Julio César Contreras – Page 3

At the Vigia Cafe in Matanzas, Cuba, There Is No Longer Any Beer Nor Roast Chicken, and Neither Are There Any Friends Left

Idael returns to the café he’s known all his life and finds, to his indignation, that all they have to offer are toilets with no water, and even that costs 20 pesos

Plaza de la Vigía, where the café is situated, suffers from constant power cuts and the clientele has diminished. / Facebook / Fotos de Matanzas

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 23 August 2025 – Until he emigrated to Spain seven years ago Idael used to meet up with friends at the Vigía café on the square of the same name in Matanzas. That colonial building, with its wide entrance way and tall pillars was a refuge of shared beers and nighttime meals – which avoided the need to switch on the cooker at home. Today, visiting his native city, the IT engineer was hoping to relive these scenes but the half open doors of the establishment seem to indicate that time has not been merciful.

“My parents helped me to learn to walk right here on this wooden lounge floor, and later I used to lift my own son up onto one of the toy horses here”, he remembers, as he observes the staff members in the doorway, distracted, talking about anything but work. One of them asks him, almost with indifference, if he would like anything, as though he was speaking to a stranger, an intruder. No chalkboard here showing special offers of the day, nor any hustle and bustle of clientele: only tables occupied by people taking advantage of the shade, with nothing available to eat.

Looking inside, Idael sees a man seated in the half light of the lounge. “I asked him if I could use the toilets and he told me it would cost me 20 pesos”, he says. And then he realized that all that the Vigía had to offer had been reduced to a toilet and a washbasin with no water. Shortly after, another employee explained that there was no beer, because the place had been without power since the early hours. The coffee machine was broken and all they had were a few fruit juices past their sell by date: an interminable list of what used to be and now no longer is.

No chalkboard here showing special offers of the day, nor any hustle and bustle of clientele: only tables occupied by people taking advantage of the shade, with nothing available to eat. / 14ymedio

The scene infuriates the visitor. “The government ought to give these places over to private ownership who would make them productive”, he complains. “Here you have a bunch of workers who don’t produce anything, earning a miserable wage for opening up at nine and shutting at four. continue reading

Where’s the economical purpose in that? Are they just waiting for the roof to fall in so they can close it down for good?” His questions resound around the cracked walls and the empty tables.

The area around Plaza de la Vigía, where the café is located, doesn’t help either: there are frequent power cuts, a lack of nighttime security and an overall ambience that has been deteriorated by the theft of such things as sound systems and general decoration. The surroundings themselves scare off any potential visitor as much as does the general inertia of a place that seems condemned to be forgotten.

For Idael, what remains is barely even a faded postcard. The Vigía is no longer the meeting place that brought together locals from any profession or salary: “The 20 pesos that used to be enough to get you a Mayabe beer will only be enough to use the toilet today”, he says bitterly. “There’s no Congrí rice or roast chicken anymore. Only silence, a silence that hurts”.

And perhaps what hurts the most is that all the friends are gone. All of them, like himself, have gone.

The Vigía is no longer the meeting place that brought together locals from any profession or salary. / 14ymedio

La Vigía ya no es el punto de encuentro que reunía a vecinos de cualquier oficio o salario. / 14ymedio[/caption]

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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In Matanzas, a Teacher Swapped Chalk for Bricks To Build Her Own House

Yadira accepted a job as an official in the municipal construction union

This week, 98,000 students began the school year in Matanzas, but with poor teacher coverage. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, September 6, 2025 — Last Monday, Yadira was not in the classroom with her students, as she had been every year since graduating as a comprehensive general teacher in 2003. “Leaving teaching has been one of the most difficult decisions of my life, but I am tired of teaching being a profession so undervalued and poorly paid in this country,” says the teacher, who worked at two primary schools in Matanzas. After many years of sacrifice, she decided to change jobs.

Her new job as a municipal construction union employee will not earn her much more, but it will give her something she values more: free time for her family and access to building materials. She lives with her three children in Matanzas, while trying to finish her house, which was started in 2011 and still has a dirt floor. “I agreed to come in 2008 from Bayamo because they promised me a house that never arrived,” she explains to 14ymedio.

The provincial education landscape shows the cracks in the system. This week, 98,000 students began the school year in Matanzas, but with a deficient teaching coverage: of a planned staff of 9,511 places, only 7,478 have been covered. According to the provincial deputy director of education, Eledis Abreu Domech, the gap of more than 2,000 teachers is filled by hourly contracts and other patches. The most affected municipalities are Matanzas, Colón and Cárdenas.

The deficit is due not only to low wages but also to the very poor living conditions, especially the housing

The deficit is due not only to low wages but also to the very poor living conditions, especially the housing for those who have been transferred from other provinces to teach in the city. Yadira recalls spending three years in a teacher’s shelter, washing her clothes by hand and eating continue reading

whatever appeared, until members of her Baptist church helped her to get a small plot of land and to build one room of her own house.

Frustration accumulated: “It is not just the salary. Between absurd meetings and prohibitions, it is impossible to teach quality classes,” complains the woman.

According to the most recent salary scale, Yadira should receive 5,369 pesos plus an 80-peso seniority bonus. “I can’t support my children with that. I’m a single mother, and at 44 I still depend on the help of my parents,” she laments. She is thinking of doing private tutoring at home, something forbidden while working in the school.

Although in her new union job she will earn 400 pesos less, she gets more autonomy, less bureaucracy, more time for her family, and she can have time to be a leader in her Baptist Church. “I will try to continue working for the State, but I will not accept impositions against my faith or personal development. If something positive comes out of this decision it is that I will never work for someone who does not value my effort.”

As an added bonus, her new job brings her closer to a source of construction resources that can accelerate the completion of her home. As a teacher, it was virtually impossible for Yadira to buy anything, from electrical switches to sacks of cement, to complete a project that has already cost her more than a decade of work and worry.

During her work as a teacher, she felt that attention to the teaching staff was one of the great shortcomings of the Cuban educational system. The teachers’ list of duties is long, but the stimulus remains in some diploma or official act where they are given a flower or a picture with the face of some party leader. This lack of interest does not correspond to the importance that people like her have in the formation of new generations.

Yadira admits that she would like to return to teaching one day but finds it increasingly difficult: “They are running out of teachers, and the worst is that they do nothing to prevent it. It’s as if they don’t care,” she concludes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Darkness, Heat and a Train That Doesn’t Turn Up — The Night in the Matanzas Terminal

New railway timetables push passengers into early mornings and long waits in dangerous conditions.

Passengers are used to blackouts, toilet closures and no drinking water in the terminal. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 31 July 2025 — Evening fell slowly over the makeshift Matanzas train terminal, a former freight warehouse refurbished to fill the gap in the lack of a proper station. There, amidst mosquitoes and shadows, dozens of commuters were checking out the new schedule this Monday for the four domestic trains departing from Havana until September 30th.

According to the Ministry of Transport, the readjustment responds to “the shortage of cars” and the need to “have more trains throughout the summer,” that will leave every four days. These additional convoys, the agency said, “will guarantee the transport of students, workers, athletes participating in sporting events, such as the School Games, and other sectors,” while the rest of the population will be able to book seats whenever available “as usual during this period.”

However, at the Yumurina terminal, travellers see a very different reality. “I had to come early, because this place is so remote that you can only get there by renting a vehicle,” Georgina told 14ymedio, while recalling that she had already spent “2,000 pesos on a bicycle taxi” without knowing whether she would be able to board the train to Holguín. “In the morning I signed up on the waiting list. Then I went to my daughter’s house, who lives near Parque René Fraga, to pick up my luggage,” she says with a tired expression.

The Havana-Holguín train used to pass through Matanzas around 10 p.m. / 14ymedio

The Havana-Holguín train used to pass through Matanzas at around 10 p.m., but the new timetable means passengers will have to wait past midnight. “I booked the tickets several days ago. I thought the stay at the terminal was going to be relatively short, but now they tell me it will leave Havana at 10:05pm. That means we’ll be coming to catch it after 1:00 in the morning. How inconsiderate,” complained Reidel, accompanied by his wife and young son. continue reading

Accustomed to the blackouts, closed toilets, and no drinking water in the terminal, Reidel knows that not even the street vendors dare to cross the Camilo Cienfuegos distribution area at night. “We bring food from home because here, when it gets dark, you can’t even see your hands in fonrt of your face,” he says. The young man recalls that “last month I almost couldn’t travel because of the waiting list, because the train had only five cars. Now that I buy my ticket in advance, they change the timetable. They do nothing to help us.”

Inside the main hall, which is also the domestic bus terminal, the heat and mosquitoes make the wait unbearable. The crammed together metal benches barely leave room to move between the luggage. Some, like Isabel, who is returning to Las Tunas, prefer to sit outside on the concrete walls. “The employees have their work cut out too; they have to use the torches on their phones to check tickets or make a note on the waiting list,” she says.

With her suitcase between her feet, Isabel estimates that, with luck, she’ll be home in 12 or 13 hours. “My son wanted me to stay a few more days and take one of those extra trains they announced, but if they don’t follow the established routes, I don’t think they’ll add anything extra,” she says, aware that the transportation crisis will delay her next reunion with her grandchildren.

As faces blur in the darkness, resignation grows. An elderly man stretches out on a cement wall and nods in a restless sleep. Others improvise conversations to pass the wait, as if talking could shorten the night. At the Matanzas terminal, everyone knows, even if no one says so, that the train will hardly leave on time, even under the new schedule. Amidst blackouts, heat, and stinging winds, they await the moment when the metallic roar of the locomotive breaks the silence.

Translated by GH

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Cuba: At the Matanzas Maternity Hospital Mothers Bring Their Own Supplies

The falling birth rate and shortages paint a worrisome picture for pregnant women in the province.

The heat doesn’t ease women’s worries, as they fear that they might go into labor and lack something at the hospital. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 5 August 2025 –“All in yellow,” is how Yamila wants her baby to be born at the José Ramón López Trabane Provincial Gynecological and Obstetric Teaching Hospital in Matanzas. There’s still plenty of time until that day, but the 22-year-old doesn’t have a minute to waste. While she waits for her turn, she reviews the problems she must overcome at the city’s main maternity hospital due to the lack of resources, human and material.

Despite the prestige once enjoyed by what is commonly called the Matanzas Maternity Hospital, the situation in its consulting rooms, lounges, and hallways is very different now. Pregnant women who come seeking care know that, without a personal recommendation or a gift for the doctor, they are forced to resign themselves to waiting at the end of the line and sitting in a plastic chair that barely relieves their fatigue.

In the waiting room that Monday morning, the air was thick and the pages of medical records became improvised fans.

In the waiting room that Monday morning, the air was thick, and the pages of medical records became improvised fans. Among the sweating women was Yamila, 15 weeks pregnant. “In Ceiba Mocha, where I live, the family doctor’s office has been closed for two years,” she told 14ymedio. “I’m a first-time mother, I come from the countryside, and I don’t know any obstetrician who might treat me.”

While she waits, her mental to-do list grows: she’s already started buying syringes, sutures, gauze, and some regalitos — small gifts — for the continue reading

medical staff. “A friend gave birth last month and even had to bring the gloves for the delivery. There’s nothing here,” she says, watching a woman cross the hall carrying a bucket and a homemade water heater. “I hope I don’t need a C-section. I’m scared,” she confesses.

Preparing the birthing bag, a long-standing tradition among Cuban women, has become more complex each year. While it used to include diapers, the clothes the baby would leave the hospital in, blankets, and cotton, it now includes cash and a wide range of items, from a pillow to food. Fans, cutlery, a bathing basin… the supplies “look like packing to move,” the young woman emphasizes.

Yamila is not alone in the almost dark hallway waiting for an appointment. A few steps away, Yanelis and her partner have been waiting outside the door for two hours. They suspect an unwanted pregnancy and want to know if there’s still time to terminate it. “My cousin used to do ultrasounds, but she went to work as a waitress because the pay in Public Health is so bad,” she laments. During that wait, they’ve seen cockroaches crawling on the stained walls, orderlies smoking at the windows, and doctors letting in those who arrive loaded with bags first. “When that door opens, we’re going in. Let’s see who can stop us,” she says, determined.

The deterioration isn’t just material. Leticia, with a high-risk pregnancy due to her diabetes, warns: “I started bleeding this morning. I told a doctor, hoping she’d see me quickly, and here I am.” She holds back the urge to go to the bathroom because the only restroom “doesn’t flush.” For her, experiencing her second pregnancy, “it all depends on what you can give; if you have the resources, they see you faster.” Her brother, from abroad, has already promised to send her money every month to speed up her medical checkups.

Her brother, from abroad, has already promised to send her money every month to speed up the medical check-ups.

This health crisis is occurring in a province where fewer and fewer children are being born. In recent decades, Matanzas went from registering almost 8,000 births per year to just over 4,000 in 2024; it is the province with the fifth worst birth rate (6.6 per 1,000 women). Experts point to migration, especially of young women, and an economy that discourages motherhood as the main causes: lack of housing, high prices for basic goods, and wages that are barely enough to get by. According to the National Statistics Office (ONEI), the birth rate in Cuba has been fewer than two children per woman since 1978, insufficient to maintain the population in a country that, moreover, does not receive migrants to help alleviate the situation.

Selective out-migration, which is shrinking the age brackets between 20 and 35, exacerbates the imbalance: fewer births and more older adults. Even though programs such as the Maternal and Child Care Program (PAMI) promote health campaigns and support for couples struggling to conceive, maternity hospital wards show the other side of the crisis: pregnant women without priority care, births requiring supplies brought from home, and overwhelmed or unmotivated professionals.

In the heat, expectant mothers wait their turn while sheets of paper continue to flap like fans. Between fear and resignation, they all know that giving birth here isn’t just about bringing a life into the world; it’s also about surviving an increasingly deteriorating healthcare system.

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‘There Are No Vacations for the Poor Here’ A Cuban Street Vendor Explains

On the sidewalks of Matanzas, informal vendors defy the heat and surveillance to survive.

Informal vendors are an extension of the urban landscape. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 3 August 2025 — In July and August, school holidays send children and teenagers home. Many state employees also take a break. But in Matanzas, the city isn’t completely at rest: on its sidewalks and in its doorways, informal vendors remain, unfazed by the harsh sun or the barely visible shade offered by the eaves.

“This is my workplace. Thanks to what I sell here, my wife and I survive,” says Lázaro, a retiree who arranges matches, soap, and pencils on the steps of a house on Calzada de Tirry every morning. His voice mingles with the sound of traffic and the impromptu shouts of other street vendors, never taking a break. “There are no vacations for the poor here.”

A former school bus driver, he never imagined making a living this way. “At first, it was difficult because I’d never even sold a pin,” he confesses. “There was also the logical fear of being fined for not having a license. But going hungry is terrible. Seeing the empty pots gave me the strength to make up my mind, and I’ve been selling this way for a year now.” His strategy for evading inspectors includes “a little gift to make them turn a blind eye and go back where they came from.”

They sit under colonial portals, in front of pharmacies, or around markets. / 14ymedio

In Matanzas, informal vendors seem like an extension of the urban landscape: under colonial doorways, in front of pharmacies, or around markets. They can’t even afford to rest on Sundays. “These products aren’t mine, so most of the money doesn’t belong to me either,” explains Orestes, as he sets up his makeshift folding table at the entrance to a pharmacy. “When they warn me of an inspection, I stay away from the En Familia café and walk through neighborhoods where I sell less, but run less risk of fines.”

On his small table, there’s everything: matchboxes, instant glue, gaskets for coffee makers and pressure cookers, rat poison, pens, and even covers for the ration book, which is being used less and less due to the shortage of supplies in the bodegas [ration stores].

“Who does it hurt when an old man like me sells nylon bags and razors?” Lázaro asks, recalling the afternoon he tore up his National Vanguard Construction diplomas, accumulated over nine consecutive years. “In addition to paying us miserable pensions, the government makes our lives difficult, even by fining us a few pesos that aren’t even enough to make ends meet.”

They sell everything: matchboxes, glue, gaskets for coffee makers and pressure cookers, rat poison, pens, and even covers for ration books. / 14ymedio

Others prefer more discreet methods. Demetrio, sitting on a bench on Calzada de San Luis, holds three packs of cigarettes in his hand. He doesn’t need more: the buyers come by themselves. “I arrange them with the warehouse manager or a friend who works at an MSME” [a small private business] he admits quietly. “I don’t want any trouble, but I have to do something so I don’t starve to death, because things are really tough.”

Poverty is growing, spreading from the Simpson and La Marina neighborhoods to the old residential areas of Peñas Altas and Versalles. For informal vendors, there are no weekends, holidays, or summer vacations. They stay until the day gives them just enough to eat. And then, at dusk, they clear their tables, stash the little money they’ve earned, and hope that tomorrow won’t surprise them with an inspection or despair.

For informal vendors, there are no weekends, holidays, or summer vacations. / 14ymedio

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The Matanzas Bus Terminal Closed and Commercial Life Shut Down

Cafes and kiosks near the building in danger of collapse are surviving with minimal sales and reduced hours.

Moving the bus services to the train station has been a hard blow to merchants. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 2 August 2025 — Since the Matanzas bus terminal closed due to the risk of collapse, the bustle around it has dried up, taking down the incomes of those who depended on commuters. Maricela, 24, has only been able to work intermittently in one of the cafés near the dilapidated building and fears the situation could last for months or years.

“We have a good location, right in front of where the wait list used to be,” she says, pointing to the now-deserted corner. “Before, people would stay there until 8:00 p.m., but since the buses stopped coming, things die after 2:00 p.m.,” the Matanzas native laments.

Initially, Maricela worked as a sales assistant three days a week. Now, with fewer customers and dwindling profits, her schedule has been reduced to covering the other employee’s shifts only when they’re absent. “My salary was 1,000 pesos a day. I used to work two days and rest two, but now they barely pay 700. The joy in the poor person’s house is short-lived,” she laments.

Some employees have seen their work shifts reduced due to low customer numbers. / 14ymedio

The terminal’s closure also threatens the livelihood of Vladimir, who recently got a job as a clerk at a kiosk near the taxi rank. “We had to stop selling pizzas because we can’t turn on the oven with the power outages. The soda heats up quickly, and no one buys it,” he explains. By six in the evening, they’ve barely sold 5,000 pesos worth.

“In less than a month, two private businesses closed right next door. The owner couldn’t even pay the rent,” he adds, concerned about the warning he received from his boss: if sales don’t improve in the next few days, they will temporarily close until the terminal reopens. Other outlets are facing a very similar situation.

But the prognosis for the work is uncertain. The building has such accumulated deterioration that its restoration could take a considerable amount of time and resources. With its half-broken, once colorful stained-glass windows and a metal framework—in the style of classic European stations—the terminal was built in 1883 by the British company United Railways. Decades without investment caused ferns to sprout from its walls and enlarged the gaps in the roof.

Last October, the official announcement came that bus terminal services would be moved to the train station. The relocation has not only inconvenienced passengers but has also been a severe blow to local merchants, drivers, and street vendors.

“Our main customers were those who traveled long distances, not those who traveled within the province,” the merchants say. / 14ymedio

Eliécer, another entrepreneur in the area, also faces a shortage of drinking water. “I rent a tricycle and bring water from my house in buckets,” he says. His kiosk, which he opened next to the bus platform, attracted by the old crowds, now sells only jams and pre-prepared light meals.

“Before, we opened at five in the morning and set up everything right there. I even considered having the kiosk open 24 hours a day. I invested in improving the roof and was ready to buy a small power plant. But in this country, nothing is the way you want it. Now I close at five in the afternoon and I don’t plan on spending any more,” he admits.

Private merchants bear the losses. “Our main customers were those traveling far away, not those traveling within the province or the taxi drivers,” says Eliécer. “Those who came here to travel wanted a sip of coffee before boarding the bus, a bite to eat for a snack, or a meal before leaving,” he details.

Eliécer believes that by the time the station reopens, many of the local businesses will have completely collapsed. “Every day it’s closed means a business has one foot in the grave,” he describes.

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The Mountain of Garbage Around a Church in Matanzas Reaches Levels of Heresy

“The Community Services Company has left all this dirt on purpose,” complains a member from the parish of San Pedro Apóstol.

Passing bystanders try to avoid getting their shoes dirty and take small jumps to dodge the water. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, July 13, 2025 — “May the Lord protect us from so much garbage.” The phrase, pronounced by an elderly man who raises his gaze to the bell tower of the parish of San Pedro Apóstol, summarizes the concern about the debris that accumulates next to this church in Matanzas. The panorama is repeated throughout the city, but the mountain of waste reaches levels of heresy around the majestic building.

“I come to mass every Sunday, and the bad smell is very unpleasant,” says Lydia, a Catholic from the neighborhood of Versalles who considers the parish her “second home.” With more than seven decades of life, the resident from Matanzas claims to have “seen everything.” She lived through the days of anti-religious extremism, when scapulars were torn from the necks of those who publicly maintained their Catholic faith.

If in those years, Lydia had to put away the picture of the Sacred Heart that her grandmother had hung in the house and fill herself with courage to attend the Sunday service, she must now overcome the waste to be able to sit on the long wooden benches inside the building designed by Italian architect Daniel Dall’Aglio.

“I think the Community Services Company has left all this dirt on purpose, because no collector has picked it up,” she says, complaining about the lack continue reading

of containers nearby and the ups and downs in waste collection. “We have sent letters to the Government and the Office of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Party. They promise to clean up the area, but it’s nothing but words.”

“I think the Community Services Company has left all this dirt on purpose, because no collector has picked it up.” / 14ymedio

As the priest loudly repeats fragments of the Bible, the stench of rotting garbage comes to the noses of the assembled parishioners. From the mountain of bags thrown on the sidewalk, which now reaches into the street, a putrid stream springs that continues spreading its miasmasdownhill. Passing bystanders try to avoid getting their shoes dirty and take small jumps to dodge the water.

Most of the countless Catholic churches on the Island are located in very central and densely populated areas. Hence, with the collapse of the garbage collection service, the image of waste that grows around the walls of churches, monasteries and convents is becoming more common. But the extent of the evil does not console parishioners, who believe that there is a more marked official neglect of these buildings.

“The garbage is piled on the wall of a building that has the status of a National Monument,” comments another resident in the vicinity of San Pedro Apóstol. “There is nothing left of the sidewalk that leads to the door.” The man reports that the municipal trucks assigned to the area do not meet the scheduled collection cycles, with the excuse that there is a shortage of fuel, personnel and spare parts.

Municipal trucks assigned to the area do not meet the scheduled collection cycles. / 14ymedio

Although he recognizes that the responsibility for dumping waste in the area lies with the neighbors, he justifies the attitude by the lack of sufficient containers to deposit household waste. “If they had to collect what the tourists throw away when they take pictures of the church they would have bought containers and they’d sing a different song,” he says.

The angry resident does not fail to notice that the problem is not repeated with the same magnitude in the vicinity of the main official institutions of the province, such as the headquarters of the Communist Party or the premises of the National Assembly. “There is no interest in churches looking more beautiful and people being happy to come to mass, that’s clear.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Even the Dollar Loses the Battle Against Blackouts in Matanzas, Cuba

Without electricity, businesses stop selling and stop accepting all types of money

Stationary bikes for 280 MLC, along with beach umbrellas, were some of the few options at the old Ten Cent / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 25 June 2025 -The pattern repeats itself. In any city where a dollar store opens, businesses in freely convertible currency (MLC) accelerate their decline. Matanzas could not be any different, and the Ten Cent store on Medio Street is the latest example of this silent struggle that runs through the commercial fabric. Almost empty, it now appears that the spacious store’s days are numbered.

Since the beginning of April, three stores in the city have switched to foreign currency sales. La Matancera, La Reina, and La Atenas de Cuba were chosen to join the group of markets across the island that sell in dollars or with the Classic Card. The old Ten Cent, renamed Centro Comercial Variedades decades ago, was not included on that list, and since then, its offerings have only diminished.

Some of the products that were previously on the shelves of the market in MLC moved to La Atenas de Cuba, located a few meters away, on Callejón de la Sacristía, at the corner of Milanés. The direction to strip one saint to pay another came from “on high,” according to an employee of the disgraced store who spoke to 14ymedio. Thus, boxes and boxes of merchandise changed both their location and the currency in which they were sold.

When the blackout hits, the lack of electricity affects both locations, in dollars and in MLC. / 14ymedio

“This looks like a gym without people,” a customer could be heard saying this Monday morning as she browsed the spacious sports equipment area in the former Ten Cent. The white granite floor, high ceilings, and a strong, musty smell give the market the appearance of a rarely visited museum. Stationary bikes for 280 MLC, along with beach continue reading

umbrellas, were among the few offerings.

The neglect and disorganization extend to the rest of the store, where the most visited space isn’t the counter with cleaning supplies or the appliance area, but the place where customers can leave their bags. The dynamism is due to the fact that some Matanzas residents store their backpacks and purses there when they want to enter other nearby stores that have restrictions on access with bags or packages. Few even head inside the Variety section.

However, when the blackout hits, the lack of electricity affects both establishments equally. Without power, the workers at La Atenas de Cuba halt sales, and the hard cash dollars stop flowing into their cash registers. The old Ten Cent also sinks further into stagnation. Without electricity, the gap narrows, and both businesses are just two dark, empty buildings.
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Despite the ‘Tarifazo’* Etecsa Maintains Poor Telecommunications Service in Cuba

“The worst thing is the internet connection, although the calls are also of poor quality and hard to hear”

The under-25 group is among the most affected by the measure announced last Friday by Etecsa / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, June 2, 2025 — A single line at the top of her phone tells Mariana that she has very little coverage. Although she is outside and in a central location, the call has been cut off twice, and the voice on the other side of the line seems to come from inside a cave. Despite the new price increases announced by the state monopoly Etecsa, telecommunications are going from bad to worse in the city of Matanzas.

“They can’t provide an efficient service,” the woman, who lives in Reparto Iglesias, told 14ymedio. “The worst thing is the internet connection, although the calls are also of poor quality and hard to hear. They are cut off or simply can’t communicate with another number,” she says, listing the problems that Cubans must overcome every day to contact family and friends.

With blackouts lasting up to 20 hours a day, making calls has become an ordeal due to the lack of power backup from most telecommunications towers installed in the city. ” I change the frequency of my phone to 2G, I go up to the roof of the house, but the most I can do is send an SMS and, if I’m lucky, make a short call,” adds Mariana. Like many of Etecsa’s customers, the woman wonders whether the money raised from the new data packet prices will eventually be used for investments in the monopoly infrastructure. continue reading

“I change the frequency of my phone to 2G, I go up to the roof of the house, but the most I can do is send an SMS and, if I’m lucky, make a short call”

Román Paz Cabrera, head of the commercial department of the territorial division of Etecsa in Matanzas, was categorical in statements to the newspaper Girón about the bad moment that the company is going through. “The equipment we use is high-tech, fully imported and rapidly obsolete. Communications are affected in the country, many of them related to the electro-energy situation, because radio base stations are shut down because they do not have the necessary backup, and this affects mobile telephones.”

“I didn’t even know about the price increase, I realized when I tried to check my balance and a message arrived saying that the service was not available,” laments one young man who is among the 560,000 customers who have mobile service in the province. “I am very concerned because I need internet for almost everything, to consult the books that I’m sent to review at university, for video games and to watch movies or series.”

The young man believes that Cubans under 25 are one of the groups most affected by the measure announced last Friday by Etecsa. “Most of my friends still depend on their parents to pay for data packages, because they are studying and do not earn money.” With rising prices, “many families will no longer be able to afford to give their children access to literature or entertainment.”

Despite not being digital natives and the challenges that the use of new technologies implies, the price increase has fallen on the elderly like a jug of cold water. With an aging population due to low birth rates and the exodus of younger people, older people often rely on web connectivity to maintain a link with their children and grandchildren who have emigrated. With a monthly pension of 2,500 pesos, Ernesto, 78 years old and living in the neighborhood of Versalles, has been doing his homework since last Friday. “From now on I will only send text messages by WhatsApp,” he explains to this newspaper. If he maintains the video conferences that bring him several times a week to his daughter’s home in Hialeah, the costs would be too high, and he would not be able to afford that link that gives him “the strength to get out of bed every day.”

If he wants to have video conferences that bring him several times a week to his daughter’s home in Hialeah, the costs would be too high

For local entrepreneurs, the new costs are a real challenge. In Liberty park, Luis managed this Sunday to distribute a list on WhatsApp with offers from appliances to baby clothes. The informal trade network is increasingly using instant messaging tools to offer its products and services. “There are customers who ask me to send more photos of the goods or make a video to see how something works, but with these internet prices I find it difficult.”

In a nearby coffee shop, the employee stretches up her arm to try to improve the signal that reaches her mobile phone. The gesture has some despair because on the counter, a chocolate and vanilla cake is waiting to be moved to a birthday party, but the message with the delivery address has not arrived on the phone. “It’s bad for a business that depends on Etecsa,” concludes the woman who, after several attempts, manages to obtain the information. By the time the messenger is ready to go, the cake is already suffering from the ravages of heat and delay.

*Translator’s note re “Tarifazo.” The “azo” ending in Cuban Spanish is a ’magnifier’, so here, roughly: “the gigantic price increase thing”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Versalles Bridge in Matanzas, Cuba, Is Screaming for Urgent Repairs

“You only have to meet a heavily loaded truck on the way and you can feel it shudder,” says a resident of the city.

The metal structure of the bridge, also known as Lacret Morlot, was cast in the United States. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 31 May 2025 — The Concordia Bridge over the Yumurí River, a link that connects a large part of the city of Matanzas with the Versalles neighborhood, is essential for vehicles and pedestrians traveling in both directions. Complaints on social media about its deterioration have escalated, prompting authorities to take action and announce repairs that have yet to begin and are expected to be superficial.

Under the scorching sun, a high school student walked along the structure this Friday, avoiding the cars traveling across the bridge built in 1878. The yellow tape blocking one of the pedestrian paths forces him to step down onto the roadway with its moving traffic or cross to the other side, where the sidewalk is also in poor condition. “I try to cross quickly because if the driver is distracted, you’ll get a scare,” the teenager, who makes the same trip every day, told 14ymedio.

After images of the structure, damaged by the passage of time and lack of investment, circulated widely online, the newspaper Girón attempted to quell rumors of a possible bridge collapse by announcing a restoration process. Guillermo López-Calleja Pérez, head of the Comprehensive Project Management Department of Empai Matanzas, emphasized that vehicular access would not be affected by the construction, but pedestrian access has been severely reduced, hampering traffic flow.

Photos of its structure, damaged by the passage of time and lack of investment, circulate widely on the internet. / 14ymedio

“Walking on the road is dangerous, as everything from bicycles to buses and trucks constantly circulates,” explains Ileana, a Versalles resident who also uses the road daily. “But if I take the pedestrian crossing, it seems like one of the planks forming the walkway could come loose at any moment,” she says, pointing to the metal structures covering part of the sidewalk, which tremble as soon as she steps on them. continue reading

The metal structure of the bridge, also known as Lacret Morlot, was cast in the United States, while its four cylindrical stone columns are the work of architect Pedro Celestino del Pandal. “It looks like they’ll only be doing a little work on the roadbed and the railings, which are about to fall off,” laments Ileana, who had hoped for a more extensive intervention on this symbol of the city of Matanzas. The saltpeter, combined with the passage of heavy vehicles and the negligence of the authorities, have seriously affected the structure.

“You only have to meet a heavily loaded truck on the route and you can feel it shudder,” the woman explains. “Many trailers loaded with merchandise from the port pass through here,” she notes, a movement of products that was unthinkable in the nineteenth-century when Concordia was founded. From the horse-drawn carriages, fruit carts, and the occasional war artillery, we have moved on to a more industrial use that has left its mark.

Cracks, accumulated rust, dead streetlights, and deteriorating pavement are just the most visible scars. / 14ymedio

Cracks, accumulated rust, dead streetlights, and deteriorating pavement are just the most visible scars of this accumulated damage. Matanzas residents fear that the wounds left by time and neglect may become deeper and more dangerous.

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Cuban Postal Service Handles Billions of Dollars Worth of Shipments But Is Out of Stamps

If it weren’t for the Cubans abroad and their constant shipments of goods, the company’s workers would not have jobs.

Post office customers usually only have one objective: to pick up packages sent to them by relatives overseas. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 24 May 2025 — In a city where people must wait in ever longer lines to buy things, it is surprising to see almost no one at local post offices. The lack of stamps and other supplies for mailing correspondence has turned these establishments into nothing more than pick-up locations for packages sent from abroad. Instead of letters and telegrams, these spaces are now filled with packages of powdered milk and medicine.

At the post office on Medio Street where, just a few years ago, lines used to begin forming early in the morning, it is now common to see workers looking bored. “No, we still don’t have stamps,” repeats one employee, who answers the same question dozens of times a day. “We’re suffering from neglect nationwide,” she says, pointing to the unreliable stamp supply as one of the most obvious signs of decline.

“It seems old-fashioned but some people still send letters, though most who come here need stamps to mail in some paperwork,” she adds. “A magical universe in every collection,” reads a sign pasted on the wall, intended to entice stamp collectors. Meanwhile, the display cases and shelves stand empty. There are no stamps, envelopes, or boxes to send to other provinces, much less glue, pens, or paper for anyone wishing to compose a letter on the spot.

Most people, who typically do not spend much time in here, have only one objective: to pick up packages sent to them by relatives overseas. “We have become a pick-up location and that is what keeps us open,” adds the employee. If not for the constant flow of packages from the Cuban emigre community, Cuba’s postal workers would be unemployed. In 2024 alone, continue reading

the agency received and processed 503,232 shipments from abroad.

“We’ve become a pick-up location, and that’s what keeps us open,” says one employee. / 14ymedio

Since 2021 the Ministry of Finance and Prices has assumed that Cubans will buy from abroad what the state does not import. So every three months the tariff on imported medications, cleaning supplies, food and electrical generators is suspended. All these products can enter the country duty-free provided they are not intended for resale. International parcel delivery has been one of the areas that has benefited most from this measure. The steady flow of shipments, however, has not had a spillover affect on the profits of other postal services.

“Some customers complain that we are out of stamps and they are completely right. All I can say is that we might get them sometime next week but I know perfectly well that there is no short-term solution,” the employee explains. One of those irate customers was complaining on Monday — shouting and slamming the door on his way out — after being told that, for weeks, the post office has been out of the 20-peso stamps he needs to mail some notarized documents.

“When we get stamps in those denominations, they come in small quantities and sell out immediately,” an employee at another, less centrally located and even less well-off post office explained. “The busiest days are when we have to pay pensions to retirees.” The employees themselves suggest that customers look for stamps on the black market. “They have everything there,” the employee said.

“I am looking for three 10-peso stamps. I need them urgently,” writes a desperate internet user in one of the many Facebook groups offering everything from household appliances to vacation packages. The request has garnered hundreds of responses in just a few hours. “I have 10, 20, and 1,000-peso stamps. I take transfers but you have to hurry. They’re running out,” says one of the informal stamp sellers.

To discourage scalpers, the Cuban postal service imposed strict rationing. “Sales will be limited to no more than three stamps per person in 10, 20, 40, 50, 125, 500 and 1,000-peso denominations. For five 5-peso stamps, the limit will be five stamps per person,” the postal service stated in an official announcement. But as with so many other controlled products, private brokers have found ways to circumvent the rules.

“They have contacts who are administrators and postal workers. When the stamps come in, they are the first to find out, even before the stamps make it to the sales counter,” complains a Matanzas resident. She grew tired of waiting and decided to buy the stamps she needed for a passport through informal channels. “I had to pay double. For the 2,500-pesos worth of stamps I needed, I ended up paying 5,000.”

Some customers, like 79-year-old Simón, who picked up a package at the post office on Medio Street on Monday, connect the dots and complain about the contradictions of the Cuban postal service’s monopoly. “They get thousands of packages every week. Our relatives abroad pay a high price for this service and sometimes they don’t even have a pen to sign the delivery form,” he explains. “Why don’t they invest all the money they earn from shipping into improving their other services?”

“We are not supplied with paper. What paper we do have has been brought in by workers themselves from home.” / 14ymedio

“We are not supplied with paper. What paper we do have has been brought in by workers themselves from home,” an employee complains. “Customers who want to send a letter or a package have to bring it in, ready to mail, because we don’t even have glue,” she explains. It seems as though the service is completely focused on receiving and processing items received from overseas but has forgotten about anyone who wants to mail something within the country or abroad.

“Not long ago I published a book and wanted to send a copy to my nephew in Spain but I haven’t been able to find a medium-sized envelope,” complains a local writer who once even had a post office box located at the entrance to his office. Those boxes, which once welcomed customers, have been abandoned. Some of their doors have been ripped off or their locks broken, a warning that a place that was once dominated by letters and telegrams is now only a delivery area for food, soap, and pharmaceuticals.

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In the ‘Llega y Pon’ of Matanzas, Cuba, There Are Also Social Differences

Inspectors no longer spread terror with their fines and evictions in illegal settlements.

While some houses resemble more of a crumbling shack, others have solid block walls / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, May 11, 2025 — Walls made of rusted sheets of metal and roofs that would not withstand a hurricane comprise most of the houses in the illegal settlement that has been growing at the entrance to the city of Matanzas, near the industrial area. Its residents, mostly from the eastern part of the country, cling to the land, despite the lack of basic infrastructure in this area near the Balcon del Yumurí, in the Dubrocq neighborhood, popular council of Versalles.

The “llega y pon” [literally,’arrive and put’] began to be erected more than a decade ago in silence, avoiding the eyes of the inspectors of the dreaded Institute of Physical Planning that, until 2021, sowed terror with its fines and evictions among residents of illegal settlements. “I arrived at this place when there were only two settlements constructed by easterners, near the old School of Trades,”says Juan Carlos, who fled from the poverty of his home province, Guantánamo.

With his own hands, Juan Carlos started cleaning up a piece of land in an area that was covered with garbage. He cleared, removed pieces of metal, leveled the ground and became a bricklayer in the process. The son and grandson of fishermen, who had grown up among fish nets and poor catches, he quickly established himself as a builder raising his own house. It was small and fragile, but it was his.

“The materials to build always have to be bought under the table. There are so many people here who do not have the resources and have had to settle for building a room made of wood and cardboard,” says Juan Carlos.”But the main thing is that they have somewhere to live. They will improve it continue reading

over time,” he adds. With a housing deficit that, in 2024, was estimated throughout the island at more than 850,000 dwellings, having a roof over your head is almost a privilege in Cuba.

Many residents in the”llega y pon” don’t settle for improvising a home and living badly inside / 14ymedio

Juan Carlos, like many other residents in the “llega y pon”, does not settle for improvising a home and living badly inside. While some houses look more like a shack about to collapse, others show solid brick walls, small terraces and wooden or metal shutters for the breeze. Social differences also arise in the neighborhood. Those who have arrived from other places in the province of Matanzas have more contacts to improve their homes. Those from the east of the country and the elderly live in the most precarious homes.

Yorelbis is one of those from Matanzas who came to the area pushed by the overcrowding in his parents’ house in Pueblo Nuevo. A State worker, he had been waiting for years for a subsidy to purchase construction materials that had been promised at his work center. The money never arrived. The State resources to build a house began to run out, and the young man, married with a pregnant wife, decided not to wait any longer.

Like Juan Carlos, Yorelbis picked out a piece of land. He built the foundation of the house and erected the outer walls with bricks recovered from collapsed buildings or bought on the black market. Finally, he divided the interior with cardboard and wood to have two rooms and a tiny dining room that also serves as a kitchen. Seen from the outside, there is no plaster on the facade, and some of the rebar sticks out just where the asbestos-cement tiles that cover the dwelling begin.

“When you arrive for the first time you feel like you are at the end of the world. There is no asphalt, and the dust gets inside you through your ears. On the other hand, the power never goes out, because we are fed by the electric line that goes to the industrial area,” says Yorelbis. It gives us an illegal power supply, and no family in the settlement pays a cent.” Although we are far from the city, here it seems we have what we need,” says the young man showing a few liters of vegetable oil he has for sale.

Entrepreneurship is also gaining ground in the neighborhood. There are several private cafes, and shops that offer cheap clothing appear here and there. There is no ration store, but there are plenty of merchants who advertise bags of bread rolls or the popular ice-cream sandwich that children make a fuss over and that empties parents’ pockets. The inspectors barely approach, perhaps because of fear or because they intuit that the residents of the area inhabit a feral universe where the law and fines accomplish little.

The smile of pride for his home on Yorelbis’s face dissolves when he lists the disadvantages of living in an illegal settlement

The smile of pride for his home on Yorelbis’s face dissolves when he lists the disadvantages of living in an illegal settlement. One of the main obstacles is the lack of an identity card with the address where he actually lives. ” We still have the papers at my parents’ house and that complicates our lives a lot,” he admits. ” Getting my pregnant wife looked after in the nearest clinic was a headache, and when the child grows up, we will see how we can enroll him in school.”

The neighborhood has been growing and is full of children. While much of Cuba suffers from an aging population, the Dubrocq “llega y pon” has many families with young children. The women carrying babies, the strollers as they go along the rough and unpaved road and the cries of newborns coming from some houses give the area a childlike cheerfulness.

But this striking presence of children also highlights one of the problems that most affects the area: teenage pregnancy. In the province, the fertility rate for the 15-19 age group is 51.5 per 1,000 women. In the poorest neighborhoods, the figures are even more alarming, with consequent problems of maternal malnutrition, low birth weight, school dropout and family material insecurity.

In the group of those arriving from the east of the country, many also bring their young children. “I came here from Bayamo with my two small children, because my brother left the country and gave me this room,” Yanelis tells this newspaper. Yanelis lives in a modest house made of metal sheets that were once destined to become cans. ” At least I don’t get wet when it rains,” she says.

In the group of those arriving from the east of the country, many also bring their young children / 14ymedio

Yanelis, however, does not hide her concern that she has not managed to change the address of her identity card. ” I have been able to keep my children studying with the help of the school principal, but I do not know how long that will be possible.” Although the regulations are strict to enroll a student in a school, some directors turn a blind eye or facilitate the admission of undocumented students into classrooms, aware of the serious housing problem in the country.

Like most of her neighbors, Yanelis has a long list of dissatisfactions ranging from water supply problems in the area to the insecurity that spreads between its crowded alleys as soon as night falls and the lack of recreational places for children and teenagers. However, also like many of the residents in the Matanzas settlement, she feels that this piece of dry land and precarious houses is finally her home.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Propaganda and Ruin, the Two Faces of a Building in Cuba

The flags on the high-rise buildings of Peñas Altas, in Matanzas, barely hide the deterioration, which puts neighbors and passersby at risk.

“Every time I go in or out I do it as quickly as possible, because it’s not the first time bits have fallen off the balconies or the outside columns” /14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 6 May 2025 — Looked at from one side it looks majestic, but the 13 storey building in Peñas Altas, in the city of Matanzas, only has one good side. The huge Cuban flag, 44 metres high, painted on one side of its façade, barely hides the ruin of the rest of the building, a deterioration putting at risk the lives of the people living there and anybody passing by.

Four years ago, the face of the city was changed with the completion of an enormous mural, signed by the artist Jesús Alberto Mederos Martínez. For the occasion, the local press was full of headlines praising the world’s largest Cuban ensign, but the rest of the concrete block was completely ignorant of the paintbrushes and scaffolding that were mobilised for the occasion.

Now, the inhabitants of the building, which was put up in the years of Soviet subsidies and which looks like all the communist architecture in Eastern Europe, is falling to bits. This week a lump of concrete balcony collapsed right next to a little boy who was, at that moment, entering the building with his father. “It fell next to my smallest boy, touching his shoulder, it tore his pullover but he escaped with hardly a scratch”, the alarmed man declared in the social media.

A poster “Fatherland or death, we will win” leaves it quite clear where is the priority of the propaganda about investment to improve the lives of the residents.

While the balcony parapets, cracked and with rusted metal, endange the lives of anyone passing by, a poster “Fatherland or death, we will win” leaves it quite clear where is the priority of the propaganda about investment to improve the lives of the residents. Below the wording on the ensign, in bright red, the walls of the building also known as “Polineiso Building” after the restaurant on the top floor, are cracked, dirty and bulging in places.

“Every time I go in or out I do it as quickly as possible, because it’s not the first time bits have fallen off the balconies or the outside columns” one of continue reading

the top floor residents, who has lived there since it was built, told 14ymedio this Monday . In those days, the Peñas Altas complex of modern buildings was seen as a foretaste of the future and the consecration of the Cuban model and its most finished product: the new man.

Sylvia cannot help comparing the present situation with her memories as a youngster, when dozens of families, all carefully seletced by the system, moved into a pristine building, with wide corridors, a welcoming entrance hall, and spectacular view of the bay and the city of Matanzas. At that time, the elevators were a source of wonder for many people who had never been in one, but over the years they had become a headache due to technical problems and long power cuts.

Sylvia prefers to go up the stairs to her apartment every day to avoid being trapped by a power cut, or having to put up with the jolts in the apparatus, which has been damaged by the passage of time and by people using it to move their furniture and heavy boxes. The woman does not conceal her dismay at the contrast between the building’s symbolism with its enormous national flag on its side, and the reality of living inside it.

The mural with its single star and white and blue stripes form part of the artistic “My flags” quarter, dedicated to Fidel Castro and opened at the end of 2021, when the city of Matanzas celebrated the 328th anniversary of its foundation.

“We are not so badly off because at least we have the Cuban flag” saiys another resident ironically, indicating one of the buildings in the complex decorated with the flag of the July 26 Movement and the ranks of the Commander in Chief. Look at from a distance both buildings make up an image that the official press photographers look for and the official extol.

From up close on the other hand real life doesn’t have such intense colours. “These corridors at night are so dark that I only go down from my flat in an emergancy” Sylvia explains. In the gloom you have to look out for the bumps and holes on the steps. “A little while ago my neighbour fell over when he caught his foot where there was no concrete above the scaffolding. If we put up lights they steal them and if we bring up the need for some repairs they says they have no money, says the woman.

“As soon as you come near you can smell the urine, because there are people who use the ground floor area as a public toliet” /14ymedio

Water leaks between floors also plague the residents. “The pipes are rotten. You can see where the columns and structure are weak. You only have to look at the cracks to see it could collapse,” says another resident, who knows every detail of a building he has lived in for more than thirty years. “It won’t be today or tomorrow, but if they don’t do something , there could be a disaster,” he says with the knowledge that comes from his job as a builder.

Apart from the residents in the building, lots of clients come to the Consumer Register Office (Oficoda) every day which is located on the ground floor. Also at ground level is the rationed goods warehouse and other state establishments that have permanent queues. Over the heads of the people waiting to go through a procedure or buy their ration of subsidised food lumps of concrete are dangling ready to fall on their heads, rusty steel reinforcement rods and old air conditioner casings rotting in the sun.

The restaurant El Polinesio on the top floor does not escape this mess. With its slogan “high level gastronomy” the state diner is closed most of the time due to lack of supplies and the infrastructure problems. Re-opened in 2023 after being closed for two years and after an investment of 18 million pesos, the business suffers most from having to go without electricity.

Humidity inside the “Polynesia building”, in Matanzas. / 14ymedio

It sounds simple enough to say it — just nip up to the 13th floor to reach the restaurant – but having to do it is enough to scare off just about anyone.” says the workman. And the state of the building doesn’t help much. “As soon as you come close you can smell the urine, because there are people who use the ground floor as a public toilet. It’s obvious that this place doesn’t invite anybody to come and eat – or to live – I am still here because I haven’t been able to move. Locals speak of the microbrigade buildings like they’re cursed.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the high-rise blocks that began to be put up in Cuba’s main cities were seen as a foretaste of the modernity that the whole country would enter at an accelerated pace, but with the passage of time, the deterioration and evidence of the limitations of these projects made with cheap materials, hasty construction and lack of maintenance, earned them a bad reputation.

All it takes is for a classified ad to state that the flat for sale or exchange is located in a microbrigade building for potential buyers to flee in panic. On the other hand, stressing that it is a “capitalist” property, built before January 1959, guarantees greater success in the transaction. The difference in price and the speed at which these properties move is also very different. Those built for the ‘New Man’ are worth less and people don’t want them.

And, what’s more, if the buyer learns that the flat for sale is located in the “flag building”, he or she is likely to put an unenthusiastic look on his /her face, as evident as the red triangle flag painted on the side of the building is in the Matanzas landscape.

Translated by GH

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In Matanzas, Not Enough Buses and Too Many Billboards For the First of May Celebrations

INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY

A billboard for the First of May next to the Ayllón Viaduct bus stop. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 1 May 2025 – The colours on the billboard leap out at you in the middle of the terrace around the Ayllón Viaduct bus stop. The grassed area has already been worn away by the constant flow of people and by the drought. It the middle of all this parched earth with all its attendant long faces brought on by the transport crisis, the huge billboard inviting you to the First of May procession seems to have landed from a parallel universe.

“Together we’ll do it, for Cuba”, the poster’s text assures us, and it shows us a linesman from the Electric Company and a pioneer character holding a Cuban flag and wearing a kufiya – the traditional Arabic headscarf which Yasser Arafat converted into a political symbol for the Palestinians. And all the while, the country suffers long power cuts and an economic crisis without precedent.

Just a few metres from the hoarding, the actual reality of the situation becomes clear. This Wednesday the bus stop was particularly crowded with desperate travellers, waiting. Some of them had managed to find some shade to sit in, but others, because of lack of space or lack of patience were more dispersed and were forced to wait out on the pavement under the sun, their gaze fixed out there on the road, arm ready to be raised if and when they caught sight of any private transport, annoyance painted on their faces.

The travellers remember when tourism was buoyant and the state-operated buses still had space and stopped to pick them up.

Yunior, 43, wears a cap to shield himself from the unrelenting heat of the sun. He arrives at the bus stop after his day’s work in a nearby state department office every afternoon after five o’clock. With his back to the giant Labour Day billboard, the employee pins all his hopes on any driver from an official organisation who might take pity on someone like him who needs transport back to somewhere near his home.

The Viaduct bus stop is always crowded with people headed out towards the outskirts of the city, to Cárdenas or Varadero. “The bus inspector is here between two and three in the afternoon, and he gets on the first bus that passes. Although his presence doesn’t even guarantee either that the buses continue reading

will actually stop”, Yunior explains. A commotion causes him to turn towards a state registered vehicle which has just picked up two women. Although a crowd of people rushes towards the car, there is only room for those two.

The guy from Matanzas does a quick calculation. “The lorries that head towards Cárdenas charge 200 or 250 pesos, but after 4pm there are hardly any of them. When I manage to board one of them it costs me 50 to get to Peñas Altas and then I have to continue on foot”. In the little more than twenty working days that he has each month Yunior spends a third of his salary on getting to and from work.

The number of people waiting for transport keeps increasing and spreads across the tarmac from the traffic lights behind the Sauto Theatre and up to the Viaduct bus stop. There are even some who stand as far down as the bridge, keeping apart from the crowd in order to keep their options open if a car should suddenly appear with an empty seat. However Yunio stays next to the billboard. “There’ll be a bit of shade from the billboard here shortly and even if I haven’t found a lift yet, at least I won’t end up being baked by the sun”. Even propaganda can have its unexpected uses.

The more unlucky ones had to wait in the sun for a bus to arrive.

Although the Cuban authorities have emphasised that this year’s First of May celebrations will have a lower consumption of fuel, at the Viaduct bus stop people do their own sums and calculate the impact of the event. The local press describes the events of next Thursday morning thus: “On the main thoroughfares, workers, students and representatives of all social sectors will show their support for the Revolution and will reaffirm their commitment to the development of the province”.

“No matter how little fuel they use it’s obvious that the leaders aren’t going to travel from their houses to the procession on foot”, one woman is heard to say: she is one of the lucky ones who this Wednesday managed to find some shade and a bit of wall to sit on beneath the bus shelter. A state employee, like the majority waiting for public transport, she says that in recent months the number of people waiting at Viaduct has increased.

It’s not only the shortage of fuel but also the fall in tourism that has lengthened the amount of time spent waiting here. “Before, when the Transtur buses to and from from Varadero had empty seats they would stop here and take people on board”, she remembers. But the frequency of those buses has plummeted. Just like for many of the others waiting here for a bus, for her the next two days of festivity will merely be a pause in the unwanted drama of trying to get from A to B.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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At the Pediatric Hospital in Matanzas, Cuba, Families Must Bring Everything From Syringes to Medications

The lack of cleaning staff is another problem that is severely affecting the health center.

There are barely enough seats, so many remain standing. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 28 April 2025 — The medical care received at the Matanzas Children’s Hospital is directly proportional to the amount of resources the family brings. A heavy bag of supplies, gifts, and snacks, the patient is more likely to complete treatment, successfully overcome an emergency, and fully recover. A meager or empty bag predicts a worse outcome, as those who visit the health center every day know.

The scene in the ground-floor lounge of the Eliseo Noel Caamaño Provincial Pediatric Teaching Hospital on Friday morning was similar to any other day. Parents held their young children while waiting to be seen. There were barely enough seats, so many remained standing, waiting for a healthcare professional to appear from a hallway or at the door of an office.

Hanging from the shoulders of many of the waiting adults was a bag or a heavy backpack. Inside, there were all kinds of medical supplies, as well as food. Gauze, syringes, suture thread, sterile cotton, and alcohol for cleaning a wound shared space with ham and cheese sandwiches or canned soft drinks. “It’s no longer enough to bring food to the doctors; now you also have to carry the medications,” warned Yudith, a mother who was lucky enough to get a chair to sit next to her baby.

With a daughter who suffers from a chronic, hereditary illness, the woman has already stocked up on a first-aid kit with the medications and supplies needed for her little one’s treatment. “I’ve had to quickly become an expert and get the whole family involved in getting what my daughter needs,” she explains to 14ymedio. “I’m coming with everything so I don’t delay the treatment and so they don’t offer me excuses and 1 have to come back another day.”

As in the film The Oil of Life, where a child develops a disease so rare that his father must research the condition and find the relief himself, Cuban families have also had to train in all kinds of health issues in the face of the crisis hitting Public Health on the Island. Some have learned to give injections, immobilize an arm after a fracture due to the lack of a cast in continue reading

hospitals, and some have become true experts in the medications their little one needs.

“The specialists themselves say that all they can do is give a diagnosis,” Yudith explains. After learning the name of her daughter’s condition, the mother launched a frantic search for information and resources. Her family, the black market, and personal connections in the healthcare sector paid off. Within a few months, she had the treatment kit and even a second opinion on her daughter’s case, sent to her by a cousin who works as a doctor in Miami.

Dust in the waiting room of the children’s hospital covers the walls, windows, and floor; the bathrooms stink and barely flush. / 14ymedio

But there are things that cannot be replaced with resources or personal relationships. Dust in the waiting room of the pediatric hospital covers the walls, windows, and floor; the bathrooms stink and barely flush. The lack of cleaning staff is one of the problems that most affects the Cuban healthcare system, given that low wages and harsh working conditions discourage potential employees. To alleviate the situation, the government sends common-law prisoners to maintain hospital hygiene, but the supplies they have hinder their performance.

Near Yudith this Friday, a young couple was also waiting to enter a doctor’s office. They weren’t carrying any bags or backpacks, which was a bad sign. “My child has had a high fever for several hours. The pediatrician recommended giving him acetaminophen to lower his temperature, but the bad news is that the medication is out of stock,” the mother said. After hours of waiting and seeing that the pediatrician wouldn’t come up with the drug, the father decided to go to a nearby neighborhood to buy it on the black market.

For others, immersing themselves in the informal buying and selling industry isn’t enough to get what they need. “My daughter needs thyroid surgery, but, believe it or not, there aren’t even disposable gloves in this hospital’s operating room,” Tamara explained. “When the doctor told me that, apart from the anesthesia, I had to take care of everything else, I couldn’t believe it.” Due to a lack of resources, the surgery has been postponed several times, and the family fears that the delay will cause irreversible damage to the child.

More and more Cuban parents are turning to social media, desperate for relief for their children’s health problems. Fundraisers, donations of medicines, and applications for humanitarian visas to seek care in another country are becoming more frequent. From blindly trusting the Public Health system, many have gone on to fear for their children’s lives due to the debacle of materials and specialized personnel suffered by hospitals.

“It’s not just the medications or supplies; a doctor tells you your child has a particular disease, and it’s very difficult to get a second opinion because that’s the doctor you’re assigned to because of the bureaucracy. Going to another hospital, moving to another province for a consultation, that’s something only patients with a lot of money or leverage can do,” Tamara complains. Her dream is to be able to get her daughter out of the country and “have surgery abroad, in a clean, well-resourced place.”

“I joined several Telegram groups where they sell medicine, and I quickly found someone who had some of what I needed.”

For the time being, the family sees no possibility of leaving the island, so the mother has been searching for what she needs for the operation. “I joined several Telegram groups where they sell medicine, and I quickly found someone who has some of what I need.” After purchasing sterile water for the injections, syringes, scalpels, and adhesive tape, she now needs to acquire a blood donation, which is essential for authorization of the procedure and which currently costs up to 5,000 pesos on the informal market in Matanzas.

Once she has everything, Tamara will return to the pediatric ward, but this time with a full bag, a sign that she has secured not only the resources for the surgery but also the corresponding gifts and snacks for the medical staff. But she may still encounter another obstacle: the operating room may be closed due to a technical problem or the presence of a dangerous bacteria that they haven’t been able to eradicate. To overcome this difficulty, she’ll have to arm herself with another, heavier bag, full of patience.

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