real cubans

I have just come across a website from cuba which contains diaries (blogs) of real Cuban people who write about their hopes, dreams and frustrations
As Yordanka Caridad writes in her blog, the political stereotypes many westerners have of Cuba are an insult to the intelligence of these splendid people;
"If someone in Jamaica or the Netherlands creates a blog, it is very likely that few will read it, or if so, nobody will pay any attention to the European complaining about the slowness of the metro at noon or to the Jamaican rambling about his desire to see snow.
If I, a Cuban woman, create a blog and write a note about the grey water that runs in front of my house before kindly depositing itself right in front of the daycare center that is also across from my house; two things would happen: 1) I would receive numerous comments calling the government of my country murderers. 2) I would receive numerous comments calling me either a dissident, a liar,a pessimist who only sees (or smells) the negative around me, a person with no right to criticize because-judging by my age-I have done nothing to improve my country; a persona bewitched by the evil, capricious and filthy capitalist system, etc. I could even be accused of being a provocateur or a double agent of Cuban State Security."
And Leonid Lopez (well he was named so by his partent as he was born during a visit by the former Soviet President to Cuba) says:
"After a war, one is be able to exercise judgment, but the Cuban individual remains on a war footing under the physical threat of being invaded by the United States, and under the ideological threat of the ideas of capitalism-so peacetime never comes."
And Erasmo Calzadilla deliberates on the pros and cons of leaving Cuba.
"If you have no problem with obeying when you’re ordered, Cuba is a place for you; and if you live off some little private business, or from some other hustle, you can even end up being your own boss. In short, if you’ve the good fortune to have your own roof over your head, if you aspire to a calm life and can pick up some loose change by any alternative means; if you are not ambitious and it doesn’t bother you to grow old watching soap operas, baseball, or even reading good old books, if you meet these requirements, then emigrating from here would be tremendous insanity.
Me, for my part, I can’t deny that I like the calm that’s breathed here, but only up to a point; after that, I find myself so suffocated that if I had a rocket to carry me anywhere I would have used it a long time ago."

check out the blogs and some very good interviews including one with Raul Castro's daughter Mariella (a campaigner for LBTG rights) on: http://www.havanatimes.org.