The sweaty waiters at Via Venetto impatiently check their watches, smoking and chatting, hesitantly fearful of the swarming flies. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, June 29, 2023 — No one shows any interest in having lunch at Via Venetto, whose interior is pitch black and flies buzz around the pizzas on display. The restaurant is located on Obispo Street in a downtown area with constant foot traffic that should make it an ideal spot for any food service establishment. The shabby appearance of this formerly state-run operation — it was rented out long ago to private individuals — stands in contrast to the liveliness of its completely privately owned competitor just across the street, which always has a line outside.
Free of Via Venetto’s lineage, the rival pizzeria is bursting with energy. Though also under private management, it is unburdened by any ties to the state. Though tiny and nameless, the place is well-stocked and its prices are reasonable, making it possible to have a good meal here.
A young waiter dispatches customers’ orders with lighting speed. Meanwhile, across the street, the waiters at Via Venetto impatiently check their watches as they stand outside, smoking and chatting, hesitantly fearful of the swarming flies who have come to devour their pizzas.
“They’re like the soles of flip-flops,” observes one of its few customers, eloquently comparing their pizza’s tough dough and scanty cheese with rubber footwear. They are certainly cheaper, he concedes, but anyone who eats there knows what why kind of pizza he is getting: flavorless and low-quality.
A few steps away, the young woman at the modest storefront offers several types of cheese, ham, soft drinks and pizza, which are handed while still warm to customers, who prefer to eat standing up rather than seated in one of Via Venetto’s mortuary-red upholstered chairs. “It’s no secret”, notes another passing observer, frightened just by the sight of the place. “Every private individual who partners with the state ends up like the crab: walking away backwards!”
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From Monday, the petrol/gas station El Futuro [the future] will be selling diesel only to private transport companies. (14ymedio)14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 12 June 2023 – At least 300 private almendron* taxis queued up this Monday at the gas station El Futuro, on Calle 100 / Vento – in the Havana district of Rancho Boyeros. At this service centre, which from today will sell diesel only to private haulage firms, the police were directing the taxis in three at a time, in the order of their arrival.
Some of the drivers, who had actually run out of fuel while they were waiting, ended up having to push their cars in order to stay in the queue.
In a brief publicity announcement on its website the provincial government had warned that in order to be served it is necessary to have the correct operator’s licence.
The maximum allowed quantity of fuel per vehicle is 100 litres, and only in the vehicle’s tank – it’s not permitted to use a separate canister or other container. They explain that “people will be served in order of arrival, governed by a record that will be kept at the service centre”.
“It’s important to explain that one can still get fuel at the four other service centres created for the purpose and that this kind of activity will continue to be maintained in the province”, said the text, without specifying anything.
This measure coincides with the start of the new tariff for private taxis announced last week and which have caused discontent amongst drivers. According to one article published in TribunadeLaHabana, the prices charged will be obligatory between five in the morning until nine in the evening. Outside of these hours, say the authorities, “the tarriff will be by agreement between client and operator (supply and demand)”.
The police were directing the taxis in three at a time, in order of their arrival.(14ymedio)
The official newspaper includes, with details, the different taxi routes and planned pricing. Short journeys are fixed at 45 pesos, medium ones are between 70 and 100, and the longest ones, such as from Guanabo Beach to Old Havana are capped at 170.
The man in the street and in various centres of work isn’t so much worried about the prices but rather the lack of available transport. A young vet said this Monday: “Whether a taxi costs me whatever it needs to, what does that even matter when the problem is that there aren’t any”. She had to pay 2,000 pesos for a 12 km journey.
*Translator’s note: Almendron borrows the Spanish word for ‘almond’ to refer to old American cars, derived from their ‘almond-shape.’
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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Until now it cost 150 pesos to travel from Fraternity Park to Guanabacoa, about 11 miles. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 10 June 2023 — Under the dilapidated balconies of Reina Street in Havana, dozens of travelers try to negotiate with the taxi drivers. Since the entry into effect, this Friday, of the new prices for private transport, a discreet protest has begun: at a standstill in the taxi rank, before the nervous eyes of the inspectors, the vehicles refuse to leave.
Until now, it cost 150 pesos to go from Fraternity Park to Guanabacoa, about 11 miles. However, the General Directorate of Provincial Transport imposed a reduction in tariffs that, in the midst of a panorama of shortages and inflation, the self-employed took as an affront.
“They don’t want to leave,” one of the passengers who returns to the taxi rank says, frustrated. “Until now, it cost 150 pesos to go from here to La Cuevita, but that’s relative: sometimes you had to spend 200 pesos if you wanted to move,” claims another of the travelers.
Dressed in warm blue, the inspectors attend the scene. There is very little they can do. (14ymedio)
Dressed in warm blue uniforms, the inspectors attend the scene. There is very little they can do. The new prices were stipulated “from above” and they – while receiving the angry looks of those who wait – have neither the authority nor the means to negotiate a viable way out of the conflict.
Among the drivers there is one who knows one of the inspectors and has been beckoning to him with his hands for a few minutes. “Get out of the car, please,” the official replies, who does not want to be seen conversing with the discreet rebels. They exchange a couple of sentences, but the tension is such that the driver invites his acquaintance to “drink something,” to get out of the visual field of the others. continue reading
“Look,” the inspector refuses, “better another day. See you.” And he vanishes into the group of uniformed men.
As noon approaches and the line does not move, the atmosphere begins to warm up. Most are calculating whether the number of miles to go is proportional to the meager breakfast they had – if there was any. The solution: start walking.
Rapidly, some young people on skateboards cross through the tumult and disappear down the street. Between despair and heat, someone jokes: “At least they’re not controlled by Transport.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The cart operators, in addition to the option of payment by transfer, had something else that is scarce in the eyes of the habaneros in recent times: pumpkin. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 June 2023 — Modernity has reached the cart operators, who usually bet on the surroundings of the agricultural market at 17th and K, in Havana – by force, like almost everything. This Tuesday, among onions and bananas, one of the sellers exhibited an unprecedented poster. “Transfer is accepted,” it said, followed by the digits of a bank account.
The shortage of cash on the Island, especially of banknotes, has led merchants like this to look for a solution in banking transactions, although without much success. In the minutes in which this newspaper observed the scene, no one resorted to this form of payment, but it can be expected that there will be demand, if the operator offers it.
At the end of May, the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, admitted to Parliament that inflation is having among its consequences the lack of cash. The Government lacks money to print more banknotes, and the idea of developing new series with higher denominations that respond to the current high prices is unthinkable in this context.
The minister proposed to the deputies the banking of transactions, which he praised for being a fast, safe and controlled mechanism. However, there are many Cubans who do not even have an account — much less in national currency — due to the distrust of the solvency of the system itself and the devaluation of the currency. Many, too, fear the close control of their funds — sometimes derived from the informal economy — by authorities who are characterized, precisely, by the lack of transparency with which they operate. continue reading
To all this is added the poor functioning of the technologies, from the card payment terminals to the Transfermovil and EnZona systems, which were praised this Monday on national television during a discussion on the day’s Roundtable program, dedicated to talking about electronic commerce and online sales.
The cart operator, in addition to the option of payment by transfer, had something more that is scarce in the eyes of the habaneros in recent times: pumpkin. In any case, the prices of all products were, as usual, higher than those of the state agricultural markets.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Though it has not had to close like it did early this year due to a product shortage, it is barely keeping its head above water. To stay afloat, it has begun selling combo deals for 1,200 pesos apiece, as 14ymedio discovered on Tuesday.
These package deals contain nothing of nutritional value. One such combo comes with four cans of cola, two cans of orange soda, six packets of cookies and two bars of chocolate. Another contains four cans of cola, two of juice, one chocolate bar and eight packets of cookies.
As for the ice cream, the only flavors available were vanilla, pineapple and lime, at nine pesos a scoop, and the place was practically empty.
A young customer at the counter complained of the bad flavor combination of the 45-peso ice cream “salad.” When she asked that her order include only pineapple and lemon, the employee refused. “You have to have all three,” she said, “because the salads are mixed.”
Another customer, whose stomach is sensitive to acids, asked that the lime be left out. He got the same reply. The lime, he was told, was “mandatory.”
For good measure, the employee then put a scoop of lime on each order. The man was surprised to discover, however, that the most acidic of the three was actually the pineapple. The vanilla was simply bad. “This is what this country has come to,” he lamented. “Nothing is what you expect.”
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Since Jalisco Park closed its gates several years ago, the entire area has been silent. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 18 May 2023 — The laughter of the children and the noise of the playground were heard before reaching the corner of 23rd and 18th in El Vedado, but since Jalisco Park closed its doors, several years ago, the whole area has become silent. Now, the recreation center has passed into the hands of a private company that seeks to restore its former splendor and attract families again.
Where the carousel used to go around with the horses, the small rollercoaster stood and colorful boats floated, currently there is only the empty land on which the new attractions will be placed. “This is going to be Hollywood style,” jokes an employee who this Thursday guarded the enclosure, located a few feet from the Colón Cemetery.
The worker confirmed to 14ymedio that the management of the emblematic amusement park has passed into private hands, and it is expected that in the coming months the new apparatus will begin to arrive. At the moment, a brigade of masons is repairing the exterior walls that had been deteriorating from abandonment and lack of investment.
“They are going to bring crazy cars, other very modern attractions, and it will keep its original name,” adds the employee, who is optimistic about the transition to private managers. “The children are going to rediscover this place that is very well located and before was always full.” continue reading
Nearby neighbors also welcome the fact that a private company will take care of the recreational park. “Everything in this neighborhood revolved around this place, but since it closed the area has become very depressed. Before, near Jalisco Park you could eat anything from pizza to a snack, and now you have to go further to find anything,” says Josué, 26 years old and born in the neighborhood.
The park also had a small square for shows with clowns and magicians. “That was the way they earned their living and when they closed those people were out of work,” explains the young man. “Recreatur [Recreation and Tourism Company] ran the park and let it die because it didn’t have the resources to repair it. The equipment was very old and broke little by little.”
When the original attractions shut down, Recreatur rented part of the space to self-employed workers “who brought inflatable dolls and were also the ones who sold the food because the state cafeteria also ran out of supplies,” Josué recalls.
It wasn’t the first time that Jalisco Park languished. In the ’80s the recreational center also was closed for a long time, and the history of its decrepitude inspired the singer-songwriter Carlos Varela to compose a song. “They wanted to derail the rollercoaster, for all the slanders of parental authority, and then the father took my little friend to ride the boat and never returned,” says the song, one of the most popular of the troubadour.
In the ’90s the place reopened its doors but without several of its original attractions. However, it was always very busy due to its central location, which contrasted with the more glamorous Coney Island, currently known as Coco Island and located in the municipality of Playa, or the distant Lenin Park on the outskirts of the city.
“The families made the tour, eating at the Cinecitta pizzeria, passing by Jalisco Park and then ending up with the children at the movies,” evokes another neighbor. “On weekends this was full. My children have very good memories of this place, although when you look closely it is a small space for an amusement park.”
Despite the fact that the name of the small private company that will manage the recreation center has not been made public, the neighbors point to the owner of a nearby restaurant as the main investor. “The question that everyone is asking is how much will it cost to bring the children here,” adds one of the people interviewed.
“Every time they repair something, they put it in foreign currency or make it very expensive.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“You have to scan the code and follow these instructions,” said one of the Haitech workers who distributed the soft drinks. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 13 May 2023 — A crowd of people were milling around, suddenly and at full speed, in front of number 665 Carlos III Street. There, two blocks from the market of the same name, where the Pepsi Cola Company of Cuba once was, informal sellers are usually found. This Friday they grumbled about the intruders who were taking their place.
On one step, there were several boxes of soft drinks, one of beer, and a promotional poster of the joint venture Haitech, formed by the Cuban state-owned company Copextel and a Chinese partner. With a brightly colored background, a soft drink was offered in exchange for joining a WhatsApp group and sharing the address of the store in two groups on any social network.
Although the instructions were clear, people kept asking: “What do we have to do?” On the other side, the crowd was attended by two young people, one with Chinese features and the other Cuban. The first, in precarious Spanish, tried to give explanations out loud but could not make himself understood. “I’m going with the Cuban guy because I don’t understand Chinese,” said one lady. “You have to scan the code and follow these instructions,” said the Cuban.
In its virtual store, Haitech offers different appliances and electronic devices (refrigerators, freezers, fans, computer CPUs, meat grinders, blenders, line protectors) at prices in dollars, although there isn’t much to see: just 14 items. The most expensive is a desktop PC, at $795.80, and the cheapest, an LED light bulb at $4.35. As an offer, there was a solar charger reduced from $31.45 to $10.99. continue reading
The WhatsApp group that was accessed by scanning the code was managed by two people who called themselves Gema Wang and Nico Zheng, who answered the questions of those who were entering. Many searched for electrical household appliances or devices that aren’t in their catalog, such as pressure cookers or washing machines, which, they assured them, “will arrive in July.”
“Are they cheaper than in stores in MLC (freely convertible currency)?” asked another potential customer. “Yes!” they answered, despite the fact that items can be bought only with foreign Visa, Mastercard or UnionPay cards (that is, they can only be acquired by emigrants who purchase them for their relatives on the Island).
Although Wang and Zheng welcomed people on WhatsApp saying that they are “a Chinese company,” on their website it can be verified that they are based in Hong Kong and operated jointly with the Cuban state-owned company Copextel, belonging to the Electronic, Automation and Communications Industry Group (Gelect).
Until now, the agreements between China and the Island to create joint ventures in the field of biotechnology were known — one of which, dedicated to producing a drug against nasopharyngeal cancer, was praised in the official press just last month — but barely any are known to be in commerce.
Last November, after the official visit to China of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Beijing and Havana signed a total of 12 agreements about which no details were offered beyond saying that “they cover different sectors.”
Among them was a “memorandum of understanding” signed by the ministries of Commerce of both countries for the “strengthening of economic and trade cooperation,” and another with the Agency for International Development Cooperation aimed at “promoting the Chinese proposal for global development.”
In any case, the union of foreign private individuals with Cuban state companies has been raising suspicions for months. The latest denunciation has come from the Communists of Cuba collective, a Trotskyite group, saying that “the Cuban ruling bureaucracy advances decisively to the capitalist restoration, implementing the Chinese-Vietnamese model.”
Those who joined the WhatsApp group were not worried about this at all and immediately turned the exchange of messages into a private bulletin board for the sale of coffee, milk or chicken. Most of them, however, entered the site and left a short time later.
The drinks — 12 Sprite, 12 Orange Fanta, 24 Coca-Cola and 24 beers from the Chinese brand Tsingtao, which Cubans usually make fun of for its similarity with the word singao [“motherfucker”] — vanished in half an hour. Getting a soft drink was the only thing that mattered about Haitech to those who joined the WhatsApp group.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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“This has been like this for weeks,” said a client of La Época on Monday. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 24 April 2023 — People used to gawk at the display windows and crowd the entryway at La Epoca, a store prominently located at the corner of Galiano and Neptuno in Central Havana. Now its freezers are completely empty. Not even the hard currency stores are exempt from Cuba’s worsening economic crisis. What were once businesses catering to those privileged enough to have hard currency now resemble the neighborhood ration stores in terms of their supply shortages.
“It’s been like this for weeks,” a customer at La Epoca told 14ymedio on Monday. She had been to the meat section, located in the basement, hoping to find a few sausages, or some at least some ground turkey to make croquettes. When she got there, however, she found the freezers had been turned off and moved into the center of the aisle, their doors left open. Employees stood there with their arms crossed, not knowing how to respond to questions about when they might be getting a shipment of meat.
Customers drift through other parts of the store with long faces. “They don’t have protein of any kind,” a teenager shouts to an elderly man through the stairway to the basement. Don’t even bother going down there.” The man turns to go back to the main floor, where the employees also have bored looks on their faces and the shelves have either nothing to buy or do not have anything anyone would want to buy.
The most frustrated shoppers head over to another hard-currency store, La Isla de Cuba, located a few yards from Fraternity Park. The only things for sale are a few imported pork loins at eleven dollars a kilo. Customers’ only option is to buy the entire piece. Two women are trying to figure out if, by pooling their resources, they can afford the high price of a six-kilo piece, which is already giving off a strong odor. “It’s this or nothing,” one of them says. “The price in pesos is sky continue reading
high even though the pork is very low-quality,” says one of them.
Upon leaving Isla de Cuba, the two women find a bench under a shade tree and check their phones. They are part of a WhatsApp group that shares information on Havana’s hard currency stores. The last hundred messages are all very similar: “Don’t even go to Bayeros and Camaguey. It’s empty… La Puntilla looks like a cemetery… Nothing at all. From 3rd to 70th it’s like a dancehall with no band.”
Havana holds its breath: you can’t even get food with hard currency.
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Those waiting in line at the gas station look serious as they talk about the daily vicissitudes that people suffer. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 4 May 2023 — Hundreds of people milled around at dawn this Thursday on the corner of San Rafael and San Francisco, in Central Havana. They were part of the large line of people waiting to fill up at the nearby gas station on Infanta Street.
They talked about many topics, but far from the idyllic image that the official press offered a few weeks ago, in an article that outraged Cubans and that extolled the opportunity to “establish bridges of friendship” in the endless lines at gas stations, they did so with serious gestures, discussing the daily vicissitudes that people are suffering.
One had turned off his motorcycle and complained about having to drag it to the station, while another complained about the bread situation. The guy behind him talked about “Díaz-Canel’s lies in the news.” Many were silent, scowling; none of them protested out loud. However, people were upset, and there was a feeling of contained violence in the environment.
Watching them was a massive operation of police and “prevention” brigades of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, something unprecedented for this type of line.
As the authorities have done on other occasions when shortages have increased the number of people in lines, this one at the San Rafael gas station was “distributed” onto adjacent streets, out of the way, to disguise the magnitude of the problem. continue reading
The line at the San Rafael gas station was “distributed” onto adjacent streets, out of the way, to disguise its magnitude. (14ymedio)
This was not the only “organizational measure” that the provincial government took in the face of the May Day events, postponed for this Friday, in which numerous foreign guests are expected to participate. Tribuna de La Habana echoes the suspension of the sale of fuel at six gas stations in El Vedado, from seven in the evening on Thursday to ten the next morning.
The measure affects service stations at 3rd and 12th, Riviera, Tángana, Vista al Mar, Rampa and G and 25th. The official note says that “customers who are waiting at these stations will be guaranteed their same place in line according to the established records or listings, and, for security reasons, there can be no parking of vehicles in these places or their surroundings at the aforementioned time.”
“If that happens here in San Rafael, I don’t know what I would do; I’ve been here for two days now,” commented a taxi driver, desperate. Another driver responded: “Maybe we’re the ones who start the next social explosion.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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On Monday, foreigners were seen in the streets of Havana with red protest flags and those of the Communist Party. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 2 May 2023–It was to be expected that the streets of Havana would be empty on May 1 after the Cuban government canceled the “austere” events that had been planned. What was surprising is that the sun was shining brightly throughout almost the entire Island, when the reason given for the suspension was that Sunday’s weather would continue.
The good weather raised suspicions, such that the “challenge” to upload a photo of the “sunny morning” from “your spot” spread on social media like wildfire. With the hashtag #yonodesfiloel1demayo [I don’t march on May 1], the message was started by Amelia Calzadilla, the English linguist who gained notoriety after posting several videos in which she denounced the struggles experienced by a mother to raise her children in Cuba. Several other Cubans joined her including journalist Diasniurka Salcedo and newscaster Yunior Morales.
At the same time, the regime boasts in the official media about receiving “more than a thousands invited guests from different countries” for this International Workers’ Day. According to Prensa Latina, some of them participated on the 26th and 27th in a “scientific workshop” to discuss topics such as “histories, theory and methods for the study of work and workers” or “experiences and challenges” of social movements in America.
Furthermore, always according to officialist media, they toured different neighborhoods of the capital to see the “transformation works in communities of Havana”. continue reading
On May 2, the plan is for these delegates to participate in the closing of the International Solidarity Encounter with Cuba in the Palacio de Convenciones in Havana, with the objective of “anti-imperialism after 200 years of the Monroe Doctrine”.
While they waited for that moment to arrive, some of those foreigners were seen on Monday in the streets of Havana with red protest flags and those of the Communist Party, in addition to their national banners as was the case of some Italians in Havana Vieja. They seem to be the only ones who have something to celebrate today.
Translated by: Silvia Suárez
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The sewage slides through Jovellar along several blocks, to Soledad, where it bends to the right and almost reaches San Lázaro. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 28 April 2023 — A pestilent river runs this Friday along Jovellar Street, in Central Havana. If we continue upstream, the origin is seen in number 62, where it spurts forcefully from the door, as if a pipe had burst.
The sewage slides along several blocks, to Soledad, where it bends to the right and almost reaches San Lázaro, widening on its way. The foul-smelling stream passes in front of the Joaquín Albarrán polyclinic.
Asked about the reason for this disaster, the neighbors point out: “Look at the drains, they’re all clogged.”
On the edge of the waves of filth, full of human feces, other objects, such as paper and plastic water bottles, are dragged. In a bend between the street and the sidewalk, a rat splashes in the puddle that has formed.
Residents of the area have reported to the authorities of their municipality that they frequently suffer from intestinal problems resulting from water contamination and lack of cleanliness. At the beginning of this month, the inhabitants of an entire building in the vicinity fell ill for several days.
“I went to the office and they told me that the Government, that Hygiene and Epidemiology are aware of the situation, and that they don’t recommend using tap or boiled water,” a neighbor tells this newspaper. “We spend our lives carrying bottled water now. And all because of the contamination of the cistern, because that sewage is blocked, and no matter how much we ask for it, they don’t fix the drainage pipes.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban transport revives the camello. [14ymedio]14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 28 April 2023 — Last Wednesday, a 14ymedio reporter sent a photo that he had just captured on Avenida del Puerto, in Havana: a camello [camel] was picking up passengers on a route that took them to La Palma, a neighborhood on the periphery. It was further proof that the fuel shortage was creating a transport crisis similar to the one experienced in the 90s, during the Special Period, which began even before the end of the Soviet subsidy.
In 1988, the Cuban engineer Jorge Hernández Fonseca and his colleagues from the National Office of Industrial Design proposed to the authorities an idea to end the transport crisis in Havana. The vehicle, locally manufactured, would have the capacity to carry more than 300 people on each trip. A few years later, the “invention” had become the symbol of an entire time of survival, and there was no bus stop at which its arrival was not expected, often in desperation.
“The idea was for the Island to have a kind of ’metro’ on the streets,” says 14ymedio reporter Hernández Fonseca, exiled in Miami. The “inventor of the camel” describes as “cyclical” the collapse of public transport in the capital and in the main cities of the Island since the triumph of the Revolution. The return of the “metrobus” that never was, constructed from two or three buses assembled with a trailer on an 18-wheeled chassis with two “humps” in the ceiling, is no surprise.
“I think it is the most sensible thing to quickly alleviate the crisis,” says the engineer, although he doubts that the country is in a position to manufacture new buses with the characteristics that the camels had. Those that circulated during the Special Period were made by “the cargo transport companies and the Army.” In addition, he says, it had the ability to save fuel due to the large number of passengers it could pick up on a single trip. continue reading
Hernández Fonseca, who has traveled through several capitals of the world, understood that in the Cuba of the 90s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was no way to sustain an underground subway network. A bus with certain characteristics of the subway was the only option. “Everyone who has used a subway knows that mass transport is prioritized over comfort. We must remember the context in which the first metrobuses arose: the Special Period.”
The fuel crisis that the Island is now experiencing, he reflects, is a “repetition” of that time. Many Cubans, however, thought they had exceeded the time when camels were the only option to get to the work center or move around the city. Today, the few buses that circulare in Havana — “leased” according to their signs — bring with them the bad taste of the economic debacle of the 90s.
Criticism of the ’camel’ is not only aimed at the bad memories it brings to most Cubans by associating it with the crisis but also at how hot it is inside, given the many passengers it transports and its small windows. The shocks it causes in the homes located on the avenues where it circulates also adds to its defects.
“Cubans have more criticisms than compliments about the camello,” recognizes Hernández Fonseca, who claims to be no stranger to the discomfort of the vehicle, but it must be understood that “there was no other alternative” at that time, he says. As the situation is, he does not consider it a thing of the past nor does he see it as part of a future Cuban transport museum.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The bank says that it is increasing electronic payments with “all” the agents who offer services or sell goods. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 19 April 2023 — The Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) announced on Wednesday the release of a new 100-peso bill, which comes just as the depreciation of the currency against the dollar and the collapse of the ATM network on the Island worsens. The institution pointed out that this denomination is printed with the date of 2023 and retains the main characteristics of the previous issues.
However, the new bill, which will circulate simultaneously with the previous versions, has no tactile feature and is not in the Braille system for the blind, without the authorities offering an explanation. The banknote maintains the logo of the BCC and the signature of the president of the Central Bank, while the inscription and the year of printing appear in magenta.
The announcement of this new banknote comes at a particularly hard time for Cubans, who have to stand in long lines to withdraw money from the few ATMs that still have cash. “Imagine the level of stress that this causes,” said a resident of Central Havana who had to go to three ATMs to find one that worked.
The man explained to 14ymedio that he sent money to his sister in Párraga, in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, to help her pay for an operation for her son. However, when he went to the ATM he couldn’t get cash because it was out of service.
“I gave it to her by transfer because I can’t go there; she lives quite far away,” he said, remembering that driving is not an alternative either because of the shortage of fuel on the Island. continue reading
ATMs in Cuba can’t cope. No fewer than 150 of the 521 that Banco Metropolitano (Banmet) has in Havana are out of service, which means that 30% of them are damaged. This was confirmed by Banmet to the official press last Sunday.
To a query by journalist Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, the bank’s management responded that the technicians are repairing the dispensing modules and the keyboards, which are the parts with the most breakdowns, and they are expecting the new parts to arrive next week.
In the article, Banmet said that “the equipment dispenses more than 160 million pesos every day” and that it needs a change “because of technological obsolescence.” However, it doesn’t have “an immediate response.” What has been enabled, it insisted, are “domestic alternatives” to mitigate the crisis.
The bank explains that it has increased electronic payments with “all” the agents who offer services or sell goods. Similarly, customers have the option of using the Caja Extra unit to get cash in the 1,904 enabled ration stores, and at least one branch per municipality has extended hours on weekends.
What the banking authorities do not say is that in many ration stores they claim that they have no connection with Transfermóvil to dispense cash, or that they don’t have any cash because everyone that day has paid electronically. The amounts that can be taken out are also low.
From April 8 to 14, cash withdrawals exceeded 200 million per day, but many ATMs, Banmet acknowledged, are only authorized to carry out electronic operations and to check balances.
The bank’s response generated discontent from social media users, who claim that it is “usual” to hear “regrets” from officials about things that do not work well in Cuba, but few solutions are offered such as the availability of POS payment terminals in businesses.
On Calle Infanta, one of the busiest streets in Central Havana, there are three ATMs, but two of them are broken, and the one that works has problems with the screen that makes it difficult to see the information, a Cuban complained.
In addition to the Cuban capital, the ATM crisis extends to the interior of the country. In Sancti Spíritus this week, the banking authorities said that there is no shortage of cash in the machines. “The ATMs have never stopped paying due to lack of money,” María Efigenia Caballero, director of the Banco Popular de Ahorro (BPA), told Escambray.
The director said that the 11 ATMs in the province operate normally, although many of them are old and overused. A resident of the northern outskirts of the city of Sancti Spíritus told 14ymedio that it’s “simply a lie,” because in reality there are only nine ATMs, and most are located in the center. “For example, I have to travel about four miles to get to an ATM, and it doesn’t always work,” he complained.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Those who arrive as a family take turns going out to buy food, fan the children or inquire at the ticket office about the possibilities of boarding the next bus. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 April 2023 — More than a place with passengers, the Villanueva station, in Havana, looks like a refugee camp: people sitting on the floor, towels that in the early morning cover the bodies that lie in the corners, and the crying of babies who do not understand why they have been there for so many days. The fuel crisis has turned the country’s main transportation waiting room into a makeshift shelter.
After ten in the morning this Saturday, people milled around in front of the ticket office. The bus bound for the city of Sancti Spíritus was about to arrive, and it was hoped that it would have enough empty seats to take some passengers, who could barely breathe in the heavy and humid air. “Only ten passengers will be able to leave,” an employee announced.
“I’ve been here for three days,” says a woman who is waiting for a ticket to get to Holguín, a complicated journey due to the distance and the high demand for travel to the east of the country. “Here the most complicated thing, in addition to waiting, is the situation of the bathroom and getting something to eat. Even drinking a drop of water gets complicated: I can’t leave my place because I might miss my turn.”
Those who arrive as a family take turns going out to buy food, fan the children or inquire at the ticket office about the possibilities of boarding the next bus. On the outskirts, private trucks try to capitalize on the despair. At the door of one truck, in use for 70 years, the driver announces that he charges $83 per person to go to Sancti Spíritus, although the trip is no more than 224 miles.
Although Christmas is not approaching and Easter has passed, Villanueva experiences moments of the holiday hustle and bustle, when the desire to celebrate with family mobilizes thousands of Cubans to be transported to one side and the other of the Island. “If this is the case now, as Mother’s Day approaches, we will have to come with a fan,” predicts another traveler. In three weeks, on Sunday, May 14, every inch of ground at the waiting room could be occupied.
Hail in the courtyard of a house in Central Havana, this Thursday. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 10 April 2023 — A strong and atypical storm rained down hailstones on Havana in the early morning of this Thursday and caused flooding not only in several municipalities of the capital but also in the west of the Island.
For Lydia, who lives in Central Havana, the least of it was the large hailstones that woke her up and almost broke her windows. The water tanks on the roof of the building were directly above her bedroom, and they overflowed, taking away some precarious pipes that her neighbor had installed. All the water fell into her apartment, which was already in precarious condition.
“It was horrible. I opened the bathroom door to go in, and a waterfall landed on my head,” she tells this newspaper, while moving her electronic equipment to dry ground on the dining room table. She spent the night on a blanket on the floor.
It’s already noon, and the plumber the neighbor promised to send over is not at home because he’s working and still hasn’t arrived. “What am I going to do?” The woman is tearing her hair out. “I can’t go up there, I don’t know how to fix this mess.”
The worst, she fears, is that in the next storm, the walls, in which thick cracks are observed, may give way and the roof collapse. “This has no solution, it’s destroyed, it would have to be knocked down and rebuilt, but no matter how much we complain, the State does nothing.” continue reading
According to meteorologist Alejandro Adonis, an “isolated” storm cloud moved over Havana from the Straits of Florida “in an unusual trajectory from northwest to southeast” and “produced intense electrical activity, large hailstones and strong winds,” shortly before 5:30 in the morning.
The official press confirmed this assessment and said that the storm “produced the fall of abundant hail” of up to two inches in diameter in several municipalities, including Regla, Plaza de la Revolución, Centro Habana, San Miguel del Padrón and Old Havana.
In addition, there was strong lightning, and wind gusts of between 34 and 37 miles per hour were recorded at the Casablanca weather station. The early morning gusts caught many unprepared, as they didn’t wake up until the damage to windows and doors was evident. Some zinc tiles and water tank caps turned into veritable missiles in the dark.
In Sancti Spíritus, the Escambray newspaper published the case of the community of San Pedro, about 19 miles from Trinidad, where the storm caused the collapse of a dozen homes and an elementary school.
The authorities did not report injuries, but, the provincial newspaper says “talking with the neighbors we learned about the anguish experienced the day before in the face of strong winds and lightning.”
In addition, the newspaper warned that the amount of damage “may increase as reports from other nearby settlements come in.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, June 29, 2023 — No one shows any interest in having lunch at Via Venetto, whose interior is pitch black and flies buzz around the pizzas on display. The restaurant is located on Obispo Street in a downtown area with constant foot traffic that should make it an ideal spot for any food service establishment. The shabby appearance of this formerly state-run operation — it was rented out long ago to private individuals — stands in contrast to the liveliness of its completely privately owned competitor just across the street, which always has a line outside.
