- Do you live where you want to live?
- I live in a very quiet street in Gracia, delighted and happy. The people are wonderful. I only regret these big motorbikes which have hellish exhausts, and at night they wake you up when you are having lovely dreams.
- Would you like to move? Why and where to?
- I'm fine where I am. If I had to move, I would go somewhere very quiet.
- Do you spend time in your neighbourhood and with your neighbours? Do you have the shops you need nearby (baker's, grocer's, dry cleaner's)?
- My weekly shop I order by phone at a nearby supermarket, but I like to go down to the grocer's to choose ham and other lovely things, for myself.
- As well as doing your daily shopping (if you do it) do you have places and services for all your needs?
- Everything, it is great, because when I come back from a tour, I have lots of things waiting to be done, and I love to sort it out in walking distance. In Cuba I did the same, and now I do it more and it is better, because I take my son with me, holding his hand.
- Do you stroll around your own neighbourhood for pleasure or do you go elsewhere?
- I don't have time to walk just for the sake of it. But I love to go to Passeig de San Joan with my son and see him play in the gardens. And if we want to walk a bit more, we go to the little gardens ("als jardinets") at the top of Passeig de Gràcia.
- Which are your favourite cinemas, theatres and clubs?
- My husband and I are home birds, and we hardly ever go out. We share everything, including the housework. It is a shame, but there are only 24 hours in a day. If we go to the cinema, we go to the Verdi, which is near. We go to the theatre to see specific plays, regardless of where.
- And which are your favourite restaurants, bars and cafés?
- Favourite restaurants we have quite a few. The long-standing El Envalira, in the Plaça del Sol, or the very new Gamvik (Balmes 165, by París), which a friend, Robert, opened, after leaving El Colibrí. And as we often go to Sitges, there we go to La Nansa, El Greco...
- Is there any public area where you like to go, to sit and chat?
- To chat to somebody, I like my house or theirs. But then to have a long chat, lying down, I love the telephone, it is a little defect, I confess.
- When you have to act as a guide for visitors, where do you take them?
- First the modernist buildings in the Passeig de Gràcia, mainly Gaudí; the port, and all the area that is now open to the sea; then I take them up to Tibidabo so that they can see the whole city, it is a fantastic view. And to end, I take them to Sitges, which is another of my weaknesses; I think it is a magic place.
- What is the most appropriate, funny or surprising adjective you have heard to describe Barcelona? Which one would you use?
- Everybody says good things about the city. Even though they sometimes add that Catalans are strange, too closed, but I tell them: "Don't come with your pre-conceived ideas; look, listen and then speak; you will love them". And the adjective that I would use, well, there are two, which could seem contradictory, but no; it is the sun, and at the same time, a relief for the eyes.
- Of where, between the sea and Tibidabo, do you have the most memories?
- The Gràcia neighbourhood, the first l got to know when I arrived, and where I sang in the festival. Then I saw the Passeig de San Joan, and I said to myself: What a lovely place to come with my child, when I have one!, and look, a few years have gone by and now it is exactly where I go with my son.
- Which is the best place (a park, a café, a seat in the city) to have a romantic date, or to be able to whisper sweet nothings to a loved one?
- By the sea.
- What colours or smells, when you see or smell them anywhere in the world, remind you immediately of Barcelona?
- The smell of the sea, which is not the same in the Mediterranean as in the Caribbean, for example. And the blue of the sky, which has also a little something different, I don't know what.
- When you have had to leave the city for a while, what have you missed most?
- I don't know if I miss it, but, it's curious, I notice the lack of the frantic pace here, and which, when I'm here stresses me. In Cuba, and in many countries, it is calmer; life is at a different rhythm.
- Which of the changes that have been made in the city recently are you happiest with?
- I really like the changes made for the Olympics, and now those of the Diagonal Mar. I like the return of the tram; it's not very useful, but it's nice. And I also like the Agbar tower, in the Plaça de las Glories, which, I've heard, has been polemical.
- What don't you like, and what would you do to change it?
- The traffic, which is worse every day. I would like a city with fewer cars. But it is difficult, because we have got ourselves into a whirlpool of consumerism, as if it were the panacea of life, but consumerism does not help you to live well; tranquillity, yes.
- Add anything you would like to say, and that we haven't asked.
- I would like to add a few words about my new album, "Mira las luces", because all the songs were written in Barcelona. It is a summary of my African and Cuban roots, but also of my thirteen years living in this city. I want to tell all that I am happy, because I know that while I have been here, I have won your respect and your love.