Cuba Skate64

It is not until after 5pm, when the heat ceases to be suffocating, that Yojani and his gang start skateboarding. While the youngest try out their new tricks with great determination, Yojani this young man of 26 yrs, of mixed race with his dreadlocks has skateboarded for more than 10 years. He is of professional skateboarding standard but in Cuba, to earn his living, he is a hotel cleaner. He is a kind person full of goodwill who loves to help the young beginners so that skateboarding does not die out on the island.
In fact, skateboarding in Cuba is not easy because skateboards and other accessories are not available to buy. To remedy this an association called 'Amigo Cuba Skate' was founded by an American that regularly donates materials and this way keeps the sport alive. In any case, opening a skateboarding shop on the island would be useless for the Cubans. In effect the prices would be beyond their means so skateboarding would become a sport for the comfortably off.
In the middle of a large park in Havana is the first skateboarding track. It is improvised out of an old concrete swimming pool, a quarter of its surface is covered by stagnant water, which has become, with time, a marsh. Inside there are still old rusty mechanisms installed in 2004. The only usable part dates from 2015 which has been exclusively adapted for skateboarding with the help of foreign skateboarders who brought over their own materials. Moreover, it appears that the state has finally decided to lend a hand.

At the beginning of 2016 the government undertook to build the first true skateboarding park in Cuba. However the youths are not satisfied because they consider it unsuitable for skateboarding and too small for a capital. The whole of Havana is their playground; in particular the huge monuments dedicated to a revolution that they have never known.