In a recent diary entry, Eduardo N. Cordovi Hernandez reflects on how time seems to have frozen in Cuba since 1959, drawing parallels to global changes and a chilling frog metaphor.
Eduardo N. Cordovi Hernandez, in his diary entry published on Havana Times on January 23, 2026, describes recent worldwide events that appear to be setting the stage for major transformations, which some term 'cause and effect' or karma. Meanwhile, in Cuba, his friends remark during sidewalk chats that sometimes everything seems to freeze, only to suddenly shift—for better or worse. The author believes such perceptions are constant, though we often overlook them.
From his viewpoint as a nine-year-old in 1959, he recalls a marvelous historical moment, despite his parents' reluctance; they were rural folks from Havana province with limited city experience. Yet, those marvelous events faded into unreal hopes and longings for the future. The present moments, which become the past and lodge in memory, are far from pleasant. Hernandez argues it's not that time stops, but that people resist its passage, fostering a sense of reversal.
He references a Silvio Rodriguez song, yearning for something to 'wipe everything away'—a blinding light, a shot of snow, or a wisp of cloud—to avoid seeing the same thing forever. Most terrifying is the analogy to the frog experiment: placed in warming water, the frog feels it turn pleasantly warm, then hot, but waits too long to jump and dies scalded. Hernandez implies Cuba may be undergoing a similar gradual peril unnoticed until it's too late.