Natalia López Moya – Translating Cuba

Ricardo, the Man Who Wants To Bring Order to the Transportation Chaos in Havana

From driving an almendrón [classic American car in use as a shared taxi] to managing a private fleet, he dreams of a modern bus network in a city trapped between fuel shortages and improvisation.

“The authorities see us as if we were the enemy, even though we are the ones who are keeping this city running.” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, April18, 2026 / The hustle and bustle begins early in Fraternity Park. Under the shade of the trees, a line of jeeps and pickup trucks adapted for passenger transport wait their turn while the drivers chat, check the engine, or lean against the open doors. The Capitol Building looms in the background, imposing, as if watching over this small universe where necessity, ingenuity, and daily survival intersect. In this private taxi stand, where each vehicle represents a story of hard work, Ricardo, a 48-year-old Havana resident, moves with a calm gait. He feels transportation as a vocation that runs in his veins.

Ricardo, a name changed to avoid reprisals, doesn’t wear a uniform or any special insignia. He dresses simply, speaks in a measured tone, and greets each driver by name. His role now is that of manager and supervisor of a small fleet he and his brother have built up over decades of work. However, as soon as he stops in front of one of the vehicles, a green minibus with a capacity for a dozen passengers, his gaze becomes technical, almost professional. He checks the condition of the tires, asks about fuel consumption, and reviews the day’s schedule as if he were inspecting a complex transportation network.

“I was born for this,” he tells 14ymedio, with a brief smile. And he doesn’t seem to be exaggerating.

When the boys were born, I couldn’t afford to continue studying without earning a penny. I had to find money as quickly as possible.

Ricardo studied Transportation Engineering at the José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana, the well-known Cujae, until his fourth year. He didn’t graduate. Life, as it happens to so many young people in Cuba, forced him to take a more urgent path. He married young, had twins, and the need to support his family took precedence over books and classrooms.

“When the boys were born, I couldn’t afford to continue studying without earning a single penny. I had to find money as quickly as possible,” he recalls.

His entry into the world of almendrones — classic American cars operating as shared taxis — was almost a natural progression. His father had worked for the railroad for decades, and at home, trains, routes, and schedules were always a topic of conversation. Even his great-grandfather was involved in managing Havana’s old streetcar system, a family legacy that shaped his childhood. As a boy, while others played ball, he built imaginary cities with toy cars. That passion remains with him: in his living room, continue reading

he maintains a meticulous collection of miniature cars.

"Private transport operators know this city better than the Ministry of Transport." / 14ymedio — “Private transport operators know this city better than the Ministry of Transport.” / 14ymedio

The first vehicle he drove was his father’s old Chevrolet, a car that had already accumulated years and repairs when Ricardo decided to convert it into a shared taxi. Those beginnings, he says, were tough.

“There were days when I went out to work not knowing if I would be able to return home with enough money for food. The car was constantly breaking down and the parts were hard to find. But there was no alternative.”

On the route connecting Fraternity Park with Santiago de las Vegas, he learned to deal with impatient passengers, deteriorating streets, and a public transportation system that was already showing signs of exhaustion. That experience taught him to calculate times, costs, and routes with almost mathematical precision.

Over time they managed to build a small fleet that today includes six electric tricycles and five car-type vehicles, capable of transporting between 10 and 14 passengers each.

His brother, also a driver, joined the business, and together they began to grow slowly. They reinvested part of their profits in repairs, fuel, and the purchase of new vehicles. Over time, they built a small fleet that today includes six electric tricycles and five passenger vans, each capable of carrying between 10 and 14 passengers.

Ricardo no longer lives “glued to the wheel,” as he himself says, but he remains connected to the daily operation of the vehicles. He visits the taxi stand frequently, supervises the drivers, and reviews the day’s income and expenses. His presence, discreet yet constant, reflects a mixture of responsibility and pride.

At Fraternity Park, the flow of passengers never stops. Women with heavy bags, students with backpacks, and workers trying to get to their jobs gather around the vehicles, asking about destinations and fares. The sound of the engines mingles with the murmur of conversations and the metallic slam of closing doors.

Ricardo observes this scene with a critical eye. For him, transportation in Havana is not just a business, but a structural problem that requires technical solutions and political will.

There is no real coordination between the different modes of transport, and this leads to losses of time and resources.

As he explains, the principal obstacles facing passenger transportation in the capital are the lack of fuel, the deterioration of the vehicle fleet, the shortage of spare parts and the absence of efficient route planning.

“The whole system is improvised. There’s no real coordination between the different modes of transport, and that causes a waste of time and resources,” he says. “The authorities see us as if we were the enemy, even though we’re the ones keeping this city moving,” he points out. “They bombard us with fines and inspections, but what they should be doing is working with us, hand in hand.”

He also points out that current regulations limit the growth of the private sector. He considers it essential to create a legal framework that allows for the direct import of vehicles and parts in an expedited manner and “without so much paperwork,” access to financing, and the possibility of establishing stable contracts with the government.

“If we want to improve transportation in Cuba, we have to let those who know how to do it do their jobs,” he argues. “Private transport operators know this city better than the Ministry of Transportation; we’ve designed more efficient and comprehensive routes and connections than the Havana Bus Company.”

“If we want to improve transportation in Cuba, we have to let those who know how to do it do their jobs.”

His incomplete academic training hasn’t prevented him from maintaining a technical approach to the subject. Ricardo has dedicated years to studying route behavior, passenger flow, and operating costs. His notebook contains detailed notes on schedules, distances, and fuel consumption.

His greatest ambition is to run a bus route in Havana. This isn’t just a whim. He has developed a complete project that includes route planning, frequency calculations, and income and expense estimates.

In his mind, the city is divided into high- and low-demand zones, with stations strategically located to facilitate passenger access. He speaks of waiting times, cargo capacity, and preventative maintenance with the confidence of a professional.

“I have all the numbers done. I know roughly how many buses are needed, the municipalities that need to be connected because they are currently isolated, the type of bus that will best meet the needs of the conditions we have here, and something that is not allowed now, which is to turn the buses into rolling advertising options so that businesses can pay to promote their products in these display cases on wheels, which is a way to generate income,” he says.

At Fraternity Park, the flow of passengers never stops. / 14ymedio

His plan includes the use of modern technologies to optimize the service. It proposes the incorporation of electronic payment systems, the creation of rechargeable cards with special discounts for students and senior citizens, mobile applications for route tracking, and hybrid or electric vehicles that reduce fuel consumption.

“Cuba could skip stages if it adopts efficient technologies. There’s no need to repeat the mistakes of other countries,” he points out.

As he speaks, a group of passengers gets into one of the vehicles parked on the sidewalk. A woman in a red dress settles into the back seat, followed by two young men carrying their backpacks. The driver starts the engine and the vehicle slowly merges into traffic.

Ricardo watches the maneuver intently, as if evaluating every detail. His experience allows him to detect flaws and anticipate problems.

Despite the economic difficulties and uncertainty that characterize life on the Island, the entrepreneur insists that his future is in Cuba.

“I’ve never wanted to emigrate, even though almost all my friends are outside the country,” he admits.

He believes the island needs professionals willing to work for the recovery of public services and the development of infrastructure.

For him, transportation is more than a job. It’s a personal mission that combines family tradition, technical expertise, and social commitment. He believes the island needs professionals willing to work toward the restoration of public services and the development of infrastructure.

At Fraternity Park, the line of vehicles continues to grow. The sun illuminates the colorful car bodies and casts long shadows on the pavement. Drivers chat, passengers wait, and the city keeps moving with the precarious energy that characterizes Havana.

Ricardo walks among the cars with a firm step, greeting each worker and checking the details of the service. His presence conveys the feeling of someone who refuses to accept the decline, who believes in the possibility of organizing the chaos and building a more efficient transportation system.

In his mind, the maps and calculations keep turning like invisible gears. There, in that universe of numbers and routes, he envisions the future he imagines for the city: a modern, punctual, and accessible bus network, capable of restoring to Havana the dynamism it once had.

And although that project still belongs to the realm of dreams, Ricardo continues to prepare for the day he can make it a reality.

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This article was produced in collaboration with Cuba Siglo 21 as part of the project “Cuba: Stabilize and Develop.”

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When the Sugar Mill Stopped Grinding Cane, Life Died in Tuinucú, Cuba

The silence that now dominates the batey is not only industrial: it is also electrical, economic, and emotional.

The Melanio Hernández sugar mill in Tuinucú, Sancti Spíritus, has been shut down for three weeks. / 14ymedio/Courtesy

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya/Mercedes García, Havana/Tuinucú, April 16, 2025 / The two chimneys of the Tuinucú sugar mill still stand out against the blue sky of the Sancti Spíritus plains, but they no longer emit smoke or announce the start of a new day of grinding. The silence that now reigns in the village is not only industrial: it is also electrical, economic, and emotional. Since the mill stopped grinding sugarcane a few weeks ago, daily life in this town of more than 5,000 inhabitants has changed abruptly, marked by prolonged blackouts and the feeling that the last bastion of the national sugar industry was defeated by the lack of fuel.

The Melanio Hernández sugar mill, as the Tuinucú mill is officially known, was much more than a sugar factory. Its generators produced electricity that supplied the town and contributed to the national grid, an advantage that for years made this village an exception within the province of Sancti Spíritus, even though some facilities had deteriorated over time due to a lack of state investment and the children had been transferred to another school. While in other municipalities the population suffered frequent power outages, in this town the residents became accustomed to a relatively stable supply, sustained by the energy that came from the very heart of the industrial center.

“The family whose sugar mill was taken away were the ones who sent the money to restore the Catholic church, which was in very poor condition.”

That tranquility vanished when the machinery stopped. Since then, residents have had to adapt to blackouts that exceed 12 hours a day, a situation they barely experienced before the closure of the colossus. On nights without electricity, the village is plunged into a darkness reminiscent of the worst moments of the Special Period in the 1990s. continue reading

“What little we had left they’ve taken from us too, because this town is so neglected,” says Eliécer, 79, who was born in the batey. The old man surveys the sugar mill facilities with a mixture of nostalgia and concern. For decades he worked in activities related to the harvest and saw how the sugar industry sustained the economic and social life of the community.

Eliécer recalls that the residents of Tuinucú have always been proud of their history. Even though many have emigrated to other provinces or abroad, they maintain ties with the town and contribute to preserving its traditions. “The family whose sugar mill was taken away sent the money to restore the Catholic church, which was in very poor condition,” he explains. With a firm voice, he adds that “the first shortwave radio transmission test in Cuba was conducted from this very spot, in 1912.”

The restored church still stands as a symbol of that past. Just a few meters away, however, the contrast is stark. The old school in the batey (sugar workers’ village), which for years educated several generations of children, has become an abandoned structure, with peeling walls and partially collapsed roofs. Vegetation is reclaiming the surrounding area, and the building seems to be hanging on by sheer inertia.

The school in Tuinucú “was seized, taken from its owners, and years later it was left in ruins.” / 14ymedio/Courtesy

For Nieves, an elderly woman also born in Tuinucú, this decline sums up the town’s fate. She sadly recalls the years when the school was full of students and the batey buzzed with activity at the sugar mill. “It was seized, taken from its owners, and years later it was left in ruins,” she says. Her voice breaks as she describes the loss of so many “beautiful things” that were part of community life. “The recreation center for the Tuinucú workers is also destroyed.”

The shutdown of the sugar mill comes at a critical time for the Cuban sugar industry. This year, there will be little doubt that the harvest has once again been the worst in history, a title the sector has held since 2021. The Melanio Hernández mill was the only one operating on the island, and even so, it has had to cease operations due to the energy crisis.

Last year, the mill met its production plan , reaching approximately 21,000 tons of sugar, even exceeding the forecast by 1,800 tons. This figure made it a source of pride for the authorities and an example of resilience within a declining sector. For the current harvest, the goal was more modest: around 14,000 tons. Milling began a month late but progressed at an acceptable pace until a fuel shortage forced the machinery to shut down.

According to sugar company executives, the mill had produced approximately 40% of its planned sugar output—around 5,600 tons—when the decision was made to close the tipper truck’s opening . The measure was presented as temporary, but uncertainty surrounding fuel supplies and the future of the industry raises concerns that the shutdown could last longer than anticipated.

“We felt privileged because here we defended ourselves with the power the mill gave us.”

Meanwhile, workers in the sector have had to find alternative ways to stay employed. In other provinces, sugar companies have redirected their efforts toward charcoal production and agricultural work, amidst the collapse of the harvest. In Tuinucú, however, these initiatives have not yet managed to compensate for the economic loss caused by the shutdown of the sugar mill.

“We felt privileged because while in other parts of Sancti Spíritus people only have makeshift electricity , here we managed with the power from the sugar mill,” Nieves explains. She acknowledges that the change has been abrupt and that the residents weren’t prepared to deal with prolonged blackouts. “We weren’t even ready for everything that came after; people have had to rush out and buy batteries, generators, and electric lamps.”

In the streets of the batey, uncertainty mingles with resignation. The houses remain silent during the hottest hours, and small businesses adjust their schedules to take advantage of the moments when the electricity returns. Daily life now revolves around waiting, as if each neighbor awaits the signal that the chimneys will once again begin to smoke.

But that signal hasn’t arrived. In Tuinucú, the shutdown of the sugar mill has not only turned off the lights in the workers’ village, but has also ignited concerns that this is the prelude to a permanent closure.

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Where Gasoline is Scarce, Charcoal Arrives

At the service station on Boyeros and Santa Catalina, the business is no longer filling tanks but supplying cooking stoves

The site designed to fuel engines has become a supplier of embers. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, April 14, 2026 / At the intersection of Rancho Boyeros and Santa Catalina Avenues in Havana, where for decades the smell of gasoline dictated the rhythm of city traffic, now another aroma dominates, more rustic and persistent: that of charcoal. This Tuesday, the service station was deserted, with no cars in line and no attendants pumping fuel. The pumps remained motionless, like museum pieces, while on one side of the building, the one facing Rancho Boyeros Avenue, the real business of the day was taking place: the sale of sacks of charcoal at 1,700 pesos each.

The scene is a true portrait of the crisis. The site, designed to fuel engines, has become a supplier of charcoal. Where once the metallic click of hoses being inserted into tanks was heard, now the rough scraping of sacks as they are dragged along the ground echoes. A man carries one over his shoulder with the ease of someone transporting an essential item. It’s easy to understand: in a city where blackouts last for hours, charcoal has gone from being an emergency resource to an everyday commodity.

Charcoal for sale in Havana at 2,500 pesos per sack. / 14ymedio

The gas station, empty of both fuel and customers, seems to have adapted to the new times with pragmatism. The supply of gasoline and diesel is sporadic, subject to uncertain logistics that force drivers to join long virtual queues and pay in foreign currency for each liter. Many no longer even try to get fuel; they’ve left their cars parked indefinitely or use them only on exceptional occasions. Meanwhile, the need to cook cannot wait, and the electric stove becomes a useless ornament when the power goes out. That’s where charcoal comes in, transformed into a domestic lifeline.

From the sidewalk, the transformation of the gas station seems almost symbolic. The structure remains intact: high ceilings, aligned pumps, and the yellow and red paint on the walls, visible from afar. But the star product no longer flows through pipes; instead, it’s sold in black sacks stacked against a wall. Less fossil fuel to power vehicles and more solid fuels to sustain daily life.

A woman approaches, asks the price, and after a quick mental calculation, pays the 1,700 pesos without haggling. In other parts of Havana, it already costs 2,500. “This will last me for several days,” she remarks, before placing the sack on an electric tricycle. Her gesture reveals the resignation with which many Havana residents have incorporated charcoal into their daily routine. Because cooking with firewood, a practice that seemed relegated to rural areas or bygone eras, has once again taken root on balconies and rooftops throughout the city.

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The Slow-Motion Collapse of the ISDi Building Is a Headache for Residents of Central Havana

The imposing building on Belascoaín Street has become a garbage dump and a public toilet.

The nearby bus stop has also been cordoned off with warning tape, and passersby are quickening their pace for fear of another collapse. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 15 February 2026 — The dust covers Belascoaín Street in Central Havana. Several strips of yellow tape block the section in front of the former Higher Institute of Industrial Design (ISDi) building. The umpteenth collapse of part of its structure had left a trail of rubble that prevents vehicles from passing and endangers pedestrians who venture to cross the blocked area. On Saturday, the image of this stretch of avenue without vehicles was a stark reminder of a city gripped by a fuel crisis and the deterioration of its infrastructure.

In the nearby line to enter a restaurant on the corner of Reina Street, the conversation was all about the loud crash heard last week when a piece of the building located between Maloja and Enrique Barnet collapsed. Even now, fragments of its walls and columns are scattered around the area. The nearby bus stop has also been cordoned off with warning tape, and pedestrians walking along the sidewalk in front of the windowless, doorless structure quicken their pace for fear of another collapse.

The building, which originally served as a military hotel and officers’ club for the Spanish Army, was also used as the headquarters of the Cadet School (1874-1878), a Widows’ and Orphans’ Home, the General Staff headquarters during the First American Occupation, and even the Ministry of Health before Fidel Castro came to power in January 1959. Graduates of ISDi remember it as a bright, welcoming space brimming with creativity. But for the closest neighbors, the building, which occupies an entire city block, has been a headache and a constant source of worry for years. continue reading

In a city with serious health problems, the former ISDi has become another “hotspot for infections” / 14ymedio

Carmita, a nearby resident, fears the destruction will continue for months or years without the authorities deciding to remove what remains of the structure. “It’s become a dump and a public toilet,” she laments. In addition to the danger of a piece of its walls falling on someone’s head, there are the epidemiological risks of ruins where mosquitoes, flies, and garbage all share the space. In a city with serious sanitation problems, the former ISDi has become another “hotbed of infection,” according to this Havana resident.

A flower vendor offers his wares to couples on Valentine’s Day. Carefully, he wipes down the glass containers where he keeps plastic roses and teddy bears. “This street is filthy,” the vendor laments as he dusts off the fine particles left in the air after the recent collapse of the once-colossal Belascoaín building.

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Bicycle Taxis and Electric Tricycles Move Goods in a Havana Paralyzed by the Energy Crisis

“If I work twelve hours, I can make more than 5,000 pesos a day, although it’s quite hard.”

Motorcycles and bicycles are trying to fill the gap left for transporting goods. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, Natalia López Moya, February 14, 2026 – In a city that is practically at a standstill, some people never stop. You see them crossing empty streets, dodging the potholes along the Malecón or pedaling uphill on Tulipán with a backpack on their backs. They wear no uniforms and have no employment contracts, yet they carry much of Havana’s economy on wheels. They are the young delivery workers, a generation that in these days of fuel shortages has become indispensable in the movement of goods.

Yasiel, 26, delivers pizzas, medicines, and small packages. Orders reach him via WhatsApp from private businesses in the Cuban capital, desperate for the lack of messengers with cars or gasoline motorcycles. Sometimes they ask him for flowers, a cake, or even a plastic basin to bathe a baby. “Whatever can be strapped onto the rack,” he tells 14ymedio as he adjusts the bags on his bicycle that he will deliver to several points around the city. He has no self-employment license and does not belong to any small or medium-sized enterprise, yet he earns more than many professionals. “If I work twelve hours, I can make more than 5,000 pesos a day, although it’s quite hard.”

On Friday night, when only a few electric tricycles and some pedestrians who preferred walking on the asphalt rather than the neglected sidewalks were traveling along Rancho Boyeros Avenue, Yasiel was still making deliveries. An enormous backpack hung from his back and another, even larger, from his chest. He was coming from Playa municipality, near the Almendares River, heading to Nuevo Vedado. “I’m exhausted because I haven’t stopped pedaling all day. Could you give me a glass of water?” he asked one of his customers, nearly fainting.

The company Yasiel was delivering for, one of many that operate digital platforms where emigrants buy food and other basic supplies for their relatives on the Island, “is liquidating its merchandise ahead of what’s coming,” the young man says. The online shop has launched a 15% discount on all its products, and “if they’re frozen, you can get them for up to 25% less,” he explains. Fearing that blackouts will grow longer each day, “many people are avoiding buying anything that requires refrigeration.” continue reading

Some bicycle taxis have spent weeks transporting “more food than people.” / 14ymedio

This Friday, the deliveries Yasiel made were mainly canned goods, grains, and cookies. “There were jars of chickpeas that you could tell had been sitting in the warehouse for a while because of the dust on top.” Bags of flour, sardines, tuna, powdered milk, cereal, vegetable oil, and the ever-reliable cans of Spam rounded out the orders. “For the first time since I started this job, I didn’t move a single package of frozen chicken quarters today.” No one wants a power outage to turn their food into a stinking puddle of water and blood.

In Telegram groups with names like Delivery Habana 24/7 or Mensajeros de Plaza, workers share orders, routes, and clients. Sometimes they also share warnings: “Don’t go through Infanta, it’s pitch dark because of the blackout.” These are work forums, but also spaces of camaraderie. “Here we alert each other when a business is looking for workers, when the power is out, or if a street is closed for a march. We’re like a brotherhood, but without headquarters,” Yasiel explains.

Marcos, 34, nicknamed El Ruedas [Wheels], has spent weeks transporting “more food than people” in his bicycle taxi. Originally from distant Banes in Holguín province, he has spent five years running passenger routes between Central Havana, Cerro, and Old Havana. At the beginning of February, he got a call from a friend who works for a digital site that distributes everything from food to hardware supplies. “He told me they needed bicycles or electric motorcycles because they had fewer and fewer cars due to the gasoline problem.”

Since then, Marcos has “combed Havana” from one side to the other transporting sausages, soft drinks, butter, and whatever a Cuban emigrant in Miami, Berlin, or Madrid buys for family members on the Island. “I’ve been lucky, and besides what they pay me, I’ve received good tips because when people see me arriving in the bicycle taxi, they reach into their pockets to give me something.” Where others fear a worsening fuel crisis, the Holguín native sees his niche: “Now it’s our turn, the ones who don’t need oil or electricity.”

“These are times when you have to stay very alert because people know we’re delivering food and items paid for in foreign currency. We’re a target.”

The day he remembers most gratefully was last Monday, when he delivered “coffee and some of those tubes used so bedridden patients can urinate” to a house in Casino Deportivo. “The little old lady who received me tipped me a dollar,” he recalls. That same day, the U.S. dollar was approaching 500 Cuban pesos on the informal market. “It’s things like that that keep me in this job, though there are bitter moments too.”

In the darkness of a street in the Cerro neighborhood, Marcos watches over his shoulder while handing over one of the orders. Using his phone’s flashlight, he checks the sheet listing products that a digital store has processed for a Havana family. “These are times when you have to stay very alert because people know we’re delivering food and items paid for in foreign currency. We’re a target when we do that.” To avoid complaints later, each product must be verified against the list in front of the recipient, a process that takes time and increases the risk.

Beyond robberies, Marcos’s biggest fear until this week was “that the strong heat would come and it wouldn’t be so easy to pedal from place to place.” However, in recent hours he has had three orders canceled, raising new concerns. “Several of those digital sites are closing off orders from abroad because they can’t guarantee delivery anymore. This is getting ugly.” If online purchases grind to a halt, it won’t matter how strong the messenger’s calves are: “I’ll have to go back to moving people, and dealing with flesh-and-blood customers is more complicated.”

The boom in informal delivery grew alongside the energy crisis and the collapse of state transport, but it reached its peak during the covid-19 pandemic. Now, with the near disappearance of fuel on the Island, after the executive order signed by Donald Trump penalizing countries that send crude oil to Cuba with tariffs, gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles are becoming increasingly scarce, and electric tricycles can’t keep up. In that vacuum, motorcycles and bicycles are trying to fill the gap left in transporting goods.

With each trip, the messenger earns between 1,000 and 1,500 pesos, depending on the distance. / 14ymedio

“I used to work in a refrigeration repair shop, but this pays better,” Landy, 30, tells this newspaper. He coordinates a network of ten messengers. His “headquarters” is a WhatsApp chat. “The small and medium-sized businesses write to me, I pass along the address and calculate the commission. There’s no boss and no fixed schedule. If there’s no connection, I disconnect, and that’s it.” With each trip, the messenger earns between 1,000 and 1,500 pesos, depending on the distance. “There’s no contract, but there’s trust,” the entrepreneur adds. “They pay me my commission at the end of the day, based on the trips completed.”

Most are young men, though there are women as well. Some are university students, IT specialists, or engineers. All are trying to earn money to support their families, and they prefer the independence of not being tied to a state job and being able to work with several businesses at once. “I don’t want anyone bossing me around. I take a job when I need to, and when I don’t feel like it, I stay home,” sums up a 23-year-old delivery worker with an electric tricycle. “My boss is the battery.”

The job is full of risks. “Sometimes it runs out in the middle of the darkness, and I have to push the tricycle until I find a place where I can charge it,” explains a young man from San Miguel del Padrón who makes deliveries in what he calls “a tough area.” Wearing gloves, a helmet, and a black jacket with “Rider” on the back, he distributes packages for small businesses in the municipality, but also takes jobs from larger digital platforms.

The leading online store has announced that it is canceling all its orders starting this Friday. Supermarket, which had managed to extend its deliveries across nearly the entire Island, informed customers that it will only process orders already received. “Due to the current situation regarding fuel availability in Cuba, our logistics operations have been temporarily limited,” reads its website.

Yasiel refuses to let such announcements paralyze him. For Saturday, he has a full schedule of deliveries. “It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m not going to stop pedaling. I’ll rest tomorrow.” The future is something he avoids thinking about in a country where announcements of cancellations, closures, and interruptions come one day after another.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Bitchat, the Cuban Network That Doesn’t Go Through the State Monopoly Etecsa

The rise of the application in contexts of censorship raises the question of its possible role in a Cuba with expensive, unstable and monitored internet.

Can the offline app Bitchat alleviate the limitations Cubans face due to censorship and poor infrastructure? / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, January 17, 2026 – On a dusty sidewalk in Kampala, Uganda, a young man says there’s something that can connect him with his friends even if the government shuts off the internet: an app that works without mobile data or Wi-Fi. It’s called Bitchat, it was created by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, and it has gone from being a virtually unknown tool to a digital lifeline for many people living under governments that increasingly resort to internet blackouts as a response to internal crises.

What is happening in Uganda is similar to what recently occurred in Iran, where Bitchat downloads surged after massive internet outages during popular protests. Both cases raise questions about the tool’s usefulness in countries like Cuba. On the island, web browsing is also plagued by high costs, a deteriorating infrastructure, and recurring censorship.

Unlike apps like WhatsApp, which rely on an active internet connection, Bitchat operates through a Bluetooth mesh network. If one phone doesn’t have internet access, it can send messages to a nearby phone, which in turn relays them to another, and so on, until the message reaches its destination. There is no login, no phone numbers that can be blocked by the government, and no direct dependence on phone providers. This technology is reminiscent of old community radio stations, but adapted to the digital age.

That same pattern of blackouts to control information at critical moments for the regime is repeated in Cuba

In Uganda, this tool has become especially valuable in the lead-up to the elections held this Thursday. The government cut off web access, limited mobile services, and restricted communication precisely when citizen organization was crucial for monitoring potential fraud. In that country, Bitchat has rapidly climbed the download charts, with thousands of users turning to the app to continue reading

exchange text and voice messages, while social media has been silenced by the authorities.

A similar phenomenon was observed in Iran starting in late December, where internet blackouts during social protests forced citizens to seek alternatives to conventional platforms. Reports from several data researchers indicate that Bitchat downloads tripled in the Persian nation, according to Reuters, precisely during the days when the web browsing block was tightened.

That same pattern of blackouts to control information at critical moments for the regime is repeated in Cuba.

Internet access on the island has been, from its inception, a territory of political control, but also an unstable and expensive service. In 2025, following a price increase imposed by Etecsa, the country’s sole telecommunications company, many Cubans saw the cost of connecting skyrocket. The price hike meant that access to data packages went from being a moderate economic barrier to a serious obstacle for large segments of the population.

Beyond the costs, the infrastructure remains inadequate. Telecommunications towers suffer frequent outages; the signal degrades easily, and the browsing experience is often disrupted, even without direct state intervention. On key days, such as December 10, Human Rights Day, or immediately after the mass protests of 11 July 2021, the authorities implemented deliberate internet shutdowns that affected activists, independent journalists, and ordinary citizens.

Technically, Bitchat works well in environments where phones can get close to each other and form small community networks.

During those days, digital communication became intermittent or disappeared altogether, complicating the transmission of information and the coordination of those seeking to share photos, videos, or simple messages to reassure their families outside the island. In this context, the emergence of tools like Bitchat offers a glimmer of hope. Can this offline application alleviate the limitations Cubans face due to censorship and inadequate infrastructure?

The answer isn’t simple. Technically, Bitchat works well in environments where phones can be close together and form small community networks. In street protests, neighborhood meetings, or small towns dense enough for devices to relay messages to each other, its use can be effective. A student in El Vedado could send a text to a friend in the El Cerro neighborhood if there are enough intermediaries. A group of activists could coordinate the points of an agreement without relying on data or Wi-Fi.

But the app has clear limitations: physical distance remains a factor. The Bluetooth signal has a range of between 10 and 100 meters, depending on the power of each device. In sparsely populated urban areas, such as many neighborhoods on the outskirts of Havana and Santiago de Cuba, it would be impractical without a large concentration of users or a deliberate community strategy of “nodes” to relay messages.

Even so, Bitchat’s appeal lies in its simplicity: it doesn’t require personal accounts, it isn’t easily registered on servers that can be blocked, and its decentralized network makes it harder for a government to disrupt it through conventional internet censorship mechanisms. It is, in essence, digital resilience.

Perhaps Bitchat’s true value lies not in replacing the large global networks, but in rewriting the map of what is possible.

For many Cubans, however, the challenges aren’t limited to being able to exchange texts during a blackout or an intentional service interruption. The established groups and relationships on social networks like Facebook and Instagram make most of the population highly dependent on these channels for communication and less inclined to explore other options. In computer and gaming communities, the search for independent and less crowded paths is common, but activism and independent journalism need to explore less controlled tools more effectively and consistently.

On the other hand, while Bitchat might be useful during periods of total internet outages, it doesn’t replace more established methods for live video streaming and reporting on protests, which require higher bandwidths. “Being able to send messages without internet is better than nothing,” says a reporter from Havana, “but to document abuses, record interviews, or transmit visual evidence, we still depend on connections that are often unavailable.”

However, the examples of Uganda and Iran show that where authorities block the internet in response to political tensions, Bluetooth networks become part of the citizen response. In Cuba, with its combination of prohibitive costs, fragile infrastructure, and tactical censorship, tools like Bitchat could serve as a complement to maintain basic communication among close-knit groups.

Perhaps Bitchat’s true value lies not in replacing the major global networks, but in rewriting the map of what’s possible when the fragile threads of the conventional internet break. For a mother who wants to know if her son is alright in Marianao when the internet goes down across Havana, being able to send an offline text can be the difference between a night of anxiety and one of relief.

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2025: The Year Food in Cuba Took On a Foreign Accent

Imported foods, more expensive and better, have displaced domestic products, which are increasingly scarce

Imported pork loin began the year at 900 pesos per pound and closed December at 1,200 / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, Natalia López Moya, December 30, 2025 –If there was one thing Cubans learned in 2025, it was to read agricultural markets the way one checks the weather report: not to know whether it will rain tomorrow, but to calculate how much food might make it into the house before money evaporates. It was a year without respite for prices, and with a novelty that has ceased to be anecdotal and become part of the landscape: the definitive consecration of imported products in sectors that, until recently, were domestically produced.

Rice, pork, citrus fruits, onions, garlic, and even sugar finished the year having changed their accent. They went from homegrown to speaking English, Portuguese, or peninsular Spanish. The United States, Mexico, Panama, Brazil, and Spain made their way onto the Cuban table not out of gastronomic preference but from sheer necessity. Domestic products became scarce, irregular, or unviable, and the market responded with the logic it knows best: bring goods from abroad to take advantage of a desperate demand for food.

One product that sums up the year was rice, that household thermometer that determines whether there is lunch or only a single meal at night. At the Plaza Boulevard market in Sancti Spíritus, a pound of domestic rice started January at 150 pesos. By July it had reached 280 and, after a slight “breather” forced by state intervention attempting to regulate its price, December found it at 250 pesos. The price did not go down due to a production miracle, but because many private vendors chose to hide it or replace it with imported rice, conveniently outside any regulation. The result was simple: less domestic rice in sight and more sacks with foreign labels.

A pound of domestic rice started January at 150 pesos. By July it had already reached 280

That dynamic repeated itself over and over. Price caps, announced with the tone of a final order, ran into three hard-to-breach walls: the constant devaluation of the Cuban peso, unmet demand, and the obstinacy of merchants, who know full well that selling below costs is not altruism, but ruin. Faced with the choice of losing money or pleasing the authorities, many chose a third path: pulling their merchandise and selling it on the side, where there are no inspectors or ministerial resolutions.

A carton of 30 eggs, in private shops in Holguín, went from 3,000 pesos at the beginning of the year to 3,200 in December / 14ymedio

Black beans, another staple of the national plate, offer a similar lesson. At the La Feria de Los Chinos market in Holguín, they began the year at 400 pesos per pound. In August, supply briefly improved and the price fell to 320. But the relief was short-lived. December brought it back to 420 pesos, confirming continue reading

that in Cuba discounts are usually a parenthesis, not a trend. Imported beans, meanwhile, entered without asking permission from price caps and found their niche among those who prefer to pay more rather than never eat them.

Pork, historically the queen of the Cuban table, definitively lost its crown in 2025. In the Youth Labor Army markets in Havana, managed by the Armed Forces but with most stalls run by private vendors, imported pork loin began the year at 900 pesos per pound. By July it was already at 1,000 and closed December at 1,200. Domestic pork, battered by the lack of feed, theft, and the impossible costs of raising pigs, became a rarity. When it did appear, it did not always respect official prices, and when it did, it disappeared the next day.

Pork, historically the queen of the Cuban table, definitively lost its crown in 2025

Something similar happened with products that define daily cooking. Onions, for example, behaved like a financial asset. At the market at 19th and B, ironically known as La Boutique, in Havana, a pound began January at 350 pesos. By July it was already at 500, and December found it at 600. The smell did not change, but the origin did: increasingly imported onions, better presented, more attractive, and, above all, free of price caps.

A carton of 30 eggs, many households’ protein lifeline, also jumped. In private shops in Holguín it went from 3,000 pesos at the beginning of the year to 3,200 in December. It is not a spectacular increase, but it is persistent, and it adds to a context in which the average salary does not go up, pensions shrink, and any increase, however small, ends up hurting.

The reappearance of mandarins in private markets this year has been scandalous, not so much for their flavor, always pleasant and fragrant, but for their price: around 1,300 pesos per pound, equivalent to nearly half of an average monthly pension on the Island. The citrus fruit arrived from Peru after years of absence and provoked a mix of amazement, nostalgia, and disenchantment. Many Cubans, especially older ones, confessed it had been more than five years since they had seen mandarins for sale.

The scene became iconic: alongside U.S. onions and Panamanian garlic, imported mandarins are sold at central points in Havana with labels recalling their origin, attracting those who see them as a piece of lost flavor. Yet the price turns them into a painful paradox: what should be a return to freshness ends up being an almost unattainable luxury for many pockets.

Alongside U.S. onions and Panamanian garlic, imported mandarins are sold at central points in Havana.

Behind these figures lies a clear logic. The policy of price caps, applied selectively, ended up incentivizing precisely the opposite of what it intended. By regulating domestic rice and leaving imported rice untouched, a clear message was sent to the market: bring in what is not regulated. The result was an accelerated shift toward imported products, more expensive but available.

With bitter irony, many consumers learned to distinguish foreign brands without ever having left the country. Not out of cosmopolitanism, but because Spanish onions, U.S. rice, and Brazilian pork were, paradoxically, more stable than their national equivalents. In 2025, Cuba’s agricultural market did not just sell food: it sold a daily lesson in basic economics. And most people forcibly approved it.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Doctors in Angola Spend Christmas Without Pay and With No Date Set for Their Vacations

Cuban doctors in Angola spend Christmas without pay and with no date set for their vacations

Late payments, delayed flights and silence from Antex mark the end of the year for health workers and teachers on official missions in the African country.

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 25 December 2025 — Christmas once again finds hundreds of Cuban health professionals in Angola caught between family distance, job uncertainty and administrative silence. Hired by Antex, the state corporation that manages these official missions abroad, many doctors and teachers arrive at the end of December without having received their salary for this month and without minimum guarantees to organise a temporary return to the island. The scenario is not new, but it repeats itself with a regularity that erodes any institutional promise.

From Luanda, a Cuban doctor sums up present feelings among his colleagues: “This Christmas will be a little more painful.” In addition to being separated from their children, parents and partners, they cannot afford a dinner that is any different from their daily routine. “It is now usual for Antex to delay payments. Normally, salaries arrived around the 20th, but that’s just a memory now,” he complains, referring to the equivalent of $200 they should receive in Angola, while most of their salary is kept in a bank on the island.

Antex had announced that it would most likely only be able to pay half that amount, but as the days go by, the promise has been reduced to $50. “If that’s the case, they would have to guarantee us a New Year’s Eve dinner, at least, but I doubt they will,” says the doctor.

“If that’s the case, they would have to guarantee us a New Year’s Eve dinner, at least, but I doubt they will,” says the doctor.

In December, as in other months, payment has been delayed and questions remain unanswered: will there be a special end-of-year meal organised by the Cuban authorities, will the pattern of 2023 be repeated — when some went more than two months without being paid — or will we simply have to resign ourselves to another year-end in limbo?

This testimony coincides with other complaints received by 14ymedio in recent days, in which Cuban doctors in Angola report systematic delays in payments, unclear deductions and obstacles to accessing their statutory holidays. Not only does this situation persist, but it is worsening in a context of local inflation, rising food prices and declining purchasing power of wages.

Added to the economic uncertainty is the chronic delay in return trips for vacations in Cuba. Many professionals expected to return between August continue reading

and September, but that schedule was almost completely disrupted. “Antex has not even sent 10% of the teachers who should have travelled during that period,” explains the doctor. The domino effect is evident: mission time is accumulating, holidays for all staff are being postponed, and there are increasing numbers of colleagues who have been in Angola for 15 months with no clear return date. For some, the wait is even turning into a forced extension of their contract.

“There’s always a manager who manages to leave on the scheduled date,” he adds, adding to the perception of privilege.

The official explanation changes depending on the situation, according to those affected. When there are no TAAG Angola Airlines flights, the response is that there are no connections available and that chartering a flight would be too expensive. When there are flights, the argument is reversed: the airline has raised its prices and it would therefore be preferable to hire a charter flight. “But neither is true,” says the doctor. In practice, almost no one travels. “There’s always a manager who does leave on the scheduled date,” he adds, fueling the perception of privilege and arbitrariness.

The impact of these breaches goes beyond just economics. For many, the mission in Angola was presented as an opportunity to improve their income, help their families in Cuba and build up savings. However, wage arrears and travel restrictions have turned that expectation into frustration. Christmas, with its symbolic significance, accentuates the feeling of abandonment. With no money in hand and no certainty of return, even basic gestures—buying a gift, preparing a special meal, connecting with family—become difficult.

From a contractual point of view, professionals insist that the agreed conditions are not being met. Late payments, lack of information and “total silence”, as they describe it, contrast with the official rhetoric on international medical cooperation. Angola is one of the historical destinations for these missions and a significant source of income for the Cuban state, which acts as an intermediary and retains a substantial portion of the salaries. For workers, this intermediation should entail clear responsibilities: punctuality in payments, transparency and guarantees of rest.

Angola is one of the historical destinations for these missions and a significant source of income for the Cuban state.

The institutional response, however, remains elusive. There are no statements explaining the delays or public timetables for regularising salaries and flights. The lack of information fuels rumours and anxiety, especially on sensitive dates. “Will we not be able to have a New Year’s Eve dinner either?” some ask, no longer expecting a formal response.
In a context where medical missions are presented as one of the pillars of Cuban foreign policy, reports from Angola once again bring forward the human cost of the model. For professionals in Luanda, Christmas brings no respite: it arrives with unpaid bills, broken promises and the certainty that, once again, the the solutions are not keeping up wioth the problems

Translated by GH

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Havana: If the Wastewater Affects the Railroad Tracks, Dig a Trench

At the 19 de Noviembre station, on Tulipán Street, the mixture of mud, grease and excrement has formed a quagmire that threatens both the nose and the metal.

As they dig, the smell becomes stronger in the midday sun. / 14ymedio

14ymedia, Havana, Natalia López Moya, November 16, 2025 — On Conill Street, in Nuevo Vedado, there is a smell that blots out the landscape. A thick stench that invades the sidewalk where every morning, almost in droves, the students of the José Miguel Pérez pre-university school pass by. For months now, the pestilence comes as a warning, a daily reminder that wastewater does not understand schedules or routines. The dark stream rises from a collapsed sewer and winds down the street.

The wastewater comes out through the gaps and edges of the metal lid, dragging bags and garbage along with it. In the course of its journey, the viscous liquid has been conquering ground until it has run into the tracks of the railway that leads to the 19 de Noviembre station on Tulipán Street. Along the way, the mixture of mud, grease and excrement has formed a muddy quagmire that threatens both the nose and the metal.

Ankle-deep in their boots in the fresh mud, they use their shovels to remove a dirt that smells like a public toilet. / 14ymedio

The image of the site this Saturday speaks for itself: a group of workers, with their boots sinking into the fresh mud, using their shovels to remove dirt that smells like a public toilet. Around them, the puddles reflect a blue sky that seems incompatible with the disaster under their feet.

One brigade embarks on what seems like an impossible mission to protect the iron tracks. They have no pumps, no new pipes or tools to rebuild the sewer system. They only have shovels, rubber boots and patience. Their “solution” — if you can call it that — is to open a trench under the rails to divert the water and prevent the tracks from ending up moving by losing solidity at the base. A kind of makeshift canal that, hopefully, will keep moisture at bay for a few days… or hours.

In a city facing a surge of viruses, this steady flow of wastewater seems like a direct provocation. / 14ymedio

As they dig, the smell becomes stronger in the midday sun. And the irony too: in a city facing a resurgence of respiratory and stomach viruses, with overcrowded hospitals and pharmacies without basic medicines, this constant flow of wastewater seems like a direct provocation.

The neighbors are no longer surprised. They have long since learned to coexist with “temporary solutions,” those patches that fill speeches and press reports but never get to the heart of the problem. The routine consists of patching, diverting, covering, filling, re-opening, recovering. As if the entire city lives under an endless cycle of cosmetic repairs that do not heal, but rather become chronic. A Havana where life passes between spills of wastewater and the slow passage of a train that, hopefully, will manage to advance without sinking into the mud.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Living and Starting a Business Among Ruins in the Heart of Havana

“Miscellaneous items,” promises a mini-shop embedded in the remains of a building

Everything is arranged with a mixture of care and urgency, as if each object were a soldier ready for the daily battle against scarcity. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 15 November 2025 — From the sidewalk of Belascoaín Street, where the rumble of classic cars mingles with the smell of fried food and musty dampness, a small rectangle cut into a corroded wall catches the eye of anyone passing by. It is an irregular opening, as if forcibly torn out, embedded in the remains of a building that lost its splendor decades ago and, as of few years ago, also lost its upper floors. All that remains of that collapse are bare columns, layers of paint flaking away, and a faded mural where someone tried to paint a sun, perhaps to ward off so much ruin. But amidst the chaos, two words painted with a thick, clumsy brush offer an unlikely promise: “Miscellaneous Items.”

The phrase, written amidst rust and desolation, carries the touch of an inside joke between the city and its inhabitants. “Several,” yes: several collapses, several rainstorms without shelter, several decades of architectural neglect. But also “several” as an act of faith, as a declaration that, despite everything, someone resists the continued encroachment of emptiness. There, where there should be silence and dust, a small makeshift shop flourishes, clinging to life like the plants that sprout in the cracks of the balconies.

Behind the peeling paint, a table laden with merchandise creates an unusual collage of times and origins.

Peering into the alcove is like discovering another world. Behind the peeling paint, a table laden with merchandise creates an unusual collage of times and origins. In one corner rest packages of baby wipes—imported, smelling of another country—next to gleaming aluminum basins, brand new, as if they’d just rolled off the assembly line in some workshop in the Cerro neighborhood. A few steps further in, behind a makeshift counter made out of planks, the vendor arranges jars, funnels, ladles, and an assortment of continue reading

metal parts that could belong to anything from a kitchen to a 1970s Russian motorcycle.

Everything is arranged with a mixture of care and urgency, as if each object were a soldier ready for the daily battle against scarcity. A radio plays softly,
almost timidly, while a household fan stirs hot air that barely manages to dispel the smell of garbage wafting from the mountain of trash growing on the corner. Nothing here is comfortable, spacious, or new. But the whole thing works, pulsates, breathes. It is a fragile little venduta [shop] built on the skeleton of what was once a building and what could one day, in the distant future, be an empty lot.

The contrast is brutal and commonplace: disaster and entrepreneurship, collapse and the will to prosper coexist in a space barely three meters wide. This coexistence, so quintessentially Cuban, transforms Belascoaín’s makeshift stall into a small symbol of the entire city: what is about to fall and what insists on rising again. Between ruin and ingenuity, between precariousness and inventiveness, beats the same obstinacy that drives so many: to sell something, to survive, to not let life completely crumble.

At midday, a customer stops to look. He is not looking for anything specific; in Havana, nobody’s looking for anything particular, you look for whatever comes along.

At midday, a customer stops to look. He is not looking for anything specific; in Havana, nobody looks for anything particular, you look for whatever comes along. And in the small window opened among the rubble, something always appears: a screw, a sponge, a packet of detergent, a tired greeting from the vendor. Assorted products, just as the sign promises. Assorted and vital. Assorted and, above all, attainable.

Because here, in this fragment of ruin turned shop, the city reminds us that it is still capable of creating a tiny paradise where before there was only dust. And that this stubbornness, this will to survive among ruins, Havana’s strongest pulse remains.
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A New Card and the Same Trick: Cuban Doctors in Angola Still Can’t Collect Their Pay in Dollars

The authorities advance a new payment mechanism to settle complaints, but the doctors still demand payment in dollars

Cuban doctors in Angola say the authorities have held onto their dollars for years / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Havana. Natalia López Moya, October 28, 2025 — “We are somewhat resigned, but not at all in agreement,” said Héctor, a Cuban doctor in Angola who participated in the meeting on October 23 between health workers and representatives of Antex, the Cuban company that manages the missions in the African country. The meeting, held in Luanda, served to announce a new payment mechanism through the Classic card, which maintains restrictions on access to dollars and thwarts the hopes of health workers to be able to recover their money in that currency.

The meeting took place in a tense atmosphere, albeit with fewer complaints than on previous occasions. “It’s not that we have given up, but people have now realized that these officials aren’t going to do anything; it’s like talking to a wall,”explains the doctor, using a pseudonym for fear of reprisals. According to his statement, the document read during the meeting had already been leaked days before, so the attendees arrived “more than informed.”

The official text stated that, beginning October 20, Cuban professionals in Angola and Algeria can transfer the savings accumulated in their accounts in freely convertible currency (MLC) to a Classic card, with which they will be able to buy in dollar stores, acquire a car and pay for fuel at foreign currency gas stations.

The change does not solve the main problem: the impossibility of withdrawing dollars in cash from Cuba

However, the change does not solve the main problem: the impossibility of withdrawing dollars in cash from Cuba. “This has changed nothing,” says Hector. The availability of dollars still depends on the bank, and the answer is always the same: we don’t have any.” continue reading

The measure was to be implemented in January 2026, but it was brought forward by growing unrest among the health workers, tired of collecting pay in a devalued currency. “All this prevents us from making plans for housing, investment or migration,” laments Héctor, who is about to finish his mission after more than three years. “The MLC is worth much less than the dollar, and the balance in a Classic card is also below. In the end we lose money on every transaction.”

The currency gap is confirmed by the informal market: while the dollar is quoted this Tuesday at 485 Cuban pesos, the MLC barely reaches 200, and the money in a Classic card equals 446. “We can forget about a part of our savings; that money evaporates in the many deals we have to do to get the cash,” he concludes.

For months, a number of health workers had been confident that the authorities would allow direct payment in dollars or kwanzas (Angolan currency), to later buy dollars in the local market. But the decision of the Cuban government, advanced this week, fell like “a bucket of cold water” on these expectations.

In September, the professionals received only half their monthly payment in kwanzas, about $200

The discomfort is aggravated by other failures. In September, professionals received only half their monthly payment in kwanzas -about $200- and in October the disbursement was further delayed. Some doctors have not yet been paid. ” People are demoralized, but also scared,” says another health worker in Luanda. “They have tried to divide us and scare us so that no one protests.”

The clearest warning came a few days ago from Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health, which officially called the doctors who criticize the system or report irregularities “ingrates and traitors.” It was like a direct message, says the doctor. Anyone who complains risks being sent back to Cuba and losing their savings.”

The discontent had reached such a point that a group of collaborators drafted a letter to the Cuban Public Prosecutor’s Office, on behalf of all, demanding payment in foreign currency and better working conditions. At the center of their complaints is Antex, a subsidiary of the military conglomerate Gaesa, sanctioned by the US Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Antex manages a wide range of businesses in Angola, from road construction, airfield repairs and travel agencies to managing medical missions.

The discontent had reached such a point that a group of collaborators wrote a letter to the Cuban Public Prosecutor’s Office

In July, the professionals also sent a letter to Miguel Díaz-Canel, denouncing “non-compliance with the form of payment established in the contract” and demanding access to their funds in dollars deposited on the island. There was no response. Instead of rectifying, says another doctor, “what they have done is give us another plastic card but no cash dollars, nothing.”

Most of them have lost hope of a change. “They don’t want to give up the money, says Héctor. They have kept our currency for years and will not return it, even if that costs them more complaints in the meetings.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Shovels Make Little Headway Against the Monstrous Piles of Garbage in Havana

With each movement, the flies return, and the stench sneaks through the shutters of a nearby building

A few meters away, the door of a warehouse where food for the rationed market is stored remains open. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, Natalia López Moya, October, 23, 2025 — It was Wednesday, and at the corner of Factor and Conill, two workers from Communal Services are facing an enemy that already seems mythological: one of the many mountains of garbage in Havana, this time in Nuevo Vedado. Armed with shovels, they try to reduce what the blue containers can no longer contain: bursting bags, wet cartons, food scraps and even an old flip-flop poking through the blanket of flies.

The truck, which is older than the employees themselves, waits with its door open like a tired mouth. One of the men sighs before throwing in another shovelful, but the mass of waste is barely reduced on the asphalt. “This is hard,” he says, while the other one tries to scare away the flies buzzing around the debris. A few meters away, the door of a warehouse, where food for the rationed market is stored, remains open.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Scavengers Feast on the Ruins of the Café Boulevard in Havana

The collapse of a state cafeteria leaves an extensive reservoir of building materials for the scavengers

In less than two months the usable fragments have been disappearing from the structure. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, Natalia López Moya, October 14, 2025 — Matter is neither created nor destroyed, it only changes hands. What until recently was a state cafeteria, which was left in ruins after a tragic collapse, is now the main reservoir of steel bars, gravel and pieces of wood from a neighborhood with serious construction problems. At the corner of Galiano and San Rafael, in Centro Habana, scavengers carry everything they can pull from the rubble of Café Boulevard. Anything can be used to repair another house or sell on the black market.

“They have been carrying away everything like ants,” the employee of a nearby parking lot for motorcycles and tricycles tells 14ymedio. He has seen the remains of the property parading past in the hands of the most needy. The collapse of the ceiling of the state business, in mid-August, claimed the life of an employee working on the ground floor. On that day, the exterior of the Café Boulevard and the cracked upper part still exhibited doors, windows and even clothes laid out on the balconies.

Like their peers in nature, these scroungers are guided by noise and smell. / 14ymedio

However, in less than two months the pieces that can be used to prop up a barbacoa (loft) or as a hot plate for cooking have been disappearing from the structure. “Some things were taken by the owners before they left, but others have been cannibalized at night and in the early hours, the same people who live here,” explains the employee.” I have seen toilet seats, complete blinds, electric cables and many planks of wood.”

If in nature scavengers remove cadavers from the environment and recycle them, in the Cuban capital the scavengers sweep through any ruin, empty the wide rooms that once had walls, grab the bidet from the old bathroom of the stately house that fell with the last rains and skillfully remove the bricks from a facade. Like their peers in nature, they are guided by noise and smell: the shouting that comes after the collapse of some pillars and the stench of moisture that spreads through the debris of a collapsed building.

In a couple of months, it is very likely that, on the corner of Galiano and San Rafael, there will remain only some unadorned pillars and the memory of shared laughter, conversation and beer.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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“My Mother Hasn’t Received a Centavo Since May,” Says a Cuban Doctor Stationed in Angola

With delays in payments and vacations postponed, the situation of the Cuban personnel has worsened since the protests against Antex

Stock photo of Cuban doctors together with the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, in Angola / Minrex

14ymedio, Havana, Natalia López Moya, September 27, 2025 — Discontent continues to grow among Cuban doctors in Angola. To the discomfort caused by the official decision to transfer part of their savings to a Classic card [a prepaid card for payments in foreign currency], instead of paying them in dollars, is added the delay in payments to their families in Cuba and the postponement of vacations on the Island. “My mother hasn’t received a penny since May,” a specialist reports to 14ymedio.

In addition to the payment in kwanzas, equivalent to about 200 dollars, which she collects each month in Angola to cover her daily expenses, she accumulates the rest of the money, about 1,200 dollars, in Cuba, waiting to be able to collect it when the mission ends; this is a way to prevent her from fleeing. In addition, her family should receive a small monthly amount during that time, but the arrears in these payments complicate the livelihoods of her mother and her teenage son.

These irregularities caused a group of employees to prepare, “on behalf of all, a letter to the Public Prosecutor’s Office demanding payment in foreign currency and the improvement of the economic conditions in which we work,” explains the doctor who has been working for almost three years in a clinic in Luanda. The letter was prepared after a meeting held by the employees with the managers of Antex (Corporación Antillana Exportadora S.A.), owned by the military conglomerate Gaesa, which manages the stay of the specialists in Angola.

At that meeting, the employees expressed their discomfort and demanded direct receipt of the dollars that the Angolan government pays to Antex for each Cuban hired through them. In addition to doctors, there are also continue reading

builders, sports coaches and a wide range of health personnel, all under similar conditions.

Cuban professionals have been demanding for years that they be given the money accumulated on the Island in foreign currency

Cuban professionals have been demanding for years that they be given the money accumulated on the Island in foreign currency, but the government’s recent response has been to announce that from next January they will have a Classic card to use, although they will still not receive cash. After the tense meeting last August, the managers of Antex tried to calm tempers by assuring that they would the start payment with the Classic card sooner, as of this September.

The commitment has not been fulfilled and now adds instability in the schedule of payments to relatives. Also, Antex has not bought tickets for the specialists to spend their vacations on the Island. “They give us a runaround, which is a breach of contract because we are supposed to be able to return to our country when we have a break from work. Last August I had to stay here for my vacation,” she says with regret.

“Several commercial flights of the airline TAAG left but Antex did not buy tickets, except for exceptional cases, so many who planned to take vacations couldn’t do it,” says the specialist. These trips are used by Cuban workers to bring goods to the Island, which they then resell, one of the few material incentives they have in the midst of their strained economic situation.

Emilio, a Cuban doctor whose name has been changed for this report and who works at the Hospital Materno Infantil do Camama Dr. Manuel Pedro Azancot de Menezes in Luanda, feels like he is “about to explode.” In his opinion, since the recent announcement of the use of the Classic card, “nothing has improved, and the attention we receive from Antex has gotten worse.”

“They have not reversed the decision to pay us with the Classic card, and to top it off we suffer months of delay in bank deposits that they should be making to our relatives in Cuba,” he says. “Nor have they received payment in freely convertible currency (MLC),” increasingly devalued on the informal exchange market and currently traded at 205 pesos per dollar.

Last July, the professionals sent a letter to Miguel Díaz-Canel in which they denounced the “breach of payment form established in the contract”

Last July, the professionals sent a letter to Miguel Díaz-Canel in which they denounced the “breach of payment form established in the contract” and demanded that they be allowed to collect in dollars the amount accumulated during years of stay in Angola in their bank accounts on the Island. The president has not yet replied to that letter.

Emilio also complains that “now without warning or explanation here in Angola they started paying us monthly the equivalent of only 100 dollars, instead of the 200 agreed.” He shows this newspaper the report of a transfer to his bank account in the amount of 93,000 kwanzas, equivalent to 100 dollars. “No one has told us why they made this cut.”

On other occasions, Cuban professionals have suffered this type of monetary hardship that complicates their lives in the African country. “Sometimes I have to borrow a mobile phone from my Angolan colleagues to make a call or browse the Internet because I don’t earn enough to buy a data package, cover fuel and eat.” Emilio considers Cuban doctors to be “the fifth wheel of the car for Antex.”

Similar opinions had already been heard at the tense meeting in Luanda. “I do not want to buy food, I do not want to buy appliances, I want to buy a home,” insisted a doctor who objected to receiving pay for service in MLC or the Classic card. “Are they going to force us to commit crimes, to resort to the black market in order to have real dollars? These are the plans of entire lives, of whole families that you are destroying,” he told he Antex representative.

The Antex Corporation, sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, manages a wide range of businesses in Angola

The Antex Corporation, sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), manages a wide range of businesses in Angola, ranging from road construction and airport repair to the management of travel agencies. Between 2013 and 2017 alone, Antex received more than $1 billion from that country, according to El Toque. Through Antex and other companies, Cuba participated — financed by the USSR — in the Angolan civil war (1975-1991) with more than 300,000 soldiers. In 2015, the Portuguese press reported that 70% of health workers in Angola were of Cuban origin.

Now, Emilio concludes that the denunciations and complaints at meetings are of little use. “What we should do is refuse to work under these conditions but, of course, they know that they can always hire some naive person in Cuba who is willing to accept these humiliating conditions just to get out of there.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba Is Experiencing Its Third Day of General Blackout, With Sporadic Moments of Light

Authorities deny rumors about an imminent declaration of an “energy emergency” to address an out-of-control situation.

Cubans prepare for another night without power. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 12 September 2025 — As of midday on the third day of the failure of Cuba’s national electricity system (SEN), it is clear that authorities were too quick to celebrate the country’s “recovery.” Many Cubans are still experiencing power outages or unreliable service, and they anticipate another night in the dark.

In Havana, authorities from the Electric Union reported that four of the city’s six power blocks are without service, including Nuevo Vedado and San Miguel del Padrón as 14ymedio was able to confirm. This newsroom also received reports of outages in Sancti Spíritus, Holguín, and Villa Clara that have lasted several hours and are accompanied by a drop in internet connection.

As if that weren’t enough, official media reported the shutdown of Unit 3 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes thermoelectric plant in Cienfuegos. “This incident complicates the operation of the SEN and increases the impact of the country’s generation capacity deficit,” officials admitted.

Block 5 of Renté, in Santiago de Cuba, which contributed 70 megawatts to the SEN (National Energy Service) this Friday, also went “unexpectedly off the system due to an automatic operation related to a boiler feed valve.” Authorities assured that they are working to ensure it can be brought back online this afternoon.

Block 5 of Renté, in Santiago de Cuba, which contributed 70 megawatts to the SEN this Friday, also “unexpectedly” went offline.

Ricardo is 72 years old and at his house they avoid opening the freezer so that the little bit of cold that protects the food stored in the refrigerator doesn’t escape. “My daughter had sent me a box of chicken a few days back, and now I could lose all of that if the power doesn’t come back on by tomorrow, Saturday at the latest,” this resident of the La Timba neighborhood, near the Plaza de la Revolución, told 14ymedio.

The Havana resident has taken extreme measures. “My grandchildren haven’t been to school for three days. On Wednesday, when the national blackout began, they had just entered their classrooms, and my son went and got them, brought them home, and they haven’t left the house since.” In the family home, continue reading

“you can count the hours of light” we’ve had, he laments.

The impact also directly affects the wallet. Ricardo’s son earns his living with an electric tricycle that moves goods that customers buy at a central Havana hardware store. “He has no way to charge it, and the sales of materials aren’t working because the hardware store doesn’t have a power plant,” explains the head of the family, who admits he hasn’t showered for three days due to the lack of water.

In the buildings with more than 12 stories that abound in the Nuevo Vedado area, near La Timba, residents who live on higher floors avoid going down because they’ll then have to use the stairs to return to their homes. “There are a lot of elderly people here, and they’re not up to navigating all those steps up and down,” commented a resident of the Los Pilotos building on Factor Street this Friday.

The lack of water is particularly acute at these heights because, even if the cistern has some reserves, the water pump lacks electricity to operate and fill the tanks located at the top of the building. Carrying full buckets or jugs up the stairs is also unfeasible for many of the residents on the upper floors.

This Friday, clinics at the 19 de Abril Polyclinic in the area were also suspended again. “That generator has been broken for years, but no one has reported it yet,” an employee responded to a frustrated patient who, for the second day in a row, was trying to be seen for an eye problem. The woman questioned the health center’s lack of power backup, despite the fact that a huge power plant is visible on one side of its facade. Fuel is needed to operate it, and there isn’t any.

The lack of water is especially striking at these altitudes because, even if the cistern has some reserves, the water pump does not have electricity to operate.

The critical situation has even prompted rumors circulating on social media that UNE will implement a controlled 72-hour power outage. The electric company denied that the government intended to declare an “energy emergency” and denounced a disinformation campaign.

In response to the article, reproduced by Cubadebate, the first four comments from readers of the official outlet harshly criticized the authorities. “Is there any information that correlates with the reality Cubans are experiencing today? What official reports say is one thing, but the reality Cubans are experiencing is quite another.”

Another commenter quipped: “Great, it was fake news… But we’re still without power for over 20 hours.”

The comments also reflected readers’ resignation and weariness, with phrases such as, “In short, massive blackouts across the country have already occurred five times, and not to mention that half the country is shut down every day.” It’s clear that Cubans know that the “stability” of the SEN lasts only until “it breaks down again.”

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