Hello hivers. I'm 22 years old, and I'm studying computer science engineering in Havana, Cuba. Although I'm on a gap year due to family matters, I'm excited to join this decentralized ecosystem. I'm interested in topics related to technology, decentralization and the crypto ecosystem. I heard about Hive through a Twitter space created by the CM of Bachecubano, 
About me
I lived my first years in a small town called Cinco Palmas, located in the mountains of Granma. At 10 years old we moved to the outskirts of the provincial capital, Bayamo. I come from a peasant family and I remember my childhood with affection. I enjoyed going fishing and riding a horse.
Life experiences
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I had an impactful experience when I worked as a volunteer at the UCI-COVID hospital center. For approximately 6 months, I carried out various tasks, from distributing food to working as a statistician, in cleaning, as a fumigator and, most surprisingly, as a pantryman in intensive therapies. It was an incredible and gratifying experience, one of the best of my life. Sharing with other volunteers, doctors and patients allowed me to have beautiful moments, although sometimes also difficult. In short, I remember it as one of the most significant experiences of my life.
How I got into the crypto world
As for my experience in the crypto world, probably, like many cryptocurrency lovers today, I got here by searching on Google or by suggestions from friends about "how to make money online." I spent hours and hours looking for faucets, solving captchas in Telegram bots or signing up for cloud mining sites. I was lucky enough never to participate in a ponzi or pyramid scheme (I didn't have any money at that time to do it). It is very unlikely that you have not been a victim of some scam at the beginning. The harsh reality of our countries often leads us to seek easy or quick alternatives to generate income, especially considering that it was not until 2018 that we had access to the Internet in my country. Fortunately, I came across videos from Cuban youtuber Erich Garcia talking about this type of scams.
You learn, but at what cost
The satisfaction I felt when I bought my first digital coins was incredible, but I was also afraid of doing something wrong or being scammed. Fortunately, everything went well, since I did it through the decentralized peer-to-peer exchange center Hervez, which currently has HIVE listed among its exchange coins. However, it was all in vain, since three days later I lost everything in a futures operation in Pionex, with a leverage of x25. I went from 100 USD to 600 USD in two hours betting on luck, believing I would make a lot of money. While I prayed the Our Father almost every minute for the gain to keep going up, I lost everything in 10 minutes, it was very hard. And the worst part is that it didn't end there, I made other typical beginner mistakes, like losing the recovery phrase, not putting memo in the transactions or sending to different blockchains (you lose money, but you gain experience 馃ゲ).
Motivation to join Hive
Recently, I decided to close the social networks I normally use, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The amount of content we consume daily is overwhelming, between ads and algorithms that show you content from people you don't follow, making us constantly scroll through our phones and becoming addicted. In Hive, these problems don't exist and you can be in a community with topics similar to yours, where you are the true owner of your content.
Goals within hive
My goal in Hive is to create content about topics related to technology, web3 or other things that I think can be useful for others, especially for Cubans who are starting in this world. One of my biggest challenges will be, as I go studying programming, to create mini-projects related to Hive and go practicing while trying to contribute valuable content here.
Thanks for reading this far. If you want to contact me, I'm on Telegram as @criptocubano. Greetings and see you on the blockchain!"