14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 September 2020 — No authorized representative came to knock on my door. I found out from my neighbor. “Hey, did you hear they locked us up?” That was it.
I leaned out the window and saw the building’s “political factions” [the ‘watchdogs’] gathered in the park at the entrance and went downstairs to ask. A neighbor on the eighth floor has tested positive for Covid-19. Now “he is hospitalized and his family is quarantined,” they explained.
It was 6:30 and there was not much time to do essential tasks, because starting at 7:00 pm, under the terms of the Havana curfew, no one is allowed out on the street.
I wasn’t the only one who had questions to ask. Many neighbors who learned about the confinement like I did came down to clarify their doubts.
“Each case will be seen individually, but do not worry, madam, people with emergencies and important medical appointments will be allowed to leave without problems”
An elderly woman with her son explained that on Thursday she had an important appointment with the doctor, another man said that he could not miss work because it was essential, and a retiree asked permission to go and get bread and stop by the cashier to get some cash. “Each case will be seen individually, but do not worry, madam, people with emergencies and important medical appointments will be allowed to leave without problems,” he replied.
I wanted to know, above all, if the residents could at least go to the bakery, since as of this Wednesday the tents that are set up in these cases for the sale of food and other basic necessities have not yet been installed in the building.
Today is my eldest daughter’s birthday, and just yesterday I ordered a cake and some pizzas from a delivery service to bring today so we can celebrate, without guests, but with a small candle.
“Do not worry, we will solve that; it is the first day and there are still many things to organize,” a lady from the Neighborhood Council, who was jotting down in a notebook the concerns of all the neighbors, said to me.
“It will be 14 days of quarantine, take it easy, this will go on for a while,” she told me.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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