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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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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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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Customers waiting in line outside a bank in Central Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, April 12, 2023 — None of the many people waiting in line outside a bank in Central Havana on Wednesday were there to deposit dollars, something they had been able to do since Tuesday thanks to a decree by the Central Bank of Cuba. On the contrary, they were suspicious of the government’s new measure, which does away with a temporary ban on dollar deposits issued in 2021.
When a young man in his thirties mentioned he was there to deposit a hundred dollars, an elderly man in line tried to dissuade him. “Once it’s deposited, it’s automatically converted to MLC [freely convertible currency] at a one-to-one exchange rate,” he explained, adding that the black market offers a much better rate for the U.S. currency. “An MLC is a virtual dollar; it’s not the same. For me at least, it would never occur to me to put my dollars in a bank. I exchange them on the street for pesos and use that to buy food.” Convinced, the young man left the line, but not before the older man joked, “The dollar was taken prisoner and now it’s been set free.”
Meanwhile, over on San Rafael Boulevard, black-market currency traders are doing a brisk business, as were the official Cadeca currency exchage bureaus like the one on Neptuno Street. “I don’t know if it’s because of that measure or what but nothing like this was happening here before,” observes one neighborhood resident. “It’s like everyone is desperate to buy dollars from foreigners.”
The experts, for their part, have criticized this most recent monetary about-face by the Cuban government and attribute it to the failure of the 2021 currency unification process which, during the early months of its implementation, included a ban on dollar-denominated deposits. “The components of this ’regulation’ (monetary and exchange unification, macro-devaluation of the peso, the end of subsidies, increases in wages and prices) ended up enhancing the effects of the pandemic and leading the country to ’stagflation,’ for which there is no end in sight,” writes Cuban economist Pedro Monreal in a Twitter thread. “Capped prices, partial dollarization, online import rackets, atrophied exchange markets, inspectorates, and now re-acceptance of the USD at banks are actions that are not only marginal but also at odds with the accepted model of regulation,” he says. continue reading
Several economists consulted by the Spanish news agency EFE have expressed similar doubts. “What sense did currency unification make given the associated economic and social costs?” asks Madrid-based Cuban economist Elías Amor Bravo.
Mauricio de Miranda, a tenured professor and researcher at the Javeriana Pontifical University in Cali, Colombia, states, “Currency unification has been a complete failure. [It was] poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly implemented.”
Monreal believes there never was a true monetary unification. As evidence, he points to the opening of MLC stores in 2019. “It is a very serious problem because the population is paid in one currency (CUP) which they cannot use to buy many of the goods being sold. This is unacceptable from a social and political point of view,” he says.
Officials claimed that currency unification, which began taking effect in January 2021, would end the dual currency system which, at the time, was made up of the Cuban peso (CUP) and the convertible peso (CUC), which was artificially set at one-to-one to the dollar.
Both the ban on greenback deposits and the reform itself gave a boost to the informal hard currency exchange market. The exchange rate on the street went from 70 pesos to the dollar in mid-2021 to 185 on Wednesday, a far cry from the official rate for individuals of 120 pesos to the dollar.
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The first thing to avoid is the ditch that cuts through the queue. If you’re wearing flip flops or leaky shoes you’re going to get filthy water between your toes. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 8 April 2023 – The potatoes have arrived. This sentence, written on a notice and pinned up in a food store or shouted aloud in a yard, is enough to set Cubans onto a war footing. Hunger, shortages, and the possibility of arriving at the back of an interminable queue are enough to drive anyone crazy. Nevertheless, with potatoes there’s an additional stress: you have to actually watch out for the truck and follow the prized tuber even faster than your other neighbours can.
Whoever has to confront the queue knows the routine: a bag or a shopping trolley, a fully charged phone, water and some kind of pill to calm the nerves – although this latter is already almost impossible to get hold of. Already there’s a considerable number of customers in Calle Arango, in Luyanó. Now it’s just a question of luck and a lot of patience.
When your eyes have adapted to the sunlight and your body has found a place in the shade — all without losing your place, always in dispute from “confused” people who try to push their way in — you can better appreciate the view of run-down Calle Arango, the many times patched-up sunshades and the peeling walls.
The first thing to avoid is the ditch that cuts through the queue. If you’re wearing flip flops or leaky shoes you’re going to get filthy water between your toes. The people who are already approaching the counter — predominantly older people and people who queue-up by profession — comment indignantly that the price “on the street” is already exceeding 250 pesos a pound.
Rationed potatoes, sold by the State at 11 pesos a pound, are of very poor quality. An elderly woman sniffed one of them in the impassible gaze of the seller and couldn’t hide her disgust. “How bad they smell”, she blurted out, putting the wrinkled and dirty potato back in its place. continue reading
In Calle San Miguel / San Nicolás / Manrique where they’re also selling potatoes, the workers took advantage of the Good Friday holiday and announced that they were only going to stay open until midday. “We’re only going to serve 50 people!” they shouted, “And not a single one more”.
The majority of customers dream of cooking chips (fries) — one of the “impossible feasts” of Cuban cuisine — but only if they can get hold of the cooking oil required. Others intend to boil them, to use in some other recipe. Still others, however, intend to resell, at a much higher price, the quantity they’ve managed to obtain.
As the relentless Central Havana sunshine begins to recede, one of the lucky ones heads for home almost dancing, a modest little shopping bagful in his hands, and sings in an improvised reguetón: “Potatoes! Let’s go eat mashed potatoes!”
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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On Monday, in the same place, the same guy and the same sign. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, 11 April 2023 — The writing, in capitals and painted in green on the wall at 464 Calle Belascoaín / Zaina in Central Havana, caught the eye. “I buy women in poor condition”, read the astonished passers-by.
With all the security about, that wouldn’t last long, we thought, here at the 14ymedio office when we saw it for the first time last Thursday — given the speed with which the authorities get rid of spontaneous signs on the streets. Nevertheless, three days later it was still there. On Sunday, an old man was sitting on the ledge just underneath the writing — on a wall belonging to a hardware store, and covered in carpenter’s marks. He seemed to be just resting there, whilst, just further up, the street vendors were spreading out their wares under the arcades.
“I buy women in poor condition”, read the astonished passers-by. (14ymedio)
On Monday, in the same place, the same guy and the same sign. The old man was dressed just the same — in light blue teeshirt and jeans, with the same bag he’d carried days earlier. Is he selling something? Is he some kind of link with another seller ’por la izquierda’*? Building materials? Or, quite the opposite, does he have something to do with the actual sign? Is he guarding it? Is he waiting for its “author” to turn up?
“Is he the one who buys women in poor condition?”, commented a young girl sarcastically, to what appeared to be her mother, as they passed by. “I don’t know, my girl, but he ain’t gonna find them here. It’s him that’s in poor condition, along with the whole country”.
On Sunday, underneath the writing, an old man was sitting on the ledge which formed part of the wall. (14ymedio)
Despite the misogyny of the sign, neither the Federation of Cuban Women nor Mariela Castro — official champion of the cause of equality — have commented on the matter. Apart from that, clearly the capital’s government itself hasn’t seen the necessity of removing it. Obviously because it doesn’t say: “No to the Communist Party“, “Down with the dictatorship“, “homeland and life“, or “Diaz-Canel motherfucker“.
*Translator’s note: ’Por la izquierda’, literally ’on the left’, is the equivalent of the English ’under the counter’.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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“[The waiters] are slow, unfriendly and take their time bringing out orders,” complains one customer. (14ymedio)14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 6 April 2023 — Complejo Zapata y 12, an “all-terrain” cafe, does not live up to the hype that Havana’s state-run media heaped upon it a few weeks ago. A public-private partnership, it was supposed to be the flagship of a “culinary revival” in the island’s capital. Though it struggles valiantly under the constraints imposed on it by the Provincial Food Industry Company, the results are never more than mediocre.
According to official media, the state provides the location, the workforce and the technological infrastructure while the private-sector partner provides all the raw materials and, presumably, handles the production process. It is the same formula used at Grocery, a recently opened food store in the Miramar Trade Center, and at branches of the Sylvain bakery chain before that.
The ice cream at Complejo Zapata y 12 is made onsite using imported ingredients and some domestically produced flavorings. Ivan Avila Lopez, director of private-sector side of the operation, claims it can produce up to 400 liters a day in five different flavors.
The reality is quite different as 14ymedio found out on Thursday. Customers must deal with inattentive waiters who come up with excuses as to why someone cannot order the flavor of ice cream he or she wants. “We don’t have chocolate,” an employee told one customer, who then had to point out that it was advertised on the menu.
“O.K., we do have it,” the waiter admitted, “but it’s too hard to scoop out.” Frustrated, the customer had to settle for coconut, which itself was not properly frozen. continue reading
“It’s edible,” said a woman seated at one of the cafe’s white tables, “but you can’t really say it’s good ice cream.” Someone else pointed out, “The worst thing is the service, which on television they said was the best thing.”
Parsimonious and ill-tempered, the waiters take their time getting to the tables. Gone is the dynamism of opening day, when a squadron of local leaders, led by Havana communist party chief Luis Antonio Torres Iribar, made an appearance at the facility and checked out the public-private ice cream parlor’s “production line.”
Things are different now. “[The waiters] are slow, unfriendly and take their time bringing out the orders,” complains one customer, who was waiting for a hamburger, one of the specialities that was touted on television with great fanfare.
The prices are also hardly worth celebrating. A plain hamburger costs 150 pesos, a double 300. A single scoop of ice cream goes 40 pesos. Soft drinks are not well chilled while the water borders on being hot. To top it off, the salt shakers are filled with coarse salt so you have to unscrew the tops to be able to use them.
Customers have drawn their own conclusions about the public-private experiment. “Supposedly, they put the word complejo (complex) in the name to indicate it’s a joint venture,” says one woman, “but the only thing complex about this place is trying to get good service.”
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The scenes are comparable to the previous great crisis, which at least was baptized with one of the greatest euphemisms that Castroism ever came up with: “the special period in time of peace.” (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez / Olea Gallardo, Havana, 30 March 2023 — The crisis that Cuba is experiencing is not only reflected in the official data, independent reports and the unstoppable exodus. In the streets, at every step, the poverty is evident. Ana María, a middle-aged neighbor of Central Havana, mentions an example: “A few days ago, on Infanta Street, a man in his 50s was going to pick up some croquettes from the floor, and when he saw that I saw him, he was embarrassed. The truth is that I was more ashamed than he was.”
These scenes are comparable to the previous great crisis, which was at least baptized with one of the greatest euphemisms that Castroism ever came up with: “the special period in time of peace.” It was common then, in the 90s, to see its imprint on the wrinkled and emaciated bodies of Cubans. Thousands of them suffered from diseases like neuropathy, which left them blind and was caused by malnutrition and the abuse of homemade alcohol.
Today’s crisis has no name, but it does have the same face: the increasingly empty cities, especially of young people and those who fall down unconscious from drinking “train-spark” (homemade alcohol), and the elderly (and not so old) who rummage through containers or beg on the street.
And it doesn’t just happen in Havana. Jorge, from Holguín, says he encounters a similar situation every day. “It has increased a lot, but a lot, the number of people on the street who are rummaging through the trash and asking for money. Today I was having a pizza and soft drink in a private place and a 70-year-old man with crutches, who couldn’t even walk, came in begging, and I bought him the same thing I was eating. Yesterday a woman who saw me counting some money on the street approached and said: ’oh, give me something for the peas’. Right after, another woman asked me if I could buy her some cassava fries. I wanted to give her 100 pesos but she asked me to buy them for her: ’They scammed me,’ she told me crying. And what breaks my heart the most is the children who implore: ’could you give me five pesos?’” continue reading
Jorge attributes the scarcity mainly to inflation, which does not let up: “One pound of pork is 400 pesos ($16.70), and you buy four pounds and they are two of meat and two of bone and fat, which doesn’t work. A carton of eggs here is worth 1,500 pesos ($62.50), a liter (33.8 ounces) of cooking oil is 1,300 ($54). People make it to the end of the month almost without oil, without rice.”
To have something to put in their mouths, people even eat the impossible.. (14ymedio)
Caption – The scenes are comparable to the previous great crisis, which was at least baptized with one of the greatest euphemisms that Castroism ever came up with: “The special period in time of peace.” (14ymedio)
Thus, families are reducing the quantities. They eat rice with a little bit of vegetables, they eat only a banana, they get used to not having animal protein. “I have a neighbor who stops having lunch to give it to her son, who is in high school. Many times I see that they eat rice cooked in bean sauce with two tomato slices because they don’t have a main course,” Jorge explains.
Something similar is told by Lisandra, from Sancti Spíritus. “I recently brought a friend a picadillo that I cooked, after lunchtime, and I realized that her boy had been given rice with beans and she had not eaten anything.”
To have something to put in their mouths, people even eat the impossible. “My mother discarded a horrible picadillo that she had boiled in hot water because someone told her that it looked like ham and she wanted to give it to the neighbor’s dogs. The neighbor let it dry because she wanted it for herself.”
Sometimes, as happened to Ana María with the man who picked up the croquettes in Centro Habana, there is shame for both parties. “When I went to say hello to a friend from the university, at lunchtime, her children interrupted her all the time while we talked: ’Mom, I’m hungry’. And I realized that she didn’t want me to see what they were going to eat,” continues Lisandra, who says: “People don’t say it, but they are going hungry.”
From San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa, the epicenter of the mass protests of July 11, 2021, Caridad recounts: “The famine is widespread. Soon we will not exist, because we’re going to starve, and we won’t have a doctor to help us.”
The woman, in her thirties with a young daughter, lashes out at the Government: “They can’t solve anything, and they want us to keep electing people we don’t even know. Last week the power didn’t go out because there were elections, and now that there are no elections? If only we could eat all the blackouts.”
Caridad’s list is long, from electricity (“without electricity you can’t live”), to water (“we haven’t had it for five days”), food (“milk is a forbidden product and soon we’ll be talking about beans at 200 pesos [$8])” to increasingly precarious health services (“there is no medical assistance because doctors have no medicines and they are not magicians.”) “I can’t really explain how we are still alive,” she concludes.
“It has increased a lot, but a lot, the number of people on the street who are rummaging through the trash and asking for money.” (14ymedio)
“My sister and I bought a yogurt that cost us more than 250 pesos [$10] for 1.5 liters [53 oz.], and we had to pay on the informal market. When a state truck comes, it’s a slaughter, with the cost of yogurt close to 100 pesos [$4], or 70, 80, 90 pesos. You don’t have any meat, a chicken thigh, or a piece of pork. There is no onion even if someone can pay for it,” she lets fly and continues with her litany of sorrows.
Rice, she says, is a “hot item.” “Here in this town they are selling a speckled rice, I don’t know where they get it, which contains transparent pebbles. It’s enough to make God weep. Not only do you have to spend two hours removing these particles, but on top of that they can break a tooth, and then where do you find a dentist? Everything is a stack of dominoes, and now the game is over.”
For Caridad, the moment that Cuba is experiencing could be called “minute zero,” because “we have no options at all.”
There is another widespread comment: what is most worrying are the children. “I suffer bitterly because I have a girl under the age of seven and I worry about the day to day. Even the schools don’t function now. The teachers don’t want to work because they are also hungry,” says Caridad.
For Ana María, the situation with the children is “a disaster,” and she recounts the torment of her grandchildren, who not only have to endure an insipid rice with peas every day but all kinds of propaganda in their classes. “My girl has to show something tomorrow, after a week sick with asthma,. One homework was about the tax system, nothing more and nothing less, and another about Fidel’s life as a child until he was a revolutionary leader,” the woman says. “And the boy had to talk about the Zanjón Pact and Martí’s attitude at that time and also about the elections. Tell me something I don’t know!”
Neither propaganda nor servility nor ordinary work frees Cubans from suffering. “A relative of mine, retired military and doctor, that is, with an above-average retirement, has just celebrated his 80th birthday, and between his brothers-in-law and nephews they collected something to celebrate, because he barely has any money,” says Ana María. She gives another example, her own sister, now retired from the state sector, who was “once pretty but now is skin and bones.”
Another neighbor of Ana María, a health worker, went to her house recently to implore her for something to eat, even if it was only chicken skins, because she couldn’t buy anything.”
As if that were not enough, it’s no consolation to have money to spend in stores in freely convertible currency (MLC): “Even those who have people abroad [who send them hard currency] can’t get food, because the stores are empty. Everything has to be paid to the people who steal it from state places, buy it in Havana or I don’t know where and sell it here so that people can live,” protests Caridad, the young woman from San Antonio de los Baños.
All in all, she, like Ana María, Jorge and Lisandra, are part of that 30% of Cuban families that differ from the rest because they receive help from abroad, the most paradoxical inequality created in 64 years of communism. The rest, most of them, have to settle only for what comes through the rationed market, which is not enough to last the month.
Ana María, who has no way to leave the Island, laments: “I’m now depressed when I go out on the street, the poverty, the grime, the miserable people, the starving animals. I want the aliens to take me, because it makes me want to cry.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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How is it that a country surrounded by seawater lacks salt? This is the great question that Cubans ask themselves. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 5 April 2023 — The shortage of salt has been a serious issue on the streets of Cuba for a long time, but it was not until this Wednesday that the official press mentioned it. In a long article, Cubadebate echoed the complaints of its own readers and admitted that “for several months there has been instability in the marketing of salt in the country.”
The problem is not a lack of salt: more than 9,000 tons have been stored. The difficulty is with distribution, according to statements by the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, speaking in February. “Problems with transportation have affected the delivery to consumers,” he said.
In what seems a justification for the big question — how is it that a country surrounded by seawater lacks salt? — the text devotes great space to arguing that most of the salt flats on the Island are in the eastern area. This, says the director of the Salt Company (Ensal), Jorge Luis Bell Álvarez, “is not due to whims or lack of investments, but to the fact that very specific weather conditions are required for their location”; that is, where “there is little rain and a lot of wind.” Two salt regions are located in Guantánamo, and the rest are in Las Tunas, Camagüey, Villa Clara and Matanzas.
“Guantánamo is the province that produces the most salt because it has a semi-arid climate, very dry and with little rain all year round,” says the official, while in Matanzas “salt can only be produced in the driest and windiest months, which are April, May, July and September. In the other months it rains a lot, and the water dissolves the salt that has formed.” continue reading
The salt flats of Matanzas present another problem, according to the president of the Geominero-Salinero Business Group, Fabio José Reimundo: “Every time a hurricane passes through, the entire installation is taken away, because there are dikes that separate the ponds and allow the salt to crystallize. When a strong swell happens, the water gets in and mixes with the salt. There are many hurricanes that pass through here, but not in Guantánamo.”
Despite everything, the director of Ensal assures that the state “has managed to maintain the production and (limited) distribution of salt throughout the national territory, despite the resource difficulties it faces.”
The same official explains a complex distribution process through the regulated ’family basket’ according to the number of household members. In the first month of the quarter, for example in March, 4,100 tons of salt are distributed, “and all households receive one bag of salt per household. But in April, 2,800 tons are distributed only to households that have more than four family members. “In the third and last month of the quarter, between 900 and 1,000 tons are distributed to the larger households and to those who still have a bag to fill.”
One can conclude that the figures in the Cubadebate article are not the same as on the street. Thus, the proposed price per kilogram of salt [2.2 pounds] in the warehouses, which the director of the company puts at 25 pesos [$1.04] can go up to 136 pesos [$5.67], as this newspaper was able to verify a few days ago in Luyanó, where it was sold only as a repackaged product.
“Already it must be gone, because any little bit doesn’t last long. As soon as they put it out, the resellers grab it. They repackage it and, as you know, sell it at an exorbitant price,” says a neighbor, who managed to buy a pound.
There is also inconsistency between paper and reality in the costs of salt “on the left” [on the black market]. Cubadebate says that a package costs 150 pesos [$6.25], but this same Wednesday in several markets in Havana, a package of a pound and a half was at 250 pesos [$10.42]. “They sell it to you as a kilogram [2.2 pounds], but you can see that it’s less, and not always of a good quality. Sometimes it’s half wet, sometimes it’s very fat, and sometimes good, yes, but that depends,” complains a resident of Havana’s El Vedado district.
In San Antonio de los Baños, Ana María was able to buy just a small repackaged bag. “I don’t understand why salt is so scarce, a country surrounded by the sea!” says the woman, married and with a young daughter. “Salt wouldn’t have to be imported; it doesn’t have to come from any other country.”
Those who have a traveling relative have added salt to the list of orders to bring from abroad. “My mother sent me a message so I wouldn’t forget to bring her salt,” a habanero visiting Spain tells this newspaper. “But the last time I brought it was from Bogotá, and I almost missed the flight, because they made me open the suitcase to know what that ’dust’ was in my luggage. It was quite painful to explain to the Colombians that it was salt to take to an Island.”
In the face of all these vicissitudes, the response of the authorities via the official press is, as usual, proactive. “We are looking for alternatives to improve the transport of salt and change the modal matrix,” says Dolcey Castellanos, director of operations of Ensal. For example, “using additives that keep the salt from clumping” or “making an investment” in the salt flats of Santa Clara to “increase production capacity from four to ten tons per hour.” At the moment, nothing has been finalized.
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.
Gas station at G and 25, in El Vedado, Havana, on Monday. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 3 April 2023 — Havana faces restrictions due to fuel shortages for the umpteenth time. According to the website OnCuba from the State newspaper Granma — which this Monday again experienced “technical failures” and could only be partly accessed — the provincial government will establish new measures to face “a situation created by the lack of supply of fuel for private carriers and individuals with financial means in this sector.”
Thus, the official press says, “the fuel figures allocated to vital activities will be readjusted”; that is, a limit will be imposed on buying, and the sale of fuel will be offered in four service stations “located to the east, west, center and south of the city.”
The authorities do not offer the names of these gas stations but report that they will be open “in the early hours of the morning to provide services to the population.”
There will also be limits on the amount allowed according to the type of vehicle, although at the moment they have not specified the quota assigned to each one. continue reading
The lack of fuel is evident in Havana because there is insufficient transportation and garbage collection. This Monday the streets looked emptier than ever, and even on avenues as central as 23rd, minutes went by without a car being seen.
Several gas stations, like the ones at G and 25th and L and 17th, where there are usually long lines of vehicles, were without service because there was neither gas nor diesel for sale. “They are both gone,” complained a driver to 14ymedio. “I’m paying for fuel at 50 and 60 pesos [$2-2.50] a liter [roughly a quarter of a gallon] on the street because I’m not there to wait in line.” The price in the official establishments is around 30 pesos [$1.25] per liter.
Other provinces have been suffering cuts for weeks. In Villa Clara, for example, fuel was rationed at the beginning of March, at a maximum of 30 liters [7.5 gallons] per car, 20 liters [5 gallons] for cargo and passenger bikes and 10 liters [2.5 gallons] for motorcycles.
In the middle of the month, just after a visit by Raúl Castro to Caracas, Reuters reported that Venezuela was preparing to send more than one and a half million barrels of oil to Cuba in a supertanker with the Panamanian flag. The cargo was composed, according to the report, of 400,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil and 1.13 million barrels of diesel.
The ship was supposed to arrive on the Island at the end of March, but there is no trace of that cargo on the streets.
Meanwhile, one group of workers especially outraged about the shortage of fuel are the taxi drivers. Sources in this newspaper say that they are fighting to be enabled by special services so that they don’t have to stand in the same lines as the rest, including the private ones. “So far we are having to gather together several taxi drivers to take turns standing in line, but we can’t continue that way,” says one of them.
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.
Its appearance is unfortunate and is not fitting with winter, the residents of Galiano street comment. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 1 April 2023 — It took three months for the Christmas pine planted in the Fe del Valle Park, in Centro Habana, to deteriorate. The tree, which last December was filled with lights – the first public New Year’s decoration that Cubans had seen in six decades – is now withered, with dry leaves and fallen branches.
Its appearance is unfortunate and is not fitting with winter, commented the residents of Galiano street, the same ones who took photos next to the conifer during Christmas, which the Government hastened to strip of all spiritual symbolism. The pine was part, they said, of a “comprehensive initiative” of the Avenida Italia project, with which the European country wanted to thank the presence of Cuban doctors during the pandemic in various locations on its territory.
So, the pine was not a Christmas sign but a very socialist “Friendship Tree”, as the Cuban press renamed it. Once that purpose was fulfilled, the trunk is barely holding up and is in need of three props, ribbons and cords to prevent it from falling on those who walk through Galiano. continue reading
The greyish trunk and the sparse foliage, of an imprecise color, are symptomatic of the specimen’s poor health. (14ymedio)
The greyish trunk and the sparse foliage, of an imprecise color, are symptomatic of the poor health of the specimen, whose survival seems unlikely to those who pass by. “Is the pine tree dying?” A boy asked his mother, who was trying to avoid the area so as not to run the risk that the tree, which looked weak and sickly, might fall on them.
“A lot of sewage water and too much humidity in that substrate”, diagnosed one of the old people sitting in the park. “Pines need semi-sandy soils, not the muck from Centro Habana”.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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Garbage piles up in the neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, in Central Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 29 March 2023 — The cleaning in the streets of Havana did not last long. One day before the elections to the National Assembly of People’s Power last Sunday, a battalion of state workers collected the filth that usually accumulates on the corners due to the lack of means of all kinds.
It’s barely Wednesday and the garbage is already limitless. On Espada street on the corner with Callejón de Hamel, in Centro Habana, the waste not only overflows three containers, but also spreads over the ground across more than twice the space occupied by those containers. “You can see that the voting is over,” an old woman murmured sarcastically as she passed in front of it, covering her mouth and nose and crossing the sidewalk.
The “operation” prior to the opening of the polls – whose official results are viewed with suspicion by the citizens who observed the almost empty polling stations throughout that day – was repeated in different cities throughout the Island, and included food sales in parks and squares and the absence of power cuts.
Three days after what some international organizations have called the “most irregular” elections in the history of Cuba, garbage, shortages and blackouts return.
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Exterior of the National Theater of Cuba on Wednesday. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, March 23, 2023 — The leaks that flooded the stage of Avellaneda Hall at the National Theater in Havana, where the Cuban National Ballet performed last Sunday, created more than just an “uncomfortable moment,” as musician Osmany Hernandez noted in a social media post on Tuesday.
The accompanying images on Facebook illustrate the magnitude of the disaster. A thin thread of water runs across the top of a music stand and drops of water fall from its lamp as the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana accompanies the ballet. Water can also be seen filtering through the ceiling between the spotlights.
“A piano, stringed instruments, conductor, musicians and wet electrical equipment.” Hernandez notes all are impacted by “the routine leak that appears whenever it rains.”
Witnesses told 14ymedio that even the artists were in danger, with ballerinas dancing on a wet stage near high-voltage equipment. They reported that leaking water could also be found throughout the building: “On the tables, above the musicians, in the basement and on windows. “Even the musicians and the instruments got wet.” Despite these conditions, the performance went on, uninterrupted.
In a social media post, Osmany Hernandez, a bassoonist and instructor at Havana’s Guillermo Tomás Conservatory, asks authorities to take action “to safeguard one of the few theaters we have left.”
He took the opportunity to remind readers that the Karl Marx Theater and the Grand Theater of Havana are “closed due to termites,” and that the Amadeo Roldán has been closed for years due to construction problems resulting from “a terrible repair job.” continue reading
“Our National Theater is now overrun with termites and there is growing deterioration of the facilities and musical instruments, such as harps, that are kept there,” he continues. It is a claim that is corroborated by his colleagues.
One of them is Igor Ernesto Corcuera Cáceres, director of the National Concert Band and professor at the Higher Institute of Art in Havana “And that’s in Avellaneda, which is the space in the best shape… Imagine what that says about its step-sister, the Covarrubias Hall, which is infested with bats and termites. The ONLY harp the National Symphony Orchestra still has is in serious danger of being ruined, not to mention double basses and other instruments.”
“Inconceivable indifference and deterioration,” adds René Gacives. “To the list, add the Sala Dolores in Santiago, which is now closed and in danger of collapse, and the International Choir Festival center in Santiago de Cuba.” Hernandez’s reply: “And nothing is happening.”
“The cultural budget is being cut. The complaints by our soloists, concertmasters and alternating soloists are not being taken into account under the new model, which is discouraging to those of us who choose to stay. And on top of that, we’re not allowed say anything.”
In another post, Hernandez mentions that he was ordered not to reveal anything on social media about the complaints. “And when exactly will some of these urgent problems be taken into consideration? Is it better to stay silent than to point out problems that threaten our professional existence? I don’t think everyone in a position to solve this problem knows about it. I know that those who are truly interested in culture are bending over backwards to resolve this.”
“I know that the staff of the National Theater of Cuba are dedicated and go out of their way to help,” Corcuera Cáceres concedes. “But things at this point are now more than they can handle. They don’t have the budget or resources to solve this problem. It takes investment at a higher level (so to speak).”
Water soaks a music stand in the orchestra of the Cuban National Theater’s Avellaneda Hall. (Screen capture)
The flutist Alberto Rosas is even harsher in his comments: “This is the result of the incompetence, fraud, ineptitude, inefficiency and corruption of a failed system that plagues the Cuban people. This is the the sort of thing has always been condemned and denounced by conscientious citizens. I am fully aware of that. But because the theater does not have an owner, no one suffers the consequences. Its leaders wash their hands of it to safeguard the meager benefits they get compared to ordinary people for their poor performance. Cuba is falling apart. This is what they’ve done to what was once known as the Pearl of the Caribbean.”
The National Theater of Cuba opened in 1979 to coincide with the Sixth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement. However, the authorization for its construction dates from 1951, before the Revolution. The original plan was inspired by the Radio City Music Hall in New York but that vision never came to fruition.
The musician who published the original post ended the thread by reporting, “Today they began to repair the roof. I hope it turns out well. Many of us who work there really need it.” On Wednesday, 14ymedio confirmed that some sort of repair is being carried out. At least there was a workman on the roof.
The musicians’ complaints coincide with the publication in official media outlets of a report acknowledging problems of inefficiency and corruption at state cultural organizations. Artists consulted for this article interpret the report as an attempt to do away with these organizations and allow small or mid-size private companies to take over their operations.
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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.
A garish red was crudely and sloppily painted over the sign, which has been attributed to an anonymous organization, The New Directorate. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 24 March 2023 — Early Tuesday morning a message critical of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) was scrawled on a wall in Aguirre Park, in Havana’s Revolution Plaza district. It has since been covered up by a coat of red paint. The garish color was crudely and sloppily applied over the graffiti, which is believed to be the work of an anonymous organization, El Nuevo Directorio (The Student Directorate), or END.
On Friday, passers-by looked on furtively, laughing at the wall where the words “No to the PCC,” written in huge letters, were being eradicated. In spite of the midday heat, several people sat around in random locations, carefully gauging the mood. Local residents, who are well-aware of State Security’s surveillance techniques, stayed clear of the area. “They always do the same thing,” says one woman who came to pick up her daughter at school. “They’re waiting to see if the person who painted it returns to the scene of the crime.”
In the background, the red paint is glowing even more intensely but no one dares go near. Dumpsters overflowing with trash and refuse round out the scene. On the other side of the wall is the stadium of the University of Havana, an institution that END has said it would like to see “disrupted.” END’s members have taken up the tradition of painting inflammatory, anti-government slogans, just as another organization, the University Student Directorate, did in the 1930s against the country’s tyranical president, Gerardo Machado.
“We’ve infiltrated your universities, your hospitals and ministries. We have so much information that we will destroy you from within,” read a message posted a few weeks ago on END’s Twitter profile page. It has described itself and “a movement for peaceful, active action” that adheres to “the ideas and legacy of [José] Martí and José Antonio Echeverría.” continue reading
The organization is thought to be responsible for another sign, painted on the facade of the school’s Department of Physics on March 20. A week earlier, someone also wrote, “Down with the dictatorship, the murderous Castros” — in sand and in broad daylight — down the middle of Crespo Street, near the corner of Trocadero, in Central Havana.
In that instance, authorities got rid of the sign very quickly. That was not the case with the graffiti in Aguirre Park, where it remained until the following morning as counterintelligence deployed a monitoring device and stationed dozens of agents in the area. Political graffiti has become more common since the protests of July 11, 2021.
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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.
