Juan Diego Rodríguez – Page 11

At the 26th Avenue Havana Zoo Only the Harmful African Snails Are in Good Health

The antelope Eland, also known as the El Cabo elk, has ribs showing at the 26th Avenue Zoo (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 November 2022 — The scenario at the 26th Avenue Zoo in Havana, a year after it reopened its doors after the forced closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is more depressing than ever. Malnourished animals, without water, with their pens full of dirt and excrement, are the general trend, as attested to on Tuesday by 14ymedio.

“The only thing that grows here are the African snails,” summarized a young man who was visiting his partner when he saw the exemplary numbers of that plague that arrived in Cuba a few years ago.

The conditions of the place, which in recent days have been denounced again on social networks, have definitely earned it a bad reputation. “There are very few people, very few children, despite it being a week of school break,” said another woman, who also complained about the high prices of food in the kiosks. Easily, people spend 700 pesos “for nonsense.” Most only manage to buy a frozen fruit.

Despite the fact that at the entrance of the zoo there is a warning that it is out of service, the train works, although a manager travels on board and gets off to push it when it runs out of fuel. Nor do the attractions for children or the electric cars work well, which barely run with their flat tires and tarpaulin covers to disguise the deterioration of the tires.

Skinny and barely moving, the leopard was moaning in his pit, which had no water. The skin of lions, which used to attract visitors more easily, is full of pustules and flea bites. All of them, just like the antelopes, have ribs showing and tired eyes. “The only ones that are well fed are the monkeys, because there are a lot of bananas, and they’re cheap,” said another visitor.

The bear area has been infested by colonies of the African giant snail, an invasive species that raised alerts on the Island as a potential risk to human health, since they carry parasites that can cause diseases such as meningoencephalitis and abdominal angiostrongiliasis. Cuba faced an outbreak of this dangerous mollusc between 2018 and 2019, but work to eradicate it was cut short in 2020 with the arrival of the pandemic. continue reading

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Two Thieves Attack Child in Luyano in Broad Daylight and Steal Phone

“They hit him [the thief] several times”, said a neighbour. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 November 2022 – Muggings in broad daylight are becoming more and more common on Cuban streets. On Wednesday two individuals assaulted a minor in the Luyanó quarter, Diez de Octubre, Havana, and took his phone. The thieves tried to run away but members of the public intervened and one of them was caught and handed over to police.

The attempted robbery happened mid-morning in calle Rodríguez, between Reforma and Fábrica streets. The boy was walking down the road when two youths pounced on him to grab his phone, local residents told 14ymedio. “When the neighbours realized what was happening and went to help the boy one of the youths managed to escape down an alleyway on Reforma but they caught him. The other got away”.

The youth was beaten by a group of residents of the zone and handed over to police, who arrived a short while later. “They hit him several times”, said a neighbour, who witnessed the whole thing from her front door. “I thought they were going to kill him, they were so angry he’d done that to a little kid”.

“These days they don’t even wait till dark, it’s dangerous just to walk the street in the daytime”, the woman added. We used to be able to walk about without worrying around here but now it’s become problematic just getting your phone out or carrying a nice purse or wearing a neck chain -even if it’s fake”.

It’s becoming more and more common for neighbours to take the law into their own hands against thieves, fraudsters or sex offenders. The economic crisis has fuelled an increase in so-called “quick snatch” street crimes [muggings] in which the criminal runs away at top speed after taking a phone or a wallet or a piece of jewellery. Some simply escape on foot while others use bikes or mopeds to get away after committing their crimes. continue reading

In the last few months social media has been filled with complaints in which citizens have called for urgent measures to be taken against the increase in street crime in the country. Some complain that although there are enough police around to deal with protesters and supposed ’crimes’ against the State, there are not enough for rooting out thieves in the local neighbourhood.

The government does not publish the numbers of thefts or robberies, nor those of violent assault, so it is impossible to know when, or whether, the crime rate is increasing or decreasing. Nor does the official media cover this sort of crime or any possible crime wave, generally limiting its coverage to robberies in the state sector, and, in many cases, boasting about successes in solving them.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Fallen Trees and Branches in Central Havana Almost Two Months After Hurricane Ian

Trees destroyed in Trillo Park in Havana, this Thursday, seven weeks after the passage of Hurricane Ian. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 17 November 2022 — Although Hurricane Ian crossed Cuba seven weeks ago, the neighbors of Cayo Hueso, in Havana, have already become accustomed to the collapses and walls stained by moisture. The gritty and grimy buildings, in addition to the potholes in the streets, were part of the landscape long before the hurricane. But now, in addition, they have to live with the huge branches that the wind ripped off the trees in Trillo park.

To get from one street to another you have to go around the poorly paved sidewalks, where the banks and other buildings are also neglected. No workers from the Communal Service, the firefighters or the Armed Forces — whose support after the hurricane was proclaimed by the official press — have cleared the impassible sections of the street.

“In this neighborhood the residents lament that everyone has gone to “see the volcanos” — using a phrase that implies emigrating via Nicaragua. When an old cargo truck appears people quickly crowd onto one of the streets that surround the park. The vehicle travels every week from Villa Clara and exhibits its merchandise — it’s not known if with permission or secretly — of meat, fruits and vegetables.

“Pineapples, for example, cost me 100 pesos in the San Rafael market, which has become impossible,” complains one of the women who waits her turn in line. “But at the truck I buy them at 25. They are smaller, but they’re not bad.”

Sitting on the curb at Trillo park, trying to dodge the dirt and desolation, the inhabitants of Cayo Hueso put their hope of being able to buy from the truck the food they need for the week.

A pound of malanga — “which is softened,” clarifies the seller — or guavas costs only 30 pesos; a pot of chili, 40, and beans — black or colored — can be had for 140. Compared to the prices of the capital, a pound of rice at 55 pesos is cheap, although a bunch of onions costs 80, and a bulb of garlic doesn’t fall below 400 pesos. continue reading

The ruin of public areas after Ian’s passage is not exclusive to Cayo Hueso. Throughout Havana one can see trees torn up by their roots, broken branches, leaf litter and property that no one will clean.

In the vicinity of the so-called “twenty plants” of Centro Habana, at Zanja and Hospital streets, the neighbors not only have to fence their houses to protect themselves from robberies and growing violence on the Island, they also now contemplate, from the balconies, an old broken tree trunk that, as if that weren’t enough, also destroyed the pavement.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Spanish Consulate in Cuba Receives an Avalanche of Nationality Petitions

The line in front of the Spanish Consulate in Havana this Friday. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 18 November 2022 — The Consulate General of Spain in Havana is already receiving appointment requests to process nationality applications under the new Democratic Memory Law (LMD). They will address this procedure from November 21, as reported by the diplomatic headquarters on its networks on Thursday night.

There is a link to the procedure for obtaining that appointment, which includes collecting all the necessary documentation according to the applicant’s case and sending it by email to: cog.lahabana.lmdsol1@maec.es.

In the subject line, applicants must put “citas LMD” [LMD appointments], and in the body of the email, their personal data as follows: first name; first surname; second surname; identity card number, without accents, spaces or any other special character. In addition, they must attach a photo with their identity card visible in their hand.

If everything is in order, the applicant will receive a response from the same address with a username and password to enter another page and effectively select the date of the appointment.

The Consulate asks people not to book the appointment if all the documents are not available, and to send a single email. If they receive several messages from the same account, they warn, they could block it. Once the applicant receives the appointment, they must supply additional documentation and will have only 30 days to deliver it. If this deadline is not met, the application will be denied. continue reading

The announcement had barely been made for a few hours on Thursday, even with an error on the instruction page, when the automatic response from the Consulate arrived with this warning, in capital letters: “We have a very high number of applicants, which causes longer response times. You may receive your credentials with a delay of up to one month.”

This Friday, the Embassy of Spain communicated via Twitter that appointments will be processed at the Consular Civil Registry, located in the Lonja del Comercio, in Old Havana. At the headquarters on Zulueta Street at the corner of Cárcel, a crowd of people came for various procedures.

Although none were there for the LMD, but rather to resolve other issues, some regretted the bureaucratic difficulties in getting a hearing at the consular office. “From here, the appointment page didn’t work for me, but I solved it with a person who offered me the service.” Thus, a procedure that by law should be free, cost him $600.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Havana: The Art of Makeup, or When Galiano Becomes Avenida de Italia

Galiano has never been an easy street. There’s no commercial route in the Cuban capital that doesn’t pass through it: everything dies and is born at its gates. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 17 November 2022 — By day it’s the street called Galiano and by night it becomes Italy Avenue. While the sun shines on its faded edifices and its cracked walls, it’s just another arterial road in Central Havana, with its beggars and its street vendors, but when evening falls it becomes an all-new shop window of Christmas lights, a sparkle that dazzles the locals and ruffles the feathers of those others who have to live through long hours of power cuts.

Galiano has never been easy. It doesn’t have the range of Reina nor the ancestry of Paseo del Prado, but there isn’t a commercial route in the Cuban capital that doesn’t pass through it. Everything dies and is born at its gates. Do you need a disposable razor? Glue to fix grandma’s coffee cup? A belt to keep your trousers up? You can find all this and more in Avenida Italia, a name no one actually uses but which could help you if you were lost.

Now, the official press is talking about transforming the street and turning it into “an innovative urban zone, fit for the principles of the circular economy, digital culture, creativity, and valuing all the products of the supply chains”. Pure word-soup that hardly resonates at all among the tiny shops and street vendors or in the threatening looks of the police on non-stop patrol.

“It is a project which is being made with Italian collaboration and co-finance. We are working with the Italian Agency for Cultural and Economic Exchange with Cuba” (AICEC in Spanish), states an article in Havana Tribune, which prefers to use the more glamorous name of the street in order to ingratiate itself — the hard way, but anything to get a few Euros — with the boot-shaped peninsular that has little or no connection with the scar that Galiano has become, which stretches from the Havana coast all the way down to El Curita park.

At night it becomes Neapolitan and cosmopolitan with lights strung up on high, which might fool some tourist into believing, wrongly, that this sort of lighting is common elsewhere in the dingy streets and dark stairwells of Havana. Local media are full of pictures of workers installing the bulb-festooned cables and there’s no lack of opportune interviews with passers-by talking about the wonders of these fireflies of hope above their heads. But the dawn always arrives in Galiano. continue reading

Day comes and the lights are no longer noticeable, the guy who asks you for money on the corner of San Rafael is again begging for something to enable him to eat, the lady who offers sponges to freshen up, and who disappears every time a police officer passes by, returns to the doorways. And of Avenida Italia only a memory remains. The makeup only lasts while the sun doesn’t shine.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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With Rented Ration Cards, the ‘Coleros’* of Luyano, Cuba, Gain Power Once Again

Residents of Luyanó complaining that authorities have turned a blind eye to irregularities between employees and ‘coleros’.* (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, 13 November 2022 — Peace did not last long in the store on Melones street in Luyanó, Havana, where following the death of an elderly man on November 1st, a network of corruption between employees and coleros* was uncovered.

The employees, according to residents of the area, had a team of 15 people who were allowed to purchase what they wanted and would bring the employees lunch, coffee, sodas and snacks. Following the scandal, new agents from a group to “fight against coleros*” (LCC — for lucha contra coleros) were sent to the establishment, and on the first day at least they made it clear, with a sermon to the masses, that they were “impenetrable” to corruption, and that people should abstain from trying to bribe them with handouts.

“Due to the blow up, at the end of last week, coleros were not visible near the store, but by Tuesday they began to emerge from their caves,” says María, who for months has endured the shortages and corrupt practices on Melones street. “That day, we began to see the ‘scams’ again,” she said. “The same people as always” took the first 20 spots and people who were there since the early hours of the morning began to complain. Without success: “When the LCC begin to collect the ration cards, the coleros act tough. Most of those standing in line don’t say anything because they are older people who do not want to confront that type of element.”

To top it off, they nearly had to mourn another life: an elderly woman fainted in the middle of the crowd and had to be cared for by a doctor. “At least they gave both of them the opportunity to shop before their turn.”

Another day, when sausages were for sale, people rose up when they were informed that there were only a total of 50 units to be sold. Neighbors say that someone called the authorities, that one police officer “was disrespectful to a young man,” and that both “ended up tangled in punches.” continue reading

María cannot understand how just a week after the operation the authorities once again turn a blind eye to the “irregularities.” “How is it possible, if the law says that you may only buy for your household, and you must have the ID card for that household, and they are buying at all hours and everyone knows them.”

Area residents infer that the coleros operate with what they call “rented ration cards”– someone gives them their ration card, and then they stand in line for that person in exchange for half the products; that way, the ration card holder is guaranteed at least the other half.**

In the “mincemeat” line, a lieutenant had to come and help organize it along with one of the new LCC members and one of the residents complained about the situation with the intimidating hoarders, “And you guys are scared, what are you scared of? Get them out of here, don’t let them in!” recounted María. “People said, Well, if they are the police and don’t get involved and they know the people who are skipping the line, how could they be sending elderly people to confront them?”

“Tremendous snitching, that is what is going on here!” said María who yelled at one of those “elements” whom everyone knows.

At another point, she narrates, an official arrived, “someone from the government who arrived in one of those motorcycles, went into the store for a while and later they all came out laughing.” It seems, says María sarcastically, that “the impenetrables have already been penetrated.”

Although they don’t say it out loud, says the woman, everyone in the neighborhood understands clearly. “Everyone leaves displeased saying, ‘How could this be?’ that it’s always the same, people feel insulted,” says a nurse who after her shift was trying to get some hot dogs. “In the end, the situation is taking on the same tone as with the other group.”

On Friday, one of the three days of the week when chicken “arrives,” it was chaos once again in the line at the store on Melones, and once again, the police had to restore order. Again this week, María is unable to buy her little package of chicken: “What’s the point of changing the team, the corruption problem will be the same with the LCC.”

Translator’s notes:

*”Coleros” — from the Cuban word for line, ’cola’ (literally ’tail’) — are people who make a little money by standing in line for others, who pay them ’under the table’ (called ’on the left’ in Cuba). The practice is widespread, and illegal.

** Lines in Cuba can be hours and even multiple days long, which is why the ’coleros’ play an important role for those who pay them.

Translated by: Silvia Suarez

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Barefoot and Dirty, Cuba’s Beggar Children of Central Havana Do Not Officially Exist

At the corner where the child beggars operate, an infirm lady arrives and scolds them for begging. (*14ymedio*)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo/Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 9 November 9, 2022 –Ragged, with hollow eyes and a slightly hoarse voice, two children ask for money in Central Havana. The older may be fourteen or fifteen years old, the younger not more than eight. One is barefoot, with curly hair and a face stained by dirt. The other wears a pair of tattered flip-flops.

They ring a bell and extend a wicker basket, taking advantage of the activity at Belascoaín and Carlos III. At the corner where the child beggars operate, an infirm lady, not very presentable, arrives, and she scolds them for begging. “Where’s your family?” she asks them, without the children being able to respond.

The rate of begging on the Island has skyrocketed tragically, and if before you saw only older men begging in the streets, usually alcoholics, now women, the disabled, psychiatric patients, adolescents and children also do so.

The “homeless’ euphemism which the Government has applied to beggars has proven to be a crude simplification. Although many of them, in fact, live on the streets and sleep in the doorways or corners of a dilapidated building, others beg “as a job.” They are located on central avenues and question not only tourists, but also Cubans.

In many cases they are “stationary” beggars; they choose a neighborhood or a specific corner, and learn to take the pulse of their space: the best hours, the faces of passers-by, the precise words to earn a coin or a loaf of bread. continue reading

“Most of the adults are very deteriorated from alcohol and age,” Julia, a neighbor of Central Havana, tells 14ymedio. They are the typical drunks, who always carry their plastic bottle to store the chispa, the alcohol of any category they consume. Most are adult men.”

In many cases they are “stationary” beggars: they choose a neighborhood or a specific corner, and learn to take the pulse of their space. (14ymedio)

The reason that begging has proliferated so much, says Julia, is due both to the resounding crisis that is going through the Island and the closure of several old-age homes in Havana. “These are things that have a lot to do with it: the collapse of the economy, the emergence of poverty and the forced parental responsibility in the new Family Code. Everything is designed so that the State can wash their hands,” she says.

“On the ground floor of my building,” the woman says, “several beggars ’alternate’. There was an old and very sick one, with a tube from his urine collector, always stained with a bloody liquid. He slept between cartons and right there he urinated and defecated, right in front of the front door.”

Like other neighbors, Julia avoids leaving the building when the beggars are “on guard.” A recent episode of violence confirms this forecast. “Recently, a neighbor came down at ten at night to throw out the garbage and one of them took advantage, pushed the door and tried to enter the building. I don’t know what he intended, whether to lie inside, urinate or settle on the roof.”

“The neighbor tried to bar the way and the man became aggressive. Since then, we never take out the garbage at night,” explains Julia.

One of the variants of poverty in Havana is the “beggar sellers.” (14ymedio)

Faced with government rhetoric, which closes its eyes to extreme poverty on the Island, the woman insists that there have always been beggars, but now they are increasingly aggressive, and it’s common for them to become “fixed tenants” of doorways and buildings. Even so, they still frequent the “boulevards for beggars” of Havana: Infanta, Carlos III, Belascoaín streets and other central avenues.

“Cubans don’t have a culture of giving money to beggars,” Julia adds. Children are always warned that beggars want someone else to “pay for their vices,” and they use that capital to buy rum or cigars. That’s why it’s uncommon for passers-by who walk through Havana’s long covered sidewalks to place a banknote in the baskets that the homeless extend.

One of the variants that poverty adopts in Havana is that of the “beggar-sellers,” sitting on the ground outside the buildings. “The most notorious thing about their ’goods’,” says Julia, “is that they’re things that are old, used, sometimes dirty, in a variety that goes from pots, casseroles and other kitchen utensils, to equipment, plugs and, of course, broken shoes and old books.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In the Absence of Imported Fat, Soap Production in Cuba Collapses

The shortage of the product is mainly due to the Government’s deficient management of production. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 9 November 2022 — Soap is another of the basic products that are disappearing from Cuban stores. The few bars available are sold on the black market at prices that are unaffordable for most people: more than 90 pesos for laundry soap and 80 pesos for personal-use soap.

Luis’s neighbor spent two weeks asking him for help to get a bar. “She practically begged me to find one for her, because she hasn’t bathed in 15 days,” says this Centro Habana resident.

Luis usually buys a large number of bars, because when he gets to stores that only take payment in freely convertible money (MLC) “there’s a long line. At home we don’t use the rationed soap, which itches tremendously, but there are people who have to bathe with it,” Luis says.

The shortage of the product is mainly due to the poor production managed by the Government. The Basic Business Unit (UEB) Suchel Cetro, in Habana del Este, had plans to develop 13,383 tons of washing soap for this year, but in October it had only achieved 44.6% of the quota, with a little more than 5,978 tons. continue reading

The same difficulties are present in the production of toilet soap: the company had a plan of 10,200 tons this year, and it has only produced 4,970, tons, 47% of the goal. “The main cause is the increase in the price of the raw materials necessary for this product,” apologized Alexander Puig Varona, director of the UEB, in a post in Cubadebate where, according to the media, he sought to clarify the doubts of readers about the shortage of the product.

Cuba imports most of the raw materials it needs, mainly base soap chips, which, due to the pandemic, it has not been able to acquire in the amount required to boost manufacturing. Nor does it keep the Cuban chip plant operational, Puig Varona explained, because it’s “impossible” to bring in the tankers with the fat.

Given the shortage of antiseptic, in Guantánamo, the Labiofam company has resorted to substitute materials to make soap for humans and pets. An example of this is the Jatropha curcas, a plant imported from the Mexican state of Morelos, acquired with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (COSUDE).

With four cups of its oil, 418 units were made, of 1 ounce each, in the minimum format of “hotel soap.” This production, which took 30 minutes, was allocated to health and veterinary services, the company reported on Facebook on September 19.

The production also includes a batch of soap made from neem, a plant native to India with medicinal properties. A production of 5,000 bags of 8 ounces of soap was planned for September.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Havana’s Calixto Garcia Hospital There is Nothing, but Everything is Solved with Money

“Everyone was waiting in the hospital corridor without any separation, even a lady full of blisters, as if she had monkeypox.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 7 November 2022 — Today the General Calixto García University Hospital in Havana is far from being the center of prestige that it once was. Even less does it honor the propaganda that, on official pages, sells its services as “high quality.”

The hospital, one of the oldest in the capital, is rather the epitome of the situation of hospitals in Cuba. While the Government promotes its powerful Medical Services Marketer as a desperate tool to attract tourism, which still is avoiding the Island, hospital centers and doctors’ offices for Cubans are sinking into squalor, corruption and unhealthiness.

Sandra remembers the week she spent at the Calixto García with her mother, Luisa, as a nightmare. Both resisted going to the doctor, like so many other Cubans, until the woman, about seventy years old, began to run out of breath, and the chest pain she suffered became unbearable.

They took it for granted that they would have to travel by taxi and not by ambulance, given the fuel shortage. What outraged both, as soon as they entered, was that there were not even stretchers. “I had to look for a stretcher and move it throughout the hospital,” Sandra tells 14ymedio. The shortage of personnel, precisely, is something widespread in health services due, above all, to the unstoppable migration.

The wait to go to the consultation was not in a room, but in the middle of the corridor, where the smell of disinfectant was overshadowed by the bad smells and urine coming from the bathrooms. “My nose is very sensitive,” says Sandra, “and that was unbearable.” continue reading

Right there, they observed a whole parade of patients, many of them with severe dengue fever, which this season has ravaged the Island. “Everyone was waiting there, without any separation, even a lady full of blisters, as if she had monkeypox,” the young woman continues. “Without any privacy or anything like it, on a stretcher in the middle of the hallway, they pumped the stomach of a woman who had overdosed with Diazepam. The woman said she wanted to leave all this shit. What can I say, not everyone is strong.”

The worst, however, was yet to come. Luisa, diagnosed with pneumonia, spent the night alone in the hospital. Her daughter, when she went to visit her the next day, observed that her arm was swollen. “It’s very common, they told me, that the needle comes out of the vein and the serum accumulates under the skin,” she says. “The problem is that the nurse told me there were no more needles anywhere and they couldn’t change it.”

Sandra soon knew that “no side” was defeated with a little will… and money under the table. The young woman first approached the supervisor and the deputy director of the hospital. “They swore that they couldn’t change it, that I had to put up with it.” When she turned around, already resigned, an employee of the center, who witnessed the scene, approached her and said: “I can solve that for you, tell me what bed she’s in, wait for me there, I’m going to bring it to you.” Sandra gave her 200 pesos, and another 200 to the nurse who, in collusion with the assistant, gave Luisa the new needle for the drip line.

“They also offered me Rocephin [the antibiotic specifically prescribed for her mother] at 250 pesos per vial, and if I needed a person to stay with my relative, they would also solve it for me,” Sandra explains.

And she adds: “With all that, they tell you any amount, they lie constantly. One day they didn’t give my mother the antibiotic and told her some story. In the morning, in another shift of nurses, I complained, and one said: ’Yes, they gave her the Rocephin, because here in the book it’s recorded’.”

Sandra can’t explain “how a simple hospital employee has the needles, medicines, everything, and yet, the bosses assured me that there was nothing in the hospital. Everything is pure corruption; Cuban hospitals have become a horror.”

As if that were not enough, one morning, several patients’ mobile phones were stolen. “In the same room, in 24 hours, there were three similar robberies,” says Sandra. “If it wasn’t an employee, it was someone disguised as an employee.”

In the midst of the sufferings of their relatives, people were forced to go to an Etecsa (State telecommunications company) office, with the identity card of the patients and a medical certificate stating that they were hospitalized, so that the state-owned company could cancel the phone number and allow them to take out a new line.

Sandra is telling all this, she says, “so that people have an idea of what someone who has a sick relative in this country has to go through. Going to a hospital has become a disaster.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Confusion and Annoyance in Cuba Over the Registration of Generators to Buy Gasoline

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 8 November 2022 — Barely two or three people in line filled their generators this Tuesday at the service center on Libertadores de Holguín Avenue. A day before, there were more than thirty customers, and their photos spread like wildfire on independent networks and media.

At the back of the long line they had already heard the news about the fuel shortage that plagues the country, which requires increasingly strict rationing measures. In Holguín, in particular, the owners of generators are obliged to “register” the device in the Cupet if they want to receive 2.6 gallons of gasoline.

“First we were told that the district delegate was in charge of making the list of generators that people have, especially those who use them to maintain a cafeteria or a rental house,” says Elisa, the owner of a guest house in that city. “But on the weekend, another neighbor who also rents to foreigners told me that we had to wake up on Monday and go to the gas station to be able to register the generator.”

At the gas station, they found more people in the same situation, some with their physical power plants, others with a photo or something that showed ownership of the device.

“The employees didn’t know very well what to do, but they finally noted down the identity card and serial number of each generator,” Elisa says. continue reading

The confusion was because, in reality, the latest official provisions for the province leave nothing explicit regarding this new “census.” According to a publication by the Cimex state corporation in Holguín on November 1, from that day on, a “scheme” would be established to “organize and expedite the dispatch of fuel,” indicating the type of vehicle, device or need for each Cupet gas station.

The one on Libertadores Avenue would serve for generators, “all fuels,” private and state cars, basic services, people with disabilities and tourism (“when there is no availability or current in Transtur,” they specify). Nothing was said, however, about quantity or frequency.

This Monday, after standing between motorcyclists and cars, Elisa bought her first 2.6 gallons of gasoline and was told to stop by the service center in the next few days to see what the “final” schedule would be to buy again. They detailed: “At the moment it’s between 10 and 12 days, depending on the availability of fuel.”

The young woman took the opportunity to leave her tax number in case that can help her in the future to buy more fuel for her private business, which shows her desperation and that of so many others in the same situation. “I have to guarantee customers that they will at least have a light in the bathroom if there is a power outage.”

User comments on Cimex’s provincial publication are full of complaints and criticism. “Every time they talk about ’reordering’* they make things worse; this country needs resources, not reordering,” complains Yunier Batista González.

“What they tell me about the licensed private motorcycles is that only the Cupet 4 de Abril is assigned to them for fuel, and they have to share it with all the other motorcycles that aren’t licensed,” says Yamil Naciff, who wonders why they are assigned a certain Cupet if “we are also taxi drivers… They don’t take us into account at all or give us importance, and that’s very serious, because we support our families with that work. Fuel instability kills us.”

Ivan Alexander Chacón, who explains his situation, believes that the new measures don’t solve anything: “I’m seeing it in person. I have been in line for three days and on a list to buy [fuel] for my motorcycle in La Loma. I needed to travel to Cacocum, and I couldn’t buy because I was from Holguín. You have to make sure to go to the Cupet and not miss [your turn]; this madness is seen only in the province of Holguín.”

In the same vein, Reydel Pereira protests: “I don’t know what happens with Holguín. Everything here is a line, scarcity and high prices, because in Havana this doesn’t happen, in Santiago this doesn’t happen.”

The panorama in Holguín, however, is neither new nor unique. The first province to decree a rationing system for generators, more in demand as the blackouts increased, was Pinar del Río. There, since last August 20, only 5 gallons of gasoline are sold to generator owners “when it’s in stock in the Cupet.” To prove membership, they must present their identity card and proof “of ownership of the generator” to the Municipal Directorate of Economy and Planning.

In Havana, anyone who wants to buy fuel for their generator must also prove they own it, although they only need to bring the serial number to the service center, where 5 gallons will be dispatched, as reported to 14ymedio this same Tuesday by an employee of the Cupet at 25th and G, in El Vedado. Of course, he pointed out, “only when there is [fuel], because now there is nothing at all.”

*Translator’s note: The commentator is referring to the so-called “Ordering Task” [tarea ordenamiento] which is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso (CUP) as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency, which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Victor, the Puppeteer who Raises a Smile on the Faces of Cubans in the Midst of Poverty

In Calle Obispo, Old Havana, you can find Víctor, with a puppet that moves to the rhythm of his paintbrushes. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo/Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 November 2022 – Street Artists, fortune tellers, beggars, Tarot readers, palm readers, wizards, promise-keepers, pickpockets. Old Havana is constantly in turmoil and those who live there have to earn a crust by any means possible. Skill, cunning and a ’creole’ type of flair are, in the midst of the general poverty of the country, the only tools available for being able to go home with a bit of money in the pocket.

On Calle Obispo, people push and shove, trying frenetically to make their way about, going in and out of shops, pharmacies, kiosks and snack bars. Then it catches the attention that there’s a group of people who are there to block the way and detain you — under an overhanging roof. And there… you find Víctor, a silent young man, hidden behind the miniature canvas curtains of his Galería Morionet.

Víctor operates the strings of his little puppet theatre — whose name combines that of the painter Claude Monet with the word ’marionette’ — and he makes his puppet, a Cuban skilled like himself, draw a portrait of a man on a piece of cardboard.

It’s a refined skill, and not the kind of skill that can be learnt in a mere couple of weeks. The puppet master pulls on his strings and the puppet shakes his paintbrush, fills it with watercolour and moves towards the easel. Sometimes a dog approaches and the puppet artist looks up at him cautiously, without stopping his work, and then he strokes its nose.

People watch the scene, fascinated. The puppet paints in a messy kind of dump that might be any habanero’s place, splattered with paint stains and continue reading

above which hang two unstable-looking balconies. Louis Armstrong’s blues plays in the little room, and, when the music stops, some coins drop into the Galería Morionet’s tray.

Unless they are tourists the passers-by aren’t able to offer much, and, after distracting themselves from their worries for a little while with the show, they have to continue walking on through a city that gets more and more inhospitable. Two police officers eye the youth with suspicion; he carries on with his work without paying them too much attention.

On the sidewalks the waiters of the paladares [private restaurants] spring on the passers-by, interrupting them and unfurling their menus without anyone being able to stop them. None of the habaneros can afford the luxury of dining out in Old Havana, but the waiters have to be seen to be active and charming, in order for the owner, who also must defend his business, to justify their salaries.

Sitting on the sidewalk, a mixed-race boy, dressed spotlessly in white, offers a card reading. Next to him, water and a cloth on which sits his deck of cards, ready for the next fortune-telling. But nobody stops, and, bored, he stands up to smooth out his clothes, and then resumes sitting.

On another corner a cartoonist draws the portraits of celebrities like Chucho Valdés and Alicia Alonso. Children beg their parents to let him draw them and the man gets to work: back bent over, he holds a board in one hand and with the other he manipulates his ballpoint pen.

Stilt-walkers have also become part of the scenery in the city, especially in groups which roam those streets with more tourists. Noisy and colourfully dressed, these urban artistes hardly manage to get, these days, more than a couple of notes stuffed into their hats — made from remnants and bells — as the fewer number of travellers arriving in the city has left them practically without customers.

Mounted on their wooden stilts they wait on some corner or other for a Transtur coach to discharge its small group of passengers around the Plaza de Armas or the Castillo de la Fuerza. Their show is brief, to avoid the tourists returning to the coach before having left a bit of money, which, amongst all the laughter and song the performers make sure to tell them that “euros or dollars” would be better received “by these particular street artistes”.

Beyond the tourist area the situation takes on sadder tones. It’s not unusual to meet an old lady in a dirty dressing gown begging for money to buy a few pounds of sweet potatoes, or a ’promise-keeper’ dragging a stone tied to his ankle with a chain. As he approaches, as if he were a soul in purgatory, he holds out a bowl for someone to throw in some ’kilos’. The people who watch him, shocked by the marks on his leg, have little to give him.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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An Officially-Appointed Comedian Livens Up a Havana Fair with Not Much for Sale

Surrounding the crowd, many soldiers guarded the entrance to the square. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 5 November 2022 — Microphone in hand, comedian Kike Quiñones tried to drag a smile out of the hundreds who gathered in Plaza de Carlos III in Central Havana on Saturday. A fair had started earlier in the day, at which the star attraction was two pieces of fried chicken in an aluminium container for every attendee. But the comic’s jokes didn’t manage to alter the long faces of those who had waited hours to purchase this product.

“I can sell you the right to buy the container because I’ve already waited twice and now I’m only interested in buying the chicken”, a woman explained to a boy, who, after counting the money he had in his wallet, checked if it was enough to pay the 170 pesos for the container and the 40 pesos more that made up the amount for the chicken. “There’s Lada and Moskvitch spares on sale too, but I don’t have a car so I’m not even interested in those either”, said an elderly man who’d been waiting “since before nine o’clock”.

Surrounding the crowd, many soldiers guarded the entrance to the square. “I want to see just what it is you’re filming there, Sir”, quipped Quiñones when a young boy pulled out his phone to record the show. The gag only continue reading

drew a guffaw from one of the soldiers but didn’t at all amuse those who were lining up and who knew very well what kind of problems can result from pointing a camera at the Police and the Special Forces. “They’re laughing now, but for less than that they’ll slap a fine on you or pile you into a truck and cart you off to the station”, said an adolescent who was also waiting for the container and the chicken.

A while later, the line was still growing and the comic’s jokes had come to an end. All you could hear were the grumbles and shouts of those who, fearing they wouldn’t get what they’d waited for, called out for more food to be put out for sale, and at a lower price. Before 12pm the fair was already flagging and still with hardly any food available.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Havana’s Service Stations: Out of Gas or Closed

If you’re in a hurry, you cannot afford to wait in line at the gas station on 25th and G streets in Havana, where at least twenty cars are parked in the sun, waiting their turn at the pump. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, October 27, 2022 — Two dilapidated Moskvich cars are at the head of the line at the service center on the corner of G and 25th streets in Havana. The driver of the first one, a red vehicle, pays for his fuel ration while an employee explains to customers that they cannot buy an extra gallon. “You’re only allowed to buy what fits in the tank,” she says adamantly. “Everyone knows that.”

The second Moskvich, with a badly bruised body painted over in blue, is waiting its turn while the employee continues her warning, speaking loud enough for the other drivers to hear. “People don’t understand,” she says, “We’re almost out of fuel and, for today at least, we won’t be getting any more. That’s the way is.”

Forecasts by the state-owned Unión Cuba-Petróleo (Cupet) on Wednesday paint a discouraging picture. Given the “higher-than-usual demand ” and the “operational challenges” of transporting the gasoline from the Cienfuegos refinery, the fuel shortage is expected to continue.

The cars slowly inch along as Cupet employees wait on them without any sense of urgency. If you’re in a hurry, you cannot afford to wait in line at a gas station like this one. Almost twenty cars are parked in the street, waiting their turn.

Having both a full tank and some gas in reserve has become almost impossible in the capital. Drivers face two realities: either a service station is completely empty — a sign that it has not had gasoline in days — or the wait in line lasts many hours. continue reading

That’s how it is at the Tangana gas station between Calzada and N streets, where vehicles form three distinct side-by-side lines. No one can say how long the wait time is to get to the pump.

If you are willing to give them some of the fuel you buy, however, there are drivers who will let you cut in line, admits one driver waiting in this impossible queue, which winds its way around the block several times.

The most devastating outcome is driving to a service station and discovering you have wasted what little fuel you had getting there. With nothing to sell, the Cupet station at San Rafael and Infanta streets has been left completely open. The only business in operation on the site is the small side building, where the absence of a line signals that it too has nothing worth buying.

There are no cars at the Rampa station on 23rd and Malecon. In spite of its prime location at the gateway to Vedado, the government has not made any fuel deliveries here either.

The fuel shortage is making many daily tasks, such as delivering merchandise to produce markets and moving households, more chaotic and costly. According to 27-year-old Abel, member of a team which moves furniture and personal belongings from one dwelling to another, “the gas shortage has raised prices for customers and complicated the work” of his small business.

“Right now, the average move between two houses here in Havana, which takes a four-man crew, costs at least 20,000 pesos. And that price has a lot to do with the problems of buying fuel. That means we can’t do our job efficiently and, ultimately, it’s the customer who pays for that,” he says.

Abel’s team must confirm they can get diesel fuel for his truck several days in advance. And often customers must wait a bit longer so that the team can then confirm things with them. “We can’t tell them yes until we know we we’ll be able to fill the tank and we can never be sure of that,” he says. The black market is an option but, as he says, “being in a hurry is expensive. You don’t have to wait in line but you’ll feel it in your wallet.”

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The Real Cuba Inspires More Terror Than any Halloween Witch

The whole place, like so many other premises these days, is decorated, like they do in America, to celebrate the night of the witches. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 28 October 2022 — This weekend, customers of the private restaurant Rey & Gaby (on G y 25th, El Vedado) are being welcomed onto the premises by a special ’doctor’. He wears a white hospital gown, but all splashed with red — resembling bloodstains and guts hanging out of his body. The whole place is decorated, like many other premises on this date in the calendar, in the way they do it in America — to celebrate the night of the witches, Halloween, on 31 October.

Skulls, cobwebs, scary clowns, vampires… all made from paper maché, even the round pumpkins, which are native to the neighbouring country to the north, with their terrifying faces carved by hand, but which are non-existent on the island.

It’s clear that they’ve gone to town with the decorations at Rey & Gaby, but what’s really scary is the reality which is everywhere. Firstly, their prices — one piece of cheesecake, another distinctly American product, costs more than a thousand pesos: enough to bring on a heart attack in even the most stoical of people.

In the same restaurant, it’s the ‘hipbreaking’ transport inspector who is more feared — pushing crowds of people onto buses, like tins of sardines.

For months now, the population has seemed guarded, when not short-tempered or straight out violent. continue reading

Further out, the ruined houses of what used to be the richest neighbourhood of the capital rise up threateningly, columns in precarious equilibrium, faded and worn facades, invaded by the wild vegetation.

Even worse, in recent months the darkness caused by planned power cuts has increased the tension in the streets: the gloom being favourable to all kinds of assailants, much more alive than any zombies.

And all that’s not to mention the horror stories that run around the suburbs. According to one, in some areas of the city there are these two certain police cars, in reality unmarked vehicles, that turn up by surprise at the street corners where street-sellers are to be found, and, with no pity, fines of thousands of pesos are handed out.

Even more sad than souls in purgatory are the relatives of the thousands and thousands of Cubans who have abandoned the island over the last year in an unprecedented exodus, leaving behind them nothing but ghost towns.

Certainly, in current times, Cuba is itself more terrifying than any Halloween witch.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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More Than 4,000 People are on the Waiting List to Buy Dollars at a Currency Exchange in Havana

If a walk by the ATMs of Havana demonstrates the shortage of pesos in the country, a stroll by the Cadecas [currency exchanges] illustrates another lack: that of dollars.

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 20 October 2022 — This Wednesday, in the Cadeca on Belascoaín, in Central Havana, only 10 people were served. Taking into account that, according to the official provisions in force since last August 22, each individual can get a maximum of 100 dollars a day, the branch sold only 1,000 dollars.

The Cadeca, located in the municipality with the maximum population density, cannot meet the demand: to date, the police officers in charge of “keeping order” in the line have a waiting list of 4,000 people. “In the next century maybe I can buy,” a young man said sadly this Thursday, as he walked away.

At the El Vedado Cadeca, located at 23rd street between J and L, the panorama is slightly more encouraging. Every day about 30 buyers manage to be served, which means a maximum sale of 3,000 dollars. However, more than two weeks ago there were 700 people on the list to enter, and this Wednesday, the number was 275.

“From what I see there are new faces, who don’t know how this works. I always start with the most important part: discipline.” The policeman in charge of the Cadeca on 23rd says, with his words denoting that day by day he usually attends to the same people, and takes pride in the good progress of that branch.

“Here there has to be order, citizen tranquillity, respect for the person. From here [the line] to there [the door] there will never be a lack of respect,” he continues. “From there to here it has to be the same. I say this because other citizens of other municipalities, such as Arroyo Naranjo or Diez de Octubre, come here imposing. Nothing is imposed here. I don’t impose on what we’re doing. Everything is working fine.”

The officer warns that “scams cannot happen here” and that citizens who come to “propose” one must be denounced. “I’m going for fourteen scams here to clarify,” he says, while assuring that those suspects “have disappeared,” and clarifies, referring to the Havana prisons: “in the best sense of the word, of course: Valle Grande, Combinado del Este….” Thus, he says that six people have been arrested. continue reading

The idea of aiming at 700, he says, occurred to him two Saturdays ago, when such a tumult was organized that the authorities had to close the street. “There have been 275 people. We have about 425 left. When am I going to write them up, that’s what interests you the most?” he asks in a pedagogical tone, to answer, diffusely: when the list stays at “100, 150, or 200 and up to 300.”

“Three hundred! That’s a fantasy,” replies a woman, laughing, who has been approaching the Cadeca for several days in a row, and the policeman reprimands her: “Discipline, compañera, discipline.”

The reason, the officer explains, is because he has to “juggle the availability of what the Cadeca compañeros have and what the compañeros of the Ministry, the Management, tell me to do.” Indeed, as indicated by the rules approved in August, each branch will only be able to sell the few currencies it bought from customers the day before.

Normally, they let between 30 and 40 people pass, but one day, suddenly, 60 people managed to enter, which caused many to lose their place in line. “The one who missed his turn lost,” says the officer, who also warns that no one can take more than one turn, even if he comes with someone else’s card.

“The problem is that if you don’t know how many turns there will be, you have to come every day,” laments an old man in line, once the policeman has retired. “This is a debacle,” interjects a middle-aged man, who nevertheless concedes: “And this is the best Cadeca; the rest are dying. In Monaco [on Diez de Octobre] there is no list. You can go to sleep from one day to the next and you won’t qualify.”

I’ve been here for two weeks and haven’t been able to sign up, and I see how the list stays the same,” complains another woman, who immediately takes things with resignation and says sarcastically, “That’s the way it is. Imagine: we are happy here.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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