Apretaste! A Craigslist for the Island of the Disconnected

Apretaste! A Craigslist for the Island of the Disconnected / Yoani Sanchez
Posted on April 7, 2014

Tatania wants to sell a stroller, Humberto is interested in some
sneakers, and the retired woman on the corner is offering a mahogany
desk. Individual barter and buying-selling alleviates the shortages in
state markets. So it's become common to see walls plastered with ads
offering houses for sale or the services of someone who repairs
furniture. The classified sites on the Internet also trade in anything
you can imagine, from an illegal satellite dish to birdseed.

Despite the poor connectivity, Craigslist-style sites are very popular
on the Island. Some of them have developed strategies to reach Cuban
readers, such as the distribution of classifieds via email. This is the
case with Apretaste! which offers the service of sending and receiving
information via email for users on our "Island of the Disconnected."
Winner of a hackathon held in Miami this February, the site has great
potential and boasts a simple design that loads quickly.

Visiting Apretaste!, I remember a phrase I always repeat when I
encounter something hard. "Creativity is the capacity to open a window
when the door is closed," I tell myself, like a mantra in complex
situations. And this classified portal is a diminutive and promising
window that has opened in the iron wall of disconnection. A breath of
air flows through it.

I hope that one day Tatiana, Humberto, and the retired lady on the
corner can not only use the powers of Apretaste! through email, but also
enter it on the web, click, enter a phrase into its simple search engine
and find, in this way, whatever they need.

7 April 2014

Source: Apretaste! A Craigslist for the Island of the Disconnected /
Yoani Sanchez | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/apretaste-a-craigslist-for-the-island-of-the-disconnected-yoani-sanchez/