The banging of pots was played by workers, government employees, and even officials who live in this area of El Vedado.
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, July 17, 2026 / On Thursday night, after 28 hours of blackout and a brief period with electricity, the people in my neighborhood reached a state of collective rage unlike anything I had never before experienced. The power was restored for barely 90 minutes, by which time the refrigerators were completely thawed, the water in the rooftop tank had run dry, and the heat had turned our bodies into dirty, sweaty surfaces.
Then, after that brief burst of light, the power went out again, and the banging of pots and pans erupted in indignation. I had never heard in this area of Nuevo Vedado, in Havana, banging pots and pans with such force, frequency, and duration. I couldn’t film the chorus of anguish spreading everywhere because my phone hadn’t managed to revive from the coma it was left in by the previous power outage. But it is enough for me now to recall that melody of social anger etched in my memory. I even heard the clanging from balconies, windows, and terraces where I had never before heard anything dissenting, not even a curse word thrown into the wind.
I even heard the clanging from balconies, windows and terraces where I had never before heard anything dissenting, not even a swear word thrown into the wind
The potbanging came from the workers, government employees, and even civil servants who live in this part of the Cuban capital. In a neighborhood of high-rise buildings, constructed under the microbrigade system and with apartments often awarded based on work and political merit, we find everyone from bureaucrats who share their workday with ministers and secretaries of the Communist Party to retirees who once helped build the repressive apparatus that subjugates us all. They, too, banged their pots and pans. Hidden in the darkness, without going out into the street, without even looking out from their balconies, they banged the pot hard, pounding on the pan as if it were the wall of the Electric Union or the facade of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
Last night this neighborhood changed. Will my neighbors take to the streets to protest like they do in San Miguel del Padrón, Regla, Guanabacoa, Luyanó, or Cayo Hueso? I don’t rule it out, although the geographical proximity to the Council of State, the Ministry of the Armed Forces, and the Ministry of the Interior might be a reason why many are still hesitant to take that step, for fear of a more violent repression than in other parts of Havana. But last night my neighborhood resonated, vibrated, and shouted through a long, furious banging of pots and pans, with moments of a symphonic anxiety that helped to dispel some of the fear.
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