over here. there were some normal friend pages open a while back but they get shut down by the government within a month or three.

So I met a couple of marine biologists who were looking for an interesting person to try out a threesome. Its a blonde guy and a mulatto, theyre both 25 years old and have always wanted a threesome, but not with some random stranger, they want it to be a friendly person or something, so now were getting to know each other better via the web before we do anything hahaha, its interesting really. I also met this blonde haired, blue eyed guy, but that was stupid, he just started to obsess about my ass *which isnt even that great* so I was like, yeah never mind.

Anyhow, the counter is now at 10 days until I leave. thats cool, I cant even take afternoon naps anymore as the excitement is unbearable. I love airports, they turn me on, they give me this feeling of, I dont know, happiness? hahahah lame explanation I know, but I think its all due to the fact that the whole travelling thing is relatively new to me, for most of my life I havent owned a passport, my first passport was a diplomatic one, that one got stolen after my first trip to the netherlands in 1997. I didnt get a new one until 2007. sad huh?
but the point is that basically, my mother has travelled a lot in her life, she has been to every continent except australia and antarctica. And we always used to bring her to the airport and picked her up equally, I always wanted to go with her but I never could. And finally all of a sudden I find myself travelling twice a year, several flights everytime, Imagine, I will be taking 6 flights, 3 to go and three to come back, and thats the easiest way from cuba to Suriname.

I just love airplanes, airports, carry-on luggage, airplane foods, flight attendants (the male ones) and free beer on copa flights hahahaha.

Anyway, I see I have no more time lately, writing articles, and now I have to study a whole shitload of books, this week we are doing the male and female reproductive system and cycle, im not talking about naming parts, im talking about the whole 9 yards. the summary alone is 20 pages printed out. I fear the worst

signing out

and remember
fingering is done with clipped nails.......prevent colon damage, and clip them off!

The Cruel Ironies

2009-06-25T13:19:00.004-04:00

Once again I find myself having the time to write. This is extremely rare, with all the crap I have to study and all the exercises I have to do (beauty really does mean suffering). I guess this free time
is due to the fact that I have finally managed to re-update my itunes music library.
My computer started to give me some major problems a few months ago. It just refused to do what I told it to do, up to the point that it could only play movies saved on my HDD. Then all of a sudden my entire music library just disappeared. I suspected sabotage, Fathead and Accomplice (two of my 8 roommates), and I raised some hell in the room. Sadly, no matter how often I humiliated them it wouldnt bring back my music library, so I let it go after a while. And then it happened, my computer just stopped working, so I, at worlds end, decided to put UBUNTU on it. At first it seemed so cool, all those freaky effects, the update capabilities and all those things. But then I realized it wasnt so cool at all, no interconnectivity for 2nd gen Ipod Touch, no interconnectivity with my (relatively) new Samsung U900 Soul and last but not least, no interconnectivity with most interesting games, not even with Wine bridging software. So I was Fucked.
Then, last week my computer, even with the oh-so-hyped-UBUNTU, crashed and burned, it wouldnt even start up anymore. So I just gave up on it. I wanted to throw it off the balcony and jump on the pieces, but i managed to control myself.
Now I have an emergency Vista intervention, it should last me until I reach home, which is now in 16 (!) days. I never imagined I would actually count down the days. I cant wait to eat the shitty airplane food, it excites me.

I have been wondering if I should start with the whole picture thing on my website. I probably should, we live in a modern world right?

You know what should be done, I should totally post the video that was taken of me like three weeks ago when I drank SO much that I passed out and stopped breathing for a while, its hilarious, I am SO full of it when im pissdrunk.

Anyway, about the title, the one day in the month that I send my clothes down to wash (I have enough clothes to last me that long), its rainy. I mean, I have been suffering and suffering from heat exhaustion for the past few weeks, and now, all of a sudden it has to rain when my clothes are hangin out to dry.
Fuck the world.

Here is a picture of moi, it was taken last saturday, its the most recent one.

Today I did something evil

2009-06-25T09:01:00.003-04:00

Mayan date - I don’t know
Star date - 1

You see, I have this roommate who is a total moron slash closet case slash churchgoer slash downright immature bastard. They say mimicry is the best form of flattery but this mofo just took it to the extreme. If I say I like button-down shirts, the next time he goes on vacation and comes back, he has a lot of button-down shirts. When I said purple was the new black, he all of a sudden had a wardrobe of purple clothing. When I said running was the best way to lose weight, he started running. When I started using colored lenses (hazel), he bought a set as well. Funnily right, he doesn’t have an mp3 player to listen to music while he is running, I have a 2nd gen iPod touch with sports kit. He didn’t buy lens fluid so he just started taking mine without asking...

Last week or so he asked to use my iPod and sports kit to use it to go jogging and then afterwards started to brag about the coolness of it, yeah, he is that kind of person. And he steals my lens fluid. So I locked it up in my locker when I left for Havana last Friday. He hadn’t worn the lenses ever since.

But today, stupidity struck me and I left the key in my locker. That was my booboo. So what the bastard did, having the room key at the time, he basically ran towards the room, stole my liquid again and filled his cases with it. I only realized this when he came back into class and looked at me with his fucking big head *yeah he definitely has either hydrocephaly (waterhead) or macrocephaly (bigheadedness)* and blinked like a bitch so I could see his eyes, which had MY COLOR. Bitch, everybody knows its my color, I was the one with the hot lenses.

ANYWAY

So that pissed me off so much, because earlier in the week he already broke my sports kit. I left for Havana and he went into the classroom, took out my ipod, and the sports kit (WHICH HE DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO USE) and went running with it. This all happened WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. So then, I come back from Havana, unsuspecting. On Monday, which is when I go jogging, I put on my clothes, my shoes, put in the sensor, walk down to the cancha (court), make my play list, and then, when I press start, it starts looking for my sensor, which it never found. So it was broken, I was confused because I had used it just the week before. So guess what I find out, in mid jog, there are 6 entries in my history log on the sports kit software, 6 completely irrelevant entries made that Friday night I was in Havana. So I got so pissed I managed to run 500m more.

And that’s when I scolded the shit out of him later that night. And the bastard has the nerve to deny it. So that just made it worse.

And that is why just now, I went to my room, locked myself in, hid my locker keys again, took his lens case, threw away the liquid in his laundry basket, boiled some water, took a cup, put pepper seeds in it, poured the hot water into it so it could soak up the capsaicin, and then poured that into his lens case. That will teach him. He can’t blame me, because he is the one that stole my liquid

Take that you fat-headed ugly bastard.

And I don’t care who knows.

Re-start

2009-06-24T15:45:00.004-04:00

First of all, happy birthday to my brother, FIK, he turned 21 today.
Its just too bad that I cannot be around for his birthday today, I live too far away. For those of you who don’t know, I am studying medicine in cuba, and he is finishing his mining degree back home in Suriname. I had hibia-gibia-fibia-who-the-hell-knows-how-you-spell-it today. According to wikipedia its ground up cuttlefish. I am extremely pissed about this because for the birthday back home, theyre eating roti with curry chicken, duck, veal and mutton (I still don’t know the difference between the last two).

Anyway, this is my 5th attempt to start writing again. Shall we check to see how long it lasts this time?

It’s the middle of summer here. And its fucking HOT! Im sitting here in class, my shirt is completely unbuttoned. I cant believe how much the weather changes here in Pinar del rio. This morning it was actually cold, this afternoon was bearable and now, at 22.00 its unbearably hot, no wind, and we cant turn on the ACs, because we are in ahorro energetico, which basically means the world economic crisis at work. There is no oil to run the generators. I hate my life.

This week we are studying the pancreas and parathyroid glands. Its not complicated but it makes your head spin when you think about homeostatical processes that happen at any given second. But once again im confident ill get them down within this week.

The date counter is on 17 days until I go back home. Im leaving to celebrate my 20th birthday in suriname. My flight departs Havana on july 10th and im coming back on the 19th. Now I don’t know what excites me more, the airports and flights or my vacation itself, I have this huge fetish for airports hahaha

I have no idea what im supposed to write here, I suppose I am a bit rusty. But in due time I will be back in action

On a side note, I'm laptop shopping again, thinking about a Toshiba P505.
Its huge.
Details will follow.

So helpful tips for this week. Eat iodized salt, it will help you a lot!

injectie fotos

2009-01-24T16:57:00.001-05:00

my last injection against hep B

--
Farid Naushad Khodabaks

Facultad de las Ciencias Médicas
Rafael Ferro Macías
ELAM #10
Grupo 1
Sandino
Pinar del Río

Teléfono: 00 53 48 412319
00 53 48 412320
Móvil: 00 53 52446386

---------------------------------------
Red Telematica de Salud - Cuba
CNICM - Infomed

2008-10-18T00:13:00.001-04:00

I have a cuban simcard now
ik heb een cubaanse sim nu
finalmente tengo una tarjeta de sim ahora
j´ai une nouvelle carte du sim maintenant
mi ab wan njoen simkaart

my number is 005352446386
mijn nummer is 005352446386
mi numero de telefono es 005352446386
mon numero du telephone est 005352446386
mi nummer na 005352446386

call me
bel me
llamame
telephonez-moi
kar mi

thanks in advance
alvast bedankt
gracias en avance
merci beaucoup
grantangi

From Havana With Love

2008-10-13T15:53:00.001-04:00

la destruccion que llevó Ike

2008-09-11T20:00:00.001-04:00

http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2008-09-09/imagenes-de-los-estragos-de-ike-a-su-paso-por-territorio-cubano/

Ike

2008-09-08T13:44:00.002-04:00

People,

Sadly, my province is the victim of many storms, and for the second time in two weeks, will be plowed through by a hurricane. Gustav was the worst storm to hit Cuba in 55 years. Ike is actually stronger, at this moment it's a category 2 but seeing as it has broken its way through land, its restrengthening and hitting again from the south.I have no idea how long there will be no power or internet, but it will before a long time. rest assured I will not die, but just prepare for the worst. Just follow the weather reports, the nhc page and wikipedia.

Mensen,

Jammer genoeg heb ik dus weer te melden dat mijn district in een staat van paraatheid is gesteld. We worden voor de tweede keer in twee weken geraakt door een orkaan. Het zal tegen de middaguren van morgen land raken, en dat zal dus weer in de buurt zijn van mijn school. Het is momenteel een categorie 2 orkaan, maar sinds het weer boven zee is zal het versterken voordat het ons raakt.Ik heb geen idee hoe lang het zal duren voordat ik weer internet heb, maar het zal lang duren nemen we aan. De provincie is al gemold en er komt een nieuwe. Dus ik ben niet dood, ik ben gewoon without power.

Hoop voor het beste.

Gente,

Por segunda vez viene un huracan por aca. No se que pasara pero ya esta mosen alerta aqui. Ike crecera probablemente en una categoria 3-4 antes detocar suelo aqui. Bueno, espero por lo mejor, pero preparo por lo peor. viene en las horas de la tarde de manana. Significa que no tendremos corriente para un periodo de tiempo. nosignifica que toi muerto, significa que estare en un apagon

Bueno, hasta pronto y que tengan un buen dia.

Farid

Gustav

2008-09-03T16:15:00.002-04:00

Finally gddmt!!

2008-07-21T17:20:00.004-04:00

I guess that it was about time that I started writing again. I will have to ask you readers to excuse my French, as my English sentence building skills have been severely diminished. And I am not just saying that because I am listening to “Excuse My French” by Kylie Minogue (an unreleased track).

So I will start where I kind of left off. My trip. The infamous one that is. Where I traveled about 20.000km in ten days.

I hope we all know the basics about how it all came to be, it started with me conjuring up the story about my grandfathers’ supposed death. This never happened, but I needed an excuse for the school to give me permission to leave. This took about a month, by that time the story had already changed into me leaving for Suriname to sign my will, and if this didn’t happen, I would stand to lose 158.000 euros. Which couldn’t be any farther from the truth, a truth that included traveling to Holland to see Kylie live in concert.

Anyway, so all things said and done, my boyfriend at the time, Patrick, the one who is maintaining my blog (HA! That means that this text is censored on my end, because I cant say things that he doesn’t know about hahahahah) bought me a ticket from Cuba to Paramaribo. A one way ticket.

I left for Suriname at about 9 in the morning from Jose Marti International in Havana. On the flight to Panama I was seated next to this gay couple. The funny thing is that they were talking about me in Spanish. I grinned as they were expressing their desires for a ménage-a-trois. I looked out the window, saw the panama canal and the centennial bridge. Oh yeah, and a cruise ship. Arriving in Panama after two hours of flirting, I was exhausted as I didn’t sleep the night before, I was too excited. Either way, I tried to see if I had wi-fi connectivity. Turned out that I had to pay for it, 10 usd for 6 hours. I only had to wait for like one and a half, but I bought it anyway. And there it was. MSN. That is where I accidentally revealed to my stepmom that I was coming to Suriname on a surprise visit. It was a surprise as I didn’t tell my family about it. Funny isn’t it? But they already knew. That pissed me off.
Anyway, back on the smallest aircraft ever, an embraer e-190, that made me feel a bit claustrophobic. Saw the Andes mountains and stuff, and was afraid that some rebel Columbians were going to shoot an RPG at the plane or something.
Then I arrived in Trinidad, after a 2.5 hour flight. During which I had my first serving of beef in like 5 months. It was delish. Anyway, upon arriving in Trinidad I was a bit confuzzled as I hadn’t slept in like forever. So I went to stand at the diplomatics queue. The woman then told me, sir this isn’t a diplomatic passport. I asked her if it wasn’t. Then I slowly backed away into my corner of shame. And after that it got even funnier, I checked out my bags to check in again (I was switching from carrier), but the problem was that I had to wait 5 hours to check in again. So yeah, I like forgot to check in my bags, so I just walked over to departures with all my luggage up until the customs chick laughed at me and told me to back away and step behind the yellow line. Then she pointed me to the check in desk, where I realized that there were 4 more hours to go. Luckily the wifi was free. So as I treated myself to an upsized combo of popcorn chicken from KFC (their idea of an up-size is a double serving!) I realized that my battery was almost dead. I was freaking out.
So I just sat there like an idiot, waiting on the right time to dump my bags. So I did, and this is where the trouble started. I bought a commemorative bottle of Havana Club in Havana. LOL that was a funny story actually, there was a flight leaving for Moscow as well, so the store was filled with Russians. Now I heard stories of their drinking, but this my friends, took the crown. The line at the counter was endless. Even the kids were holding bottles. I even saw one sniffing the contents as if it was his asthma medicine. Technically I bought it tax free, so I could just carry it around with me. This is not what the customs said in Trinidad. They started sniffing my bottle like possessed bats. And told me that I couldn’t take it with me. I told them that they couldn’t do that as it was Tax Free. After running back and forth, I got to keep my opened bottle. Those bitches. Our flight to Suriname was delayed for an hour. While waiting at departures I did manage to find an outlet to continue my rantic MSN abuse. I encountered two Surinamese people along the way, and this is where I made a fool out of myself….again. One was just on business, and the other was in transit from Puerto Rico. He had lived there for 20 years. I started talking. And talking. And talking,………and talking. I just couldn’t stop. I was ranting on and on about all kinds of shit. It was terrible, I knew they were getting bored, but it didn’t stop. I just kept on vomiting words and words. The guy from Puerto Rico handed me a newspaper in a desperate attempt to shut me up. And it worked….for about 3 minutes, when I was at it again! There was no stopping me. It looked like they were about to commit suicide, but they were saved by the boarding call.
The flight back home was a bit scary as it was my firs flight on the local carrier. They served bread with tunaspread and chease. WTF??? Yeah I know right. Either way,. It went by quicker than I imagined. I was listening to music on my laptop and writing an article.
Upon arrival I didn’t even realize that I was back home. Something I had dreamt about for like 7 months at the time. I was back home, and immediately I smelled what I found to be trash. Ah yes, the scent of Suriname. I was just too excited to even realize what was happening. The checkout went quite fast as the flight wasn’t too filled.
This is when it happened. The shocker. My mom was supposed to be institutionalized so I did not expect her to be there, but she was. Pumped full of lithium, making a scene. Treating me like I was 2 years old. But I was a bit annoyed. So I kind of acted like an ass. That sucked a bit. Mandela, Kirston, Stacey, Jason and Santouscha were there as well, Now I only know Mandela, Kirston, Stacey and Jason, Santouscha was a bit new for me. They were so happy to see me. My grandmother and her boytoy were there as well, a whole crew. But as I had said before, I would be going home with my friends, so yeah. I went over to Kirstons place. The drive back was weird. I tried my best to print it into my mind, so as not to forget. Turns out that I didn’t have the slightest idea of what was about to happen on my trip. I realize now that I have almost typed two whole pages on my first day. I guess this will have to be a ten part series.
At kirstons place, the first thing I did was take a shit. I really had to go, and keep in mind, that at this point I had been awake for about 24 hours. I arrived at midnight, so I had been traveling for about 15 hours. This didn’t stop me though. I poured myself a glass of the Havana Club, took a quick shower, and changed so I could go party. I mean come on, it was fridaynight. I couldn’t waste any golden opportunities. So we went out at about two. You will never guess what happened next. Technically speaking, that Friday was Friday the 13th. The last Friday the 13th, Mandela, Stephany and Me went out drunk driving without drivers licenses. She slammed me from the back and half-totalled her moms brand new SUV. Do you see where I am going with this?
Mandela picked me up in her moms brand new car. We were planning on going to ZsaZsaZsu, the biggest thing to happen to Suriname since Starzz. Both nightclubs. And since we were all officially legal (Kirston turned 18 on may 2nd), we were all about to have a gay ole time. About to that is.
Not even 2 minutes after we left the house, Mandela, the proud owner of a new drivers license started to show off her driving skills by speeding up and revving the engine. Now I was screamingly asking her to slow down. Then Kirston (on the backseat) started slapping Mandela on her shoulder and screamed ‘show him the fast turn, show him the fast turn’, Mandela’s eyes started glistening, a banana shaped smile formed on her face, the car started speeding up, and she took the turn into the next best road. Now this all went very fast, she took the turn, the meter was on 70 kmph (that’s like 40 mph), and the car turned. But instead of the short, fast turn she was hoping for, the car took a slightly larger turn, and was headed straight for a tree, shocked, she turned the wheel, banged the tree from the side, causing the car to kind of leap, straight onto a stop sign, which was uprooted and floored. The car came to a full stop about 10 meters further. And refused to drive. Let me just state that this was within 2 hours of my infamous return to the motherland. She almost started to cry because she felt like she had disappointed me. Either way, after a whole drama with the towing company and her mom, she did manage to go out with us. It took some begging from my part. But her mom is cool, I love her.
Either way, we made it to ZsaZsaZsu in Santouschas car. A bit shaken, but not stirred. We did enjoy the night. I did the hot walk, its this Jamaican dance that the Surinamese girls don’t know about. I was drunk alright. Then my cousin (who takes pictures for a living) took our picture and put it on the net, and I am assuming in the newspaper the following Wednesday, as I asked him to. Arent I the regular attention whore.

From left to right: Santouscha, Stacey, Moi, Mandela (looking a bit shaken and stirred) and Kirston.

We ended our whole escapade at about 4-5 in the morning. I stayed over on Kirstons bed. Needles to say, we still managed to enjoy ourselves. I saw it as my imperative to get Mandela drunk, she needed to.

The next part of the story is Saturday, june 14th 2008. I will write that later.

A storm is coming

2008-07-21T05:50:00.002-04:00

OMG
The first storm in the neighborhood.
We have been getting freaky weather over here, I took pictures of lightning,
I'll post them shortly.

Live at 36000 feet

2008-07-07T16:56:00.001-04:00

This will be the last article I write on Microsoft word before the normality of blogging starts again for a week.
I am currently on flight PY 0736 to Paramaribo. I made it this far, I am almost home. Listening to kylie at 13km up makes it all worth it. I need to pass the time, its so boring to travel alone.
I met two Surinamese people in the waiting room, and man they must have been super annoyed with me because I spoke so much, it was like I was on crack. I was just happy to be able to talk Dutch again, because for the past week I have been talking Spanish like a crazy person.
‘circling and were getting close, can you imagine, just suppose’ lol ‘love me love me love me’ I love kylie.
I saw her concert photos on kylie.com while I was on the real net, and I wanted to cry, I NEEED to see her live in concert. Kdjbfnnksmdfck.dsbf

Lol

The altitude is making me a little crazy

See you on the other side

Excitement squared.

2008-07-07T16:54:00.002-04:00

The time to leave is nearing faster and faster. It is 7 at night and I have to be all done and ready to leave at 5:30 in the morning. That’s in about 10 and a half hours. I cant wait, and I most definitely cant sleep.
What am I going to do? I could go out drinking with my Ecuadorian roommate, but he said that he doesn’t drink anymore, I could go smoking with my Ecuadorian roommate, but I don’t smoke. I don’t know what the fuck I am supposed to do.

I could go to Havana, but that wouldn’t make any sense as Id have to take my chaperone with me. I couldn’t have him seeing me canoodling on ye ole malecon. I called Jesus already, he is sad that I am leaving, puche papi, hahahaha

Gosh I am starting to get really excited here. Remind me to call Mandela and Kirston to go and buy a Big Mac Combo and a 3 pc chicken meal from popeyes to bring towards the airport. Oh yeah, and bottles of beer and rum hahahaha geez im already tingling from delight.

I don’t think that this post has any deeper meaning. Stay off drugs and drink !

The Cohai Lunch

2008-07-07T16:54:00.001-04:00

I just had my first cohai lunch experience.
Have you ever seen the matrix, now I am not exactly sure which part, but it’s supposed to be the one where neo gets a look at the kind of food they serve in the Nebuchadnezzar.
Now that is exactly what the food looked like. Some kind of white soup with lumps in it, some chicken skin floating around and I am pretty sure those weird dreads were hairs. Aside from the soup we also got some white rice pudding, now there is nothing more nasty than rice pudding, its just so gooey.
Aside from that, the chicken was nice. The rice was overcooked but I did however enjoy the sweet bun, reminded me of home.
After I was done eating, I was once again attacked by some Cuban (this was a girl that worked there) who was wondering if I wanted to sell my glasses. In a perfect world honey, where you had more money, maybe I would have, but my Emporio Armani’s are worth 200 usd. No Cuban I know has ever had the possibility to buy that.
And plus, I love them.

I felt kind of anxious about going home this morning. But that feeling is gone now as I sit here on the bed again, listening to Speakerphone by Kylie, sweating because the air conditioning isn’t working, smelling dirty feet and realizing its me. My slippers have been attacking me, I don’t have my bathing slippers, so my adidas gets wet when I shower. And in these communal baths you NEED to have slippers if you do not want herpes or hepatitis C(uban).

Literary Intermezzos

2008-07-07T16:53:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 4:37 PM

After being rudely awaken by some fat chick to do something important, I sit here now on my bed, once again, annoyed at not being able to do anything. As I had promised before to catch up on some literary styling, I feel the need to do it now. Realizing that promise, I think I will write a few short texts, just to see if I can. Now I am not stressing how difficult it can be. Writing is a drag at times. Ok here goes.

Imagine seeing everything in a darker point of view. Not because you have a black heart, but because you refuse to take off your sunglasses. If I recall it correctly, the sun always shines for fabulous people. Wasn’t that what Stephany told me ages ago? Back when I used to look up to her.
You don’t hear me walking down the hallway; my half stinky adidas flip-flops don’t make me catch attention. The only sounds that can be heard are the rustling of the leaves in the trees, the strong gusts and the thunder rumbling from afar. It is extra dark now because the sun is hiding behind the clouds. Its cold.
The stairs look art deco, no unnecessary flingflangs or thingamajigs decorating it, just plain granite slabs. Simplistic, and functional. I am walking through the walkway of a big cuban university. Everything is simplistically built and serves an important function. The money to diversify and bedeck doesn’t exist here.
I am supposed to enter this small room. I am supposed to fulfill an important task in this room. I am supposed to take an action that might change my future forever. But I do not think of these things as I step into the well lit room. It is colder than outside.

The strange and imposing woman asks me for my ticket. I look at her. Her dress is ripped in some places, but not so visible as she has sowed the rips closed. She is a bit overweight as I can hear her pants screaming. They also do not match her top. Her shoes are of the old spice-girl-platform-sandal kind. Old and worn out like the wrinkles on her face. But she looks proud. She looks like she is fulfilling a special function. Complying with the task that has been put onto her existence.
Do I care about all these things?
I used to. I used to keep in mind all these things in the past. But that was before I changed. Before I started looking at the bigger picture. Before I grew up. I changed before I even noticed it happened.
So I gave her my ticket with a smile, I was trying to let her know that I respected her. Respected her endurance, because in her place, I wouldn’t be able to keep up that pride, that perseverance. I know I cant. I am not as strong as her.
I told her to keep in mind that the data was in another language, but she had already figured it out. Sometimes people startle you with their intelligence, maybe its wrong to assume that everybody is as stupid as your roommate who doesn’t know how to boil water. Naïve people always get my blood pressure up.

Everything was fine now. I didn’t need to stand in the well lit room anymore. I could put my sunglasses back on now. I could leave. I didn’t feel relief. I didn’t feel anything, I guess I was still sleeping.

But something woke me up. A vision in white. You know when you’res walking someplace and something just catches your attention that you have to twist your neck so far back it hurts?
It was like that. A perfect example of Cuban perfection. This young muchacho of about 18 years of age, a slight stubble in the face, and curly black locks you could run your fingers through for all eternity.
He walked into the bathroom after looking into my eyes. He hit the door by accident, I guess he was as distracted as I was as I almost stumbled down the stairs.
Its that feeling that you have, that interpersonal connection that can make you lose track of time, its what makes you forget that its raining and thundering outside.

I catch myself when I hear this loud boom. I think a tree died. It was very close. Have you ever noticed that the closer lightning strikes, the clearer the sound is. No more prolonged rumbling, just a straight boom.

The hallways are empty again. Only the rustling of the leaves that are being blown over the cold concrete can be heard again. I decide to just look back, just for a few seconds, you never know right? That moment might have been worth it.

He wasn’t there. Just empty hallways.
My moment was over.

O-kay. That turned out to be a bit longer than I expected. I guess I am writing a different one later on tonight. Im spent for now.

Ciao.

Another article yes

2008-07-07T16:46:00.002-04:00

I am writing this just 5 minutes after the last article.
I figured that it was about time to catch up on my literary side, since I really have nothing else to do.
I am currently eating one of those freezing cold ham sandwiches the school gave us this morning, I didn’t feel like going down to eat here when my guide asked me. So now I am eating a ham sandwich with all the tissue still attached to the bread and the ham, mmmm the cellulose will have my bowels kicking with delight later. Ugh, they just stick to the food, its so annoying.
There is this weird smell in the room, don’t know if its nasty foot scent, a mixture of curry fart and body lotion (a weak attempt to try and mask it, can you picture it in your minds, me inflating and deflating the body lotion bottle so that its fresh scent may spread towards the lands)

Ugh many more interesting articles to come.

To hell and back (part II)

2008-07-07T16:35:00.007-04:00

As we all may have noticed, I am no longer in ELAM 10, Rafael Ferro Macias. I am currently residing in COHAI, which is a big university complex, about 10-20 times bigger than my faculty if I am not mistaken, in the outskirts of La ciudad de La Habana. I am leaving on Friday, leaving finally after 7 cruel months. Today is Tuesday, lol, yessssshhhh, I will explain that a little bit later.
As I look out of the metal windows, I see it once again, the profile of the biggest buildings of Havana, the José Martí memorial statue, Habana Libre, all of them, almost the same sight as about 7 months ago, when I first arrived.

I am once again, In Transit.

I am taking a very small break, about one week, to sign-my-inheritance-that-was-supposedly-left-by-my-grandfather-who-died-about-a-month-ago. Noone knows this, but that’s a lie. Hahaha, and I feel so weird after putting this on the net, but I don’t care, the cuban government isn’t reading my blog.

This break that I have taken signifies a glitch in their almost perfect medical brainwash system which is very successful by the way. It broke me, yes, I have decided to do medicine after all. I do not know if its their cheap rum, near genetic perfection or just my weak mind. But yes, Cuba, has won. There were times in these past 7 months where I would have killed just to go back home and forget this whole experience ever happened to me. But look at me now, I am actually leaving, but I am not afraid, because I know I am coming back. I don’t know if that is what has been eating me up from the inside the last couple of days. The fact that I am leaving but knowing I am coming back.

My friends back at the faculty have all made a big bet, with amounts reaching up to 200 cuc, that I am not coming back. Fun to see this crisis has become a full fledged event in school. My departure. It was nice though, it started raining uncontrollably just as I was about to leave. Complete with the wind, and the water, my briefcase looked really heavy, and my black shirt was waving in the wind, and I left just as it was break time, so the whole school could see, that their fearless leader was leaving.
That was one of my top 100 attention whore moments, I have to admit.

So yes, why am I here, in a dilapidated room, for students and their guides (still not allowed to travel alone no, that is, towards the airport only). Why am I here in this huge building with even suckier bathrooms, bigger toilet-paper-bins (you know we cant flush our wipes right?, wipe and throw it in the bin in front of you….) and less interesting people?
Why on Tuesday if my flight leaves at 9 in the morning on Friday. Two big words explain it all: Cuban economics.
The thing was that I was about to be sent on Thursday afternoon with the school taxi towards the airport and that I had to wait there until boarding time the next day, which was perfectly fine with me, as I would be able to do all of my tests and presentations (oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I am in the middle of my test week right now?).
But no, it turns out that there was a group of about 12 professors that were leaving towards Matanzas for some kind of seminar. Matanzas is about 100 km to the east of La Habana, so since were coming from the west, they could drop me off. So the fuckers told me last afternoon, pack your shit, you’re leaving tomorrow. So I did, and here I am.

The Journey. Sigh. Notice la letra mayuscula? The capital letter? It was some journey yes. Much shorter than my other journeys towards the capital because this time it did not involve any walking, waiting for cabs, discussing cab fares or any of that shit. We had our own little minibus that was quite fast. So we reached in 3 hours. 3 very long hours. It was a new cuban experience for me. As soon as we left the schools, know what they did, they bought 3 bottles of rum, and started drinking it pure. By the time we reached Havana, they were done long time already. Woops, fragment consider revising alert, that was some Belizean English fi. Hahahha, I hang with them too much, it done fi bring dan mi English.
But yeah. So I joined in on the fun, no I never drank the rum, I bought myself and some of the female professors a beer, because they asked me.

So yeah, I called this article part II, because part I was written 7 months ago and should be on one of my blogs. It should be.

As I sit here, on my leg which-has-no-blood-circulating-through-it, listening to Mea Culpa by Enigma, in the dark of the air conditioned room because I am too lazy to turn on the light, trying not to fart because I had a killer masalla (curry for all you a-cultured barbarians) last night, I realize, that these will be a god-fucking-boring two days.

Hmmm, maybe we can co to the city tomorrow and spend the money that Kristin gave me to buy her an external HD. Hahaha

Look at the bright side, at least the room is air conditioned.

How funny, Lluvia Cae (rain falls) by Enrique Iglesias just started playing. Its still raining outside, as it has been the entire day.

RE: Goeie morgen

2008-06-03T03:16:00.002-04:00

ik zal je wat lolligs vertellen
ik had zaterdagmiddag een pakje sap van natanael gevraagd
maar het was niet genoeg om mn flesje te vullen
dus heb ik die andere gewoon genomen
en toen zei ik wat wat wawat ga je doen dan (als het liedje)
en ik ging weg toen ik thuiskwam vroegen ze me of ik zopie heb gesmokkeld, ik zei van
nee, ik heb nog een halve fles, entonces, ik zal het toch niet nodig hebben

toen zei die lummel, je bedoelt je had een halve fles
mn ogen en bek vallen open
ik ren naar mn locker, en warempel, mn zopie was op.
het had me echt geraakt hoor
ik voelde me zo stom hahahahaha
alleen als men aan mn zopie gaat

lol ja, verslaafd, I think so too

ik heb besloten bepaalde emails gewoon te forwarden naar de blog, want dan spaar ik tiktijd en zijn sommige geinige dingen dan ook te zien

hello world.

Boredom

2008-06-02T17:17:00.003-04:00

What do you do when you're slit-your-wrists bored? I have no fucking clue. My only form of entertainment nowadays is just sitting around, getting drunk and amusing myself with little things. I have a feeling I should stop drinking. I woke up with all kinds of hickies on my neck and chest that I barely remember receiving. *sighs* I need some high quality entertainment. and if not, just some hot ass sex (but consistent....because ill want more after it happens the first time). ugh I dont know right now. Im just mondo bummed because I didn't get ANY MAIL AT ALL today. No, I mean just now. This has never happened to me before. NEVAAAA.

What I am trying to say is Fuck You
I'm bored
Email me goddammit

.....

2008-05-30T16:08:00.002-04:00

OH MY FUCKING GAWD
Im bored again,
no one is emailing me,
at all,
Its been about 4 hours or something
I wanna die.

Drunk at 11 am

2008-05-30T15:22:00.001-04:00

When your life is as interesting as mine, you would understand me. I sit here, it is 3.20 pm and I am bored as hell. We are literally not doing anything in class, but we cant leave either. We dont have school tomorrow either, but we cant leave. Isnt it funny? Some are playing RPG´s, some are watching ANTM cycle 8, some are addicted to The Treasures of Montezuma, or are playing Bejeweled 2. I am listening to Kylie´s non stop history 50+1 and as I am listening to Finer Feelings, I start getting depressed and drink the remaining 100 ml of my morning cocktail.

Yes I drink in class, wait until the drunk classroom photo shoot comes.

Ugh I am so bored.
I want sex,
and dancing,
and KFC....
and ice cream...

What's the best that could happen?

2008-05-28T21:39:00.002-04:00

That's the new foreign policy that FarIsa Inc. has incorporated into their business policies. It is the new and improved version of the previous one which was called 'whats the worst that could happen?' A recent study has shown that the new policy has improved crew morale significantly. It was found that it dramatically decreased the fear of having a fucked up weekend. Though at times, the new policy would prove insufficient, referring to the 'she-who-shall-not-be-named' incident.

Last weekend started out fine. We were all happy that the Bahamians who were coming with us (Louisa and me) had told us that they were going to arrange a ride from school all the way to Havana. That was great because anything beats having to take three separate rides to go to the capital. Then came the first funny part of the weekend. One hour before the planned departure I received an email asking me, more or less telling me, that there was no ride. It was never arranged. This was especially comical because I remembered reminding the Bahamians to arrange this cab from Tuesday onwards, which was 5 days earlier. But yeah, somewhere I did feel that we were going to walk 2 kilometres in the searing sun anyway. Call it my special Surinamese optimism. And by that I mean negativity, because yeah, we know I am negative Sally Jones.

The second fun-thang of the weekend was the departure. I mean, when you know that you only have about 24 hours (of which at least 8 are spent traveling) you'd think that one would hurry to leave right? Nope. They were late. We left at around one and we started the 1.5 mile hike to Isabel Rubio. During which we stopped for refresco and pizza.

On a side note, there is this one girl who annoys me a lot. I don't know why but she really does annoy me meticulously. It is just everything that she does. Even when buying pizza. The girl is fat, you'd think Godzilla would jump at any chance to eat something right, but noooo, homegirl is picky as hell, she refused to eat her pizza because it had some bitter aftertaste. I had to eat her pizza. I eat almost everything. Is it my metabolism-which-is-still-low-cuz-bigmacs-give-me-lovehandles? Is it something else? I don't know but she really really really annoyed me last weekend. Im sorry ellen, but its true, I don't like her. Ever since that weekend in pinar, when we went out to eat. I mean, how difficult is it to order, they already said no beef no pork, just fried chicken. So take the fucking fried chicken. But noooo, they went through every item on the menu with the waitress who was clearly annoyed as she had already said that there was nothing else. But nooo-ho-hooooo homegirl was still trying. *sigh* I have no idea. I really do not.

Moving on, we took a sardine-truck. That means, we sat like a pack of sardines in a can with our bags shoved in every crevasse, yes every crevasse, im pretty sure my sphincter would have a seriously wicked convo with me if it could only talk. It does sometimes talk to me (when it produces farty orchestras) but I have never deepened myself in fartch (farty dutch). When we reached pinar, my left cheek refused to wake up, I had to entice it with a bag of cookies and a bottle of rum. We stopped at el rapido to freshen up after we got some money out of the bank. As I am very hungry right now I keep on regretting not getting myself some fried chicken while I was there. Movig on, we took an ok cab that took all 6 of us to Havana. We had nice music and we all enjoyed it. Well most of us as two of the girls dozed off into a semi-comatose state. Ellen seemed to be enjoying herself. I have just realized that I only refer to ellen, and not to anyone else. I guess its because they don't know that their stories will be put on the net for everyone to read :P:P Anyway, we reached Havana and we split up.

Three of the Bahamians went to Miramar, to their embassy for a special conference which tuned out to be shit anyway) and another Bahamian girl went with Louisa and me, because her grandparents were visiting Havana. We were supposed to locate them and bring her to her family and shit. We all went to our casa to refresh to continue our Havana adventure. I took a big shit. It felt like it had been ages. And then I felt like shaving my balls. So I did that too. Either way, we continued on to look for the direction of her grandparents' house on my map that I carried with me, and we decided to walk there as we had some time to kill. When we finally reached, her people weren't there,
so we had to conversate with the people from the house, And I could smell some nice ass food, but my dignity kept me from asking for some, we went to Chinatown later with Jesus. My cuban friend. The Bahamian girl we were with stayed with her family. By the time we reached the restaurant we were already pretty drunk. We had chop suey and chow mein. Which was actually pretty good, but yeah, I wasn't that hungry anymore. From what I recall, I was conversating with a cat, a beautiful cat. In Spanish. I was telling it how they threw away my pride and joy, Tina, back home. They just threw away my cat, and I was explaining this to the cat in Chinatown, and then it nodded at me, and I knew Jessebelle understood me. Afterwards, I don't really remember what I did, but I think I went to see Ellen and her friend at La Rampa to get a bite to eat. That's where the whole ordering drama started. There was this huge fucking ass picture of a fried ass shrimp, and it said camaron, and she still had to ask me what a Ca-ma-raw-nies were. Ugh, I wanted to take my nasty ass daikiri (this bar was shitty) and smash it into her fat fucking face.

After we sent them home (stumbling, because ellen couldn't even handle half a daikiri hahaha) me, my friend from Nauru and Jesus went to another fiesta de diez pesos. We were a little late but it didn't matter as they were still doing dragshows by the time we arrived. They were going on and on and on (like a pure white diamond –only kylie fans will understand that--) and they finally stopped at 3, when they started with the cool house music that we were waiting for. We met up with mr.6 who is my friends lovebuddy. The one that did her 6 times that is. As we all assumed he was straight, because he fucked her 6 times (somehow I cant stress that enough, it was all within 2 hours hahaha). We couldn't be more wrong. Mr.6 was kissing fag here, fag there, fag everywhere. It was funny actually. I was standing in line to be next, but he stopped prematurely. Hmpf

Anyhow, after the party we sat at the malecon, my friends and me. Where we were just drinking beers, looking pretty, when mr.6 just appeared. And started the whole thing all over again with my friend, just like that time we got robbed. They started kissing and licking and whatnot. And I just continued my convo with Jesus. Then this weird guy (with pretty eyes) and prison tattoos started talking to me. Telling me how much el me gusto. Hahaha. And that I had a culo, and he had a pinga, entonces, nos ibamos a joder. Hahahah, free translation: I have a hole, he has a dick,
concluding: lets fuck.

I did not.
We just kept on talking as he kept on making weird fucking movements in front of me. So I just gave him a peck on the cheek to get him off my back, would have given him a normal kiss if he didn't tell me that he lost his virginity to a pig, or was it a horse, I don't know, some farm animal. I was so disgusted that I had to ask my friend Jesus, and he told me that it is normal there. I wanted to vomit

The next day me and my friend were off to go and get pierced. That never happened. The guy moved back to Holguin, how nice eh? But yeah, we then decided to go look for the rest, whom we found al frente del teatro Yara. Which was fine I guess, only, one was missing since last night.
The Havana curse was back. They were freaked out. And I didn't give a fuck, and neither did my other friends that weren't from the Bahamas. We literally spent two hours just standing there, eating dutty peanuts and talking and drinking Vigor energy drink (its cuban……lol but it works)
Anyway, I finally decided that waiting there wasn't going to solve anything so we all went to Chinatown to eat and drink our sorrows away. I had this killer fish steak and an even kill-y-er cuba libre. That one just done fucked me up I was stumbling. That strong. As we were buying pastries Jesus got a phonecall from some other Bahamians in la habana saying that the missing girl was already halfway back to school. Which sucked because we waited 2 hours on her. So we were pissed. So pissed that we decided to leave immediately where problem number no se qué arose. The taxis were overcharging, so we refused to pay, so we just sat there like Gandhi on a good day. Really, we just sat there ready to take an indisciplina from the school for the fact that we were going to be very late.

At 5 pm we were still there. And our ultimatum was 9 pm. It takes about 4 hours to go to Havana. Well we finally managed to find the same ass rat-cage bus as the one we came in. By the time we reached pinar, I smelled like a chimney and half of my deserts had already melted. We took another cab back to school and reached just in time, at 8.40. All was well in la-la land and the children were sage again

Tadaaaaa

END

PS I really had to summarize the end because I was kind of in a snag
(blames ellen), but yeah, it still makes sense right
Comment if there are any unclear elements.

And please, save the world and ride a cowboy.

The Biggest Frustration

2008-05-28T04:06:00.002-04:00

Your parents, older friends, family, they always tell you to enjoy your youth while it is there. Because they know it was the best time of their life. Normally we always take them for granted because you can never do anything when you're a kid because you've always wanted to be grown up so you could do the stuff you wanted to do.
Now imagine, youre 18 years old, on the fringes of being adult, and not really being a kid anymore. What do you call yourself then? an Adid or a Kidult? Ugh its just very confusing for me.
I got to hear yesterday that I need to go to visit an oncologist because my tumors might have gone bad, I Just realized today I can go home for a week, but my mom who is supposed to help arrange all this just flipped and is unreachable, my dad isn't supposed to know about it, and I think I am weirdly attracted to someone who I am not supposed to be attracted to.

My life is a mess,

and people still ask me why I am drunk at this very moment.

Rihanna Feat. Ne-Yo

2008-05-22T16:05:00.002-04:00

You see, just a little over 6 months ago, I would have killed myself if I ever thought the things I am thinking right about now. Just a little over 6 months ago, Suriname was still fresh on my mind, I still believed I could get a week in Holland for Christmas, I still believed I would never succumb to the whole Che Guevarra craze, that I would never enjoy my time here.

I was very wrong. Somewhere along the way I started getting positive, more social, more decisive and better looking (yes, the pimples disappeared). I even stand up for myself now. Can you believe that?

I am without a doubt. A Cuba-Whore.
I Love Cuba. But I Hate that I love it so.
That Rihanna has me crankin out lyrics, but I understand now

I love the fresh air, the internet-access in class, the ease of life, the cheap alcohol, the beautiful people, the nice friends I have made here, all makes it a bit worth while. I have also discoverd that thinking about the better aspects of life here makes you way less depressed and requires one less bottle of rum every d.... week.

Its better than thinking about nazi teachers, sucky school schedules, not being able to go home and all that Jazz

If I had a camera I'd show you that I really am happy.

Forever Young

2008-05-16T04:17:00.003-04:00

"...I want to be, forever young..."
Who remembers that song? Well, after a gruesome discovery, I definetely remember the song now. It was so gruesome it made me fear my far future as well, will I ever be one of 'those' people who keep on thinking that they're young and fabulous?
These pictures were discovered by my friend on a school PC, and for some odd reason, I keep on having these thoughts in my head that these pictures were never meant to be discovered by young developing brains.

These are straight from the C-dossiers. The Cuban Dossiers.

File: The C-dossiers
Sub-Cat: Mission Salto

These pictures were apparently taken at Salto de los portales. That is where the first picture of this blog (me with my bottle of rum) was taken as well. Luckily it was not at the same time, otherwise I would have eye cancer. And trauma to the brain. Moving on, this was a supposed trip taken by the teachers of our school. These are actually Spanish teachers, well, the sexy one that was posing on the rock was/is a Spanish teacher. It is absolutely horrible. please, shield your eyes before taking a look at the cuban belleza.

Cant say I didnt warn ya.

KYLIEX2008

2008-05-08T03:02:00.003-04:00

OMG it has started. hearing about the reviews on perezhilton and seeing the pictures, I NEED TO GOOOOO. Im hoping Ican catch the June 23rd show in the Ahoy in Rotterdam. I will do everything in my power to go, because these chances dont always come along. So wish me lots of luck.

SNAPs!

2008-05-06T21:19:00.001-04:00

Just some pictures I took just now with my friend Renette from Jamaican.
The finger in the first picture is Armelles, from Belize.

Cuban Beauties

2008-05-05T15:45:00.003-04:00

It has recently come to my attention that there was a need of pictures of beautiful Cuban ladies on my website. So it is my duty to oblige to these bahamian desires. Yes, I know its you, but it is ok, this will be the first batch of many pictures of what Cuba is really about. It starts with the best ones and then the regular pretty ones. So yeah, I think its a great idea, displaying the human resources that Cuba has to offer :P

Enjoy, these are the hot nurses of our school.

We're in Havana baby

2008-05-01T20:46:00.002-04:00

Havana ALMOST always equals heaven

2008-05-01T15:15:00.004-04:00

Twas a nice mornin, we didnt even have to walk the three kilometers to Isabel Rubio where we usually take the cabs. We took a mula (horse-donkey cart) halfway, and rode it all the way to Isabel Rubio, which was fun, the shaking kinda reminded me of a vibrator, but then I realized, I do not have a vibrator, so I guess it kinda reminded me of what a vibrator would or could feel like. In Isabel Rubio, there was nobody waiting to steal our cab, so we just took a cab, which was nice, he drove with a moderate velocity, which was good, considering the first etapa (step) of the trip was about 70 kilometers. Our first destination was Pinar del Rio. Once over there I got the scare of a lifetime, my card didnt work, AGAIN. But it turned out that the first bank I went to just didnt have an active connection, I managed to get my money out at the second bank, and we continued on to Havana. In a really fast cab. A cab that had a cable for an mp3 player, so I was listening to nice music, something really funny was that the cabdriver almost had an orgasm when he heard umbrella. Apparently miss Robyn is very very very popular aca en Cuba.

Once in Havana, at 6 pm, we freshened up and took a 3 km walk along the Malecón, paseo del Prado, past parque central, Gran Teatro de la Habana and el capitolio. Then we had nasty chinese chow mein at a new restaurant, so I didnt eat. It was in chinatown where I met up with my friend from before I came to Cuba, Jesús. We didnt have fun as the food was sucky, but everybody was laughing, because Jesús was a bigger bitch than me, and he kept picking on me, which apparently is amusing to these people I call friends.

We took a cab to edificio Focsa, where we were planning on going drinking at the bar on the top floor. Instead we crossed the road and ate (again) rabbit. It was amazing. Yes, RABBIT aka BUNNY aka that-thing-that-attacked-me-on-august-6th-2007-in-rotterdam. It tasted like chicken on steroids. We drank daikiris but I assume that they hadnt made daikiris in a while, so they laced it with rum, the non drinkers looked doped up after they managed to finish it. It got them so tired that they went home. So that left my friend from A-country-that-shall-not-be-named.

Soooo as the fags outnumbered the straightie, we decided to go to 'a-fiesta-de-diez-pesos'. Literally translated, 10 peso party, but in reality it means underground-gay-party-outside-of-havana. The cabs line up at a specific place in the center of Habana, and only the drivers know the location, they change it every now and then so as not to alarm the police, it kinda is illegal, especially because many tourists go. It took us to this park-that-shall-not-be-named, about 20km outside of Havana. As we arrived they were having a drag show, which was cool. my first drag show ever, one of the trannies was wearing radioactive green lenses with matching wig and dress. And she did this performance of hers with a husky dog. It was kinda cool, and the people stuck money in her fake-cleavage. Then after the drag shows, the music started. The House music. The same goddamn music I like. It was sensation 2007 all over again, but with a great remix. I was happy and my friends were happy, as the beer was plentiful. Then came the reggaeton competition. All of a sudden these 6-7 hot guys jumped on stage, took off their shirts and started dancing. It was awesome. One of the final three looked like kylies backstage dancer and that model from D&G perfume spliced into one perfect specimen. This hot guy with a crawford piercing walked up to me, and asked me where I was from, I told him, not from here. And then he grabbed me by the chin, looked into my eyes and said: pretty woman. I was dying of laughter on the inside, but I understood what he said. Then I grabbed his chin and stroked it gently, saying : Tu también mi amor. And he was shocked. But I passed :S

Entonces, at 4 the party ended and we took a cab back, and we ended up at La Rampa I think. We were just walking around, peeing in building crevasses and just having fun. We reached the malecon where we continued giggling and having fun amongst the gay crowd. And then all of a sudden, a complete (hot!) stranger walks up, looks at my friend (the one from school) and starts kissing her passionately. Very passionately. And she wasnt complaining. Thats the last part of the evening that we enjoyed. Then the two guys from the party, I believe one of them was the winner of the reggeaton thingy earlier, but I am not so sure, as I was drunk. Then out came the knives and out went my ipod, money, camera, watch and dignity. I got mugged. Where were my friends, one was getting jiggy widdit, and I believe the other was too. Yes, more than 1000usd worth of stuff, footsie. and I was panicking, because my friend (from another country) left with a stranger, so i ran towards the nearest police officer saying that I got robbed, but at the moment another thought kept me busy, the fate of my friend. They took me to the police station for the report. The report that took 6 hours to make, the report that was only 2 pages long. You can imagine me being stressed, crying excessively and almost pulling my hair out when the officers kept saying that I should prepare for the worst because my friend had probably been raped and thrown into the ocean. I remembered that we made a deal to meet at Coppelia at 10, but I couldnt go, because I was still at the police station. Moving on, I called my friends, who were sleeping, to go and look for her. And they did, but with no results. So they all came to the police station at 12, which is exactly when we went back to La Rampa to look for her.

Turns out she was STILL making out with her cuban friend on the Malecon, which is why I was very relieved. As soon as it hit me that she was fine, I started crying out loud on La rampa, realizing my ipod, camera and watch were footsie. But everything worked out fine in the long run, we had Wakamba chicken on calle o (its chickenlegs, with the bone pulled out, but filled with ham and cheese)...kinda cordon bleu. Anyway, I wanted to get a cd to my other friend, so I walked 3km only to find out that he wasnt there, so I left again, leaving an original cd on the floor of such a building just didnt seem smart at the time.

As we drove home, we were very happy that nothing REALLY bad happened to us. Minus the material things and the mental scarring, everything was ok after all. And today, as I am writing this, I am much mor informed than yesterday, when I was thinking horrible things at the police station. There was a moment where I thought the cuban that was with me the whole time to set it up, but my friend from school (the horny one that was making out with another cuban) told me that he came looking for me and got very worried. I can confirm that, I received a few confused emails today.

Either way, I am a few experiences richer, and a lot of gadgets (AND MY LABELLOSTICK) poorer. But im over it.

Pensamiento del dia

2008-04-25T12:45:00.001-04:00

I heard that I can leave after premedico for 6 months to do whatever the fuck I want, and come back, and start with medicine. Considering my stats, I am still very young, and i can live without studies for 6 months. its a big decision, and in those 6 months, I will definitely change my mind about coming back.
Either way, when I come back, there is a 50% chance that I will be sent to
Havana when I come back, which is good.
Either way, im saying that this is all depending on my experiences here in Cuba for the next 4 months.

Vamos a ver

Habana, Habana and more Habana 25-32

2008-04-23T02:46:00.004-04:00

This is a mural called Carro de la Revolución. I think, I am not so sure anymore. It is located in the Hotel Tryp Habana Libre, and it has been there for a long time. It is completely made out of porcelain. It was on the wall next to the first nightclub in the building.

The same road (Calle Hospital) but this time it showed some better housing. It really is a beautiful city you know.

Chinatown during the day. What did you think? Cheap Chinese food and not go back? Do we look or sound like idiots. Please, only this time we went to a different restaurant where we had sangria, fish filet, lobster (get this, they asked us politely if they could substitute the shrimp with lobster because they ran out of shrimp…..for the same price) and chow meen.

I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but it definitely had red meat. It was a mix in between tuna and salmon. I don’t know what it was, but I LOVED it. And then the langosta, oh gosh, I still cant believe I never had lobster before. Its all I eat in Habana.

That is the paifang that the Chinese government sponsored. They did the same thing in every country that had a significant Chinatown.

The capitolio during daytime. It looks exactly like the one in America. Isnt it ironic?

Oh this is cool. This camera is like 80 years old and it still works. The guy will take your picture for 2 bucks, and it looks like it was taken 80 years ago. Really nice, the pictures are done immediately, and are in black and white

Finally I have reached the last picture. GOSH, 32 pictures, now don’t complain for a long long long time. This is the Gran Teatro de la Habana. They have cabaret and ballet shows over there. I just think that the building is magnificent. It is located at Parque Central, next to Hotel Inglaterra.

Wow….La Habana. This is only part of what the city has to offer. And in my next few trips, I am planning bodeguita del medio, Cabaña fortress and el Morro. Hopefully I will get them done on time.

Habana, Habana and more Habana 17-24

2008-04-23T02:45:00.007-04:00

A closeup of Hotel Nacional, which was in fact, constructed by the Italian Maffia. They even had their shit here. It has 400 something rooms, and it is expensive, that is all I needed to know. I wanted to sacar some dinero there, but they said my card was denied. I felt so poor.

A part of centro Habana, this picture was taken from my veranda at my casa particular. It shows the real picture of Cuban life. Kinda. These are the kind of images I saw sometimes on the tellie. It is really nice though, just like the tourist manuals describe, the people really do play dominoes on the corners of the streets.

This is the other direction, but the same road, calle Hospital

Yes, a real Chinatown. It was cool, everything was kinda different. The buildings were painted, and there were restaurants everywhere. Strangely there weren’t many Chinese people….

Even the graffiti was Chinese

Just take a look at these prices. Imagine, camaron and langosta are shrimp and lobster respectively. Just LOOK AT THE GODDAMN PRICES.

That’s the group of people I was with. We encountered a Japanese bitch, and she was fun. The guy in the blue is Luis our Cuban friend, and most of the other people are Belizeans from my school. We were just really happy. And most of us were drunk.

That’s the capitolio. It was modeled after the real capitol building in Washington DC but this one is taller, it is 92 metres. I think it still serves as a seat of congress but most of the building is a tourist attraction. It looks better at night than it does during the day.

Habana, Habana and more Habana 9-16

2008-04-23T02:44:00.019-04:00

That is obviously a statue of Alma Mater. She is spreading her arms (if she was spreading her legs it would have a very different meaning of welcome) to welcome the new minds to her death trap of studies. I currently have no idea who Alma Mater is, you can look it up yourself on wikipedia while you’re at it and lighten up my day.

This is a church in Miramar, the rich people section of cuba. As you drive on 5ta Avenida, you will realize why all the other buildings in vedado, centro and vieja look so old and dilapidated. Its because all the nice buildings, embassies and hotels are in Miramar. It is like driving through palm beach in Miami. It really is different, they even have good stores in Miramar.

This used to be the soviet union’s embassy. Nowadays its used as the Russian embassy. It is Huge. No doubt about it, they have 4 flights a week to Moscow. Da da, the daughter of the owner of a Casa Particular where my friends stayed at was-is studying in Moscow, isnt it funny?

The marti monument again. Its just so purrdy, and biiig and stuff. Its really nice for a national monument. Guess what, that’s a statue of José Martí again. Ugh you'll see this guy like everywhere.

Look at Che Guevarra. He even has his face on a building. I guess I should become a doctor, cure lepers and fight for the revolution of several countries before I get that done. Look at it this way, atleast that way the people will have something good to look at.

I was so hot and excited that I finally got my hands on real internet. Right after this picture was taken I realized that there was no MSN. What a cock-block. Oh the bitch on the picture is Louisa, my friend from Nauru.

Yep, that’s what we call some mean ass daikiris. That’s how they spell it here yes, I am not an idiot. But yes, they were amazing, and only 3 bucks a piece. Told you, it flows like water here.

That’s just me in a restaurant while I was waiting on my 2 dollar hamburger. Now THAT was one of the best burgers I have ever had in my entire life.

Habana, Habana and more Habana 1-8

2008-04-23T02:44:00.017-04:00

Have you ever seen the bride of chuckie? Have you ever heard about voodoo and santería? Well this restaurant I ate at last weekend was like owned by a family that practiced santería. They had all kinds of these dolls over the place and they burned the cigars and candles too. Very very creepy yes, they all had yellow eyes.

That was the lobster-shrimp dinner we paid 20 bucks for. Little did we know that we could get much more food in Chinatown for less than 5 cuc a plate. You can imagine how robbed I felt, but nonetheless, the food was great. The 20 cuc included side dishes and whatnot.

That was the beautiful sunset on the Malecon. The buildings you can see in the distance are none other than the main buildings in Habana´s Vedado district. The wide one on the left is Edificio Focsa, and right in front of it you have the very famous Hotel Nacional.

This is Edificio Focsa. It was designed as a city within a city. Completely self-sufficient. All the inhabitants can work within the building. It has its own laundrette, restaurants and nightclub. I have never been, but I will have enough time to spend here in Cuba.

This is sunrise on the malecon. It was that really good Saturday night where I was so happy that I never went to sleep. The picture came out much better than in real life I think. It was really beautiful.

That is a statue of one of the Cuban national heroes, Jose Martí. He did some thing for education bla bla, nobody cares. And with that I mean everybody non Cuban. Cuz they love the guy, all schools have a portrait statue of him. He is holding a baby, and I don’t feel the need to translate whatever the hell it says on the base of the statue

This is on the malecon as well. I forgot what its called, but it is some convention centre, for concerts and no sé qué. Right behind it is the American foreign interests section where they display anti-communist messages on an electronic banner. Its funny really, they will do anything to try and take a crack at communism.

This is the main entrance to La Universidad de la Habana. It was founded in 1790 I think. And my Cuban friend-slash-tour-guide is doing chemical engineering there. It has many faculties, and it frustrates me even more to try and comprehend why ´they´ did not send me to Havana in stead of the llanuras of the west.

Habana, Habana and more Habana

2008-04-23T02:42:00.004-04:00

When you wake up and look out of your window and all you see are Marabú (trees-shrubs with lots and lots of thorns), some palms, and more schools, you would agree that any form of civilization would be a welcome change.

At first us students here at ELAM 10 thought that the relatively nearby (=77km) city of Pinar del Río was adequate. It has a nice hotel that isn’t that expensive, has much better shops, some branded clothing, and different food. The chicken there is even available in more than one flavour (it’s always deep fried).
But then after a while, it started to get a bit boring, especially if you could only walk the main street, because the rest of the city is a dump. So we started fantasizing about La Habana.

I mean come on, were basically village people over here. We live next to a freaking farm. And all the teachers have been bitching about the maravillosidad of the capital. So we were like always horny to go to Habana, but never really had the time, until we just figured ´screw it´, you only live once.

So for the third time since I have been here, I went to La Capital. In all of its grandeur. It was even better this time. I stayed at a casa particular en Centro de Habana. We were like 14 blocks away from Chinatown. I also spent a lot of time at Parque Central, in front of the Capitolio. I know it doesn’t make much sense right now, but the pictures will bring more claridad into the whole situation.

Moving on, if you didn’t understand anything that was written in the previous part of this post, you will understand the descriptions of the pictures in the following posts.

Greetings from Havana

2008-04-15T15:18:00.001-04:00

Yes, it really is heaven.....

Red Soil

2008-04-12T06:06:00.003-04:00

I took another step outside of the home base. The outside temperature was just right at the time but I had a feeling my vestidios wouldnt serve as much of a barrier between me and the neduring radiation and UV rays. I still ventured out because anything was better than 4 boring hours of spanish classes. Mis companeros me acompanaron hasta la 'fence'. As soon as we were walking some distance I knew that my suit had failed. The radiation had reached my skin, and my melanocites were highly active. I couldnt control all the sweating. I knew I had to look for a shade or else the radiation would have surely killed me.
There was vegetation around. Strange looking, but vegetations nonetheless. Thorny, entangled, red-beady-seeds, and apparently highly adapted to the barren red soil it was growing on.
It seemed that the longer I avoided the radiation, the more steps I could make in the unknown desolates. I ventured on with my friends, conversating on and on about the amount of strange feces we had encountered along our path to the fruitfields.
Yes, this desolate land had to have something to offer. Amongst the thorny bushes called manambú there were strange fruit trees carrying orange fruits. Some carried yellow fruits. They vaguely resembled the citrus fruits on earth. But we couldnt be certain, so we drilled core samples and carried out the analysis. We discovered that they had a high concentration of H+, therefore, they were acidic. Some were more acidic than others. And there were also some that contained glucose, our much needed fuel, So we stored those in special containers we carried with us. The radiation of the yellow star the planet is orbiting became worse, so we concluded that the star must have been in zenith in conjunction with the planet we were on. The strange barren planet with strange vegetations.
We decided to move back towards home base. My body had been leaking fluids too much and needed to be replenished rapidly. On the way back we encounters strange lifeforms with calcified hairs on their heads, we assumed that they were responsible for the strange defecations we c came across. They made weird noises, we were afraid they were trying to scramble our communications array, so we ran.

This is not something that happened on a terrafied planet. This happened in the granja that surrounds my school. And we went orange picking. I just felt a little sci-fi because I found AVP2 on the server, so i'll be watching that shortly. Ciao maricones.

Fariz (as they say it here)

Huevos Fritos

2008-04-03T13:57:00.003-04:00

As I am sitting here in my-little-plot-of-artificial light, I realize that I once again feel the need to fart. This never-ending feeling is starting to annoy me. A diet of beans, rice and eggs surely isn’t helping. All this hydrogen disulfide is smelling up the room. And can you imagine the smell of a 5X10 room, with 14 people in it who all have the same diet?

Today is Friday. In normal life this means going out, having fun, drinking, and qualquier acción que quieren hacer. But no. This is Cuba. No, wait, this is the boonies-o-Cuba. Everything is controlled. Bye-bye alcohol, bye-bye late nights, and bye-bye normal internet access. We have school on Saturdays, but only half-days, up until noon. That means lights out at 11pm. Its 11.37 pm, and my form of living on the edge is keeping the lights on after 11. Have I told you how sad it is that these things have to make my day?

I drank alcohol in school today. That was a rush.

It is such a step down from the life I had in Surinam. You’d think that your life is insignificant, full of bad times and whatnot, but believe me people, you haven’t lived life as a Cuban. It is difficult, I cant even begin to imagine what they have to go through. I'm a student here, I have a foreign source of money. They don’t. Things are really difficult here, there is lack of different types of foodstuffs and regular things that we take for granted in real life.

Have you ever imagined life without toilet seats?

Think about that every single time you take a crap. Think about all the poor students (ME ME ME) who have never gotten used to the fact that there are no toilet seats in school. And at this very moment, I need to take a crap.

Where is my hepatitis-B injection?

Hussled by the pastor.....

2008-04-03T13:56:00.004-04:00

I went to Pinar del Río again. I know I know, it doesnt sound as interesting anymore, but I was forced. kinda. I had no more cash on me, so I had to go out to the city to sacar some dinero from the bank. Which eventually worked on sunday.

Moving on, this time I went with my gf's from the Bahamas, all the other kids had their own things to do, so I went and had my own fun. We took a cab straight from school, which is something their professors had arranged. Turns out as soon as we left sight of regular Cubans, the cabdrivers were already planning to con us. They charged us double the agreed price, so we protested, and got dropped in the backwater town of Sandino. Which is where we met 'the-pastor-with-the-toyota-hi-ace'

He took us all the way to Pinar del Río, and this is how he managed to hustle us, he managed to squeeze his way into making us agree to having to come pick us up again the following day. In total he made 60 CUC on us, which, first of all, is cheaper than we would have spent anyway, but
secondly, 60 CUC is more than 3 times his monthly wage. We can all imagine while mr pastor was all but sad.

Moving on, I took a lot of scenic pictures, I thought I'd introduce you people of the normal world to some of the things I see when I look out of the window. La belleza de mi provinicia de Pinar del Río.

Mostly scenic, it browses through the tobacco fields of vueltabajo (the best tobacco in the world) and the town of San Juan Y Martinez....

Hope you enjoy them, and dont hesitate to mail me back at
FARIDK@ELAM10.PRI.SLD.CU

for comments that is....

La Habana, The Pictures #2

2008-03-24T21:02:00.003-04:00

Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like me (like me in the suite of a five star hotel....:P)....which was only like 40 bucks a head

Me on the Malecon, don't I look happy. I guess its either cuz I was in Havana or maybe because I....no never mind :P I guess some privacy is allowed :P

It was a wonderful feeling knowing that many famous people throughout the 20th and 21st century sat at that same spot I was sitting. I know this for a fact because it was right in front of the Hotel Nacional, thats where all the stars go. My friends almost kissed the ground that Naomi Campbell walked on.

This is down on the wave breaker in front of the Malecon. We jumped off the seawall. it was a short 2 metre fall. But we just had to go down and touch the water. It was in the cab ride back home that I realized that I could have just gone swimming in my underwear, everybody else was
doing it.

Thats me getting my feet (and pants *hmpf*) wet. It was so much fun, I think my face makes that pretty clear. This was my first 'blue-water-experience' EVER. I will never forget it.

I heard they like served lobster in Havana for like dirt cheap, so I HAD to try it. And I feel so sorry for myself, I feel angry at myself as well for never having tried it before. Lobster is by far the best type of meat I have ever tasted. It was so good I almost cried.

Yaaaay, were almost done looking at the pictures. Oh come on, don't tell me you didn't enjoy the previous 13. Nobody EVER sends me this many pictures. This picture was taken by my friend who took another cab to the bus stop, where we took a cab, not a bus. funny innit. Anyway, I was
telling him to take more photos. It was a funny moment.

As I didn't sleep as much, The cab ride did it for me. We found some luxury cab, a KIA minivan, which was actually only 7 years old in stead of the 1952-1953 cars we were used to. It was a nice change of transportation, a taste of back home.

Boo, we have reached the end. Well it dont matter.... This picture shows me having gratitude, looking relaxed and happy and comfortable with my situation. I guess that all I really needed was a nice ass trip to the Capital. It all makes it worth while, seeing that civilization had not skipped Cuba, all I had to do was look for it.

I'm looking out, and im thinking that my next big trip will either be towards Cayo Jutia or Cayo Levisa. Those are two small cays off the coast which have perfect beaches, I guess its about time I see nice ass beach for a change

Either way, hope y'all enjoyed the pictures....mail me if you want any more

Ciao bellas.....
Farid

La Habana, The Pictures #1

2008-03-24T21:01:00.004-04:00

Oh gosh, just as I was about to write a cool and warm email about my things i've been through in the last weekend in HAVANA, I saw that there is a double cold front heading our way, tomorrow, 16 degrees, in two days, 15.....so much fun, it will give me the chance to pull out my
winterfashion I guess.
Anyhow, be prepared, these are my pictures of my weekend in La Habana, prepare yourself, hopefully all 16 of them fit on this mail :)

BTW excuse my french/english/spanish/dutch/qualquier lengua que hablaré...

The first thing that made us sure we had reached la capital, the José Marti monument. It is the tallest building in Havana, and I thought it was 130-something metres high. It has an elevator that takes you all the way to the top floor, and no, I did not go in, I had other priorities.

That same saturdaynight at the Wakamba restaurant. They were out of their famous wakamba chicken (what that tastes like I'll never know, and who the hell runs out of their signature dish....its like going to KFC and hearing that theyre out of chicken....:P)...So I just took fish
steak, which was awesome as well.

This is the view off the 11th floor of an apartmentbuilding. It shows the Malecon on the right (malecon is like THE street that runs alongside havana bay)....and it shows the Vedado district and the famous Melia Cohiba somewhere on the left, its a five star hotel. Its pretty high
as well ;)

Yep, I just realized that its 12 more to go...wow you people should feel so lucky and shit. Moving on: I just thought that the dutty (=dirty --jamaicans make me sick) street sign made so much more sense. It was a feeling of accomplishment because we had been dying to go to havana
for 4 (!) fleeting months.

This is the Yara theatre on La Rampa aka calle 23. It is right in front of Coppelia. Its the biggest cinema in Havana (therefore cuba as well)....they were showing Daddy Yankee videoclips....so I just passed. They had the infamous coco-taxis in front of it waiting to rob you outta
your hard-begged money.

Thats me in front of the Habana Libre complex. Back before 1962 it was called the Havana Hilton. Now its just another five star hotel with a huge shoppingcomplex with nice clothes, triple sec and some Mikimoto pearls. Funny isnt it?

The weird part is that I was robbed when I first came to Cuba. They took my not so diversified colelction of earrings and earplugs and whatnot. I bought a pair that I could swear were the same ones. Either way, this was taken in the souvenir market on La Rampa, they had some cool shit :)

Easter 2008

2008-03-24T15:57:00.003-04:00

That small secondary wish I have had for like more than 4 months finally came through last weekend. It had nothing to do with any super hot cubans (though that wish MAY-have-come-through-but-im-not-sure-yet-which-sucks)

I FINALLY MADE IT TO LA CIUDAD DE LA HABANA

I know I know, but im still excited. it was the best weekend I have ever had in Cuba. After almost 5 hours of traveling la plaza de la revolucion came in sight, and at the sight of the Jose Martí memorial I knew that we had finally arrived in La Habana.

We stopped on calle 23 (La Rampa)....which is comparable to party/business central of Vedado (part of Habana). Like wallstreet mixed with times square all in one. ME and one of my friends stayed at the 5 star Hotel Vedado while the others all rented a casa particular. I was going to do that as well but my patience was running dry at the time, I did not want to waste any more time in search of a place to stay, because we only had the night and the next morning to do our bidding in La Habana, because the schoolweekends dont allow us much free time.

I was gonna go partying like a rockstar but I kinda met up with someone so we just ended up drinking, talking and walking(ON THE MALECON) Yes, it was full of miracles. I walked on the malecon. Thats the main road next to Havana Bay. I took a hell of a lot of pictures. There was this huge flock of fags there, dont ask me what they were doing, I was doing some flirting of myself with this incredibly hot guy I met.

Moving on, the next day, I went walking on the malecon again and this time me and my friends jumped off of it onto the breakwater and put our feet in the ocean. Oh yeah, and I realized that lobster is the best meat that has/will ever exist. EVER. LOBSTER IS GREAT. I cant believe I never ate it before.

Either way, pictures will follow. Havana is amazing. If you have it, take a trip to La Habana, if you're a tourist, its perfect....

Good Friday

2008-03-22T09:55:00.002-04:00

Hey guyz, some pictures I took today
We took the train from Isabel Rubio all the way to Pinar del Río. We got the day off due to good Friday, but we had to return before 8pm, so no big weekend, we still have classes tomorrow.
After the shakey (shaky?) 2 hour ride we went to eat in Pinar and walked around a bit and then we took a cab home.
At least we made it there and back ;)
Oh yeah, we had to walk a lot :P

Medical Trials

2008-03-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

Wow, this has been a while. I used to be this blog whore once who had access to internet and whatnot. And look at me now. A young man, sitting on his bed which is part of a 16-bed-room, eating a cracker with tuna that I made on the shared hotplate, while trying to hold in my fart so that the others wont look at me weird, wearing nothing but a jacket because Cuban food has made me even more insecure about my weight, looking at the students from the Solomon Islands with whom we have to share the room but-of-whom-were-actually-scared-because-they-make-war-canoes-and-murder-people.

My life has changed in a way that I never would have imagined. If it is for better or for worse is still under discussion. Have I regretted my decision in coming here?....of course….. everyday.
But finally I have concluded that it is better for me to stay here, in the municipality of Sandino, in the province of Pinar del Río. Try finding that on the map/google/wiki. Its that bad….
Being a doctor is my only wish…..but i'm not so sure if its to help my fellow man, or to help my fellow wallet.

Cuba has its own benefits. Aside from internet blockage and NO MSN (yes, it felt like a dagger through my heart just to repeat it)….it has a free health care system.

Man it has tried my patience, visiting all these doctors in Suriname who kept on telling me different things about the ‘swollen lymph nodes’. They turned out to be cancer. Nothing malignant though, its just lipomatosis. In the mean time I have already visited the medics many times. They sent me to a doctor first, then they sent me to a dermatologist who then referred me to a surgeon who said that I actually needed an endocrinologist. That’s who I visited today. And even if they tell you that the Cuban medical system is costless, it sure as hell makes up for it in trying your goddamn patience (which we all know I don’t have). I had to wait for 4 fleeting hours. I guess the wait was made easy with my oh so special iPod touch, i'm the only one in Cuba that has one.

They inject all of us school-faring folk with every vaccine they can find. I have been injected like 8 times in the 4 months that I have been here. I don’t even know half the diseases i'm immune to. They also made me take an extra blood test, which was horrible, they cut me open in different places and timed the amount of time it took until I stopped bleeding.

With them…..I mean the system….the Cubans…..

I should watch out what I say because ‘they’ monitor everything. But Im not afraid of them. I speak Spanish now. Isn’t it funny? :P

Anyway, I have no idea where to begin or what to tell you about the things I have witnessed/went through in the past couple of months. But I can tell you that you will find out soon enough. I'm having a friend post my stuff back on the net for all of you to read, and hopefully you will.

This is Farid, in Cuba…..signing in (finally…..)

Oh….PS…..I have pictures :P:P

That’s me in the river (a recreational one with a small waterfall) with some of my best friends and a bottle of rum. Imagine, I know its been difficult here, but yeah, I’ve been making the best of it, cant have it any other way ;) (and cheap Cuban rum definitely helps muchisimo)

If you want some specific pictures or whatnot, just leave comments, ill make sure to get them, but if you want to get the comments straight to me, my hotmail and yahoo are not accessible aqui, so mail me straight to my new email address:

FARIDK@ELAM10.PRI.SLD.CU