Category: Natalia López Moya

mini-industries and not by state-owned factories which have higher production and quality. They arrive without labels, they only have a small paper tag attached with the description of the content and come in very rustic packaging, some buyers complain, although others, like Tania, don’t notice.

“We no longer look for attractiveness in shopping, what one tries to do is sort things out and that is why the huge line and killer conditions to continue to buy here,” the woman said with resignation. “But yes, there’s no longer ketchup or mustard or Taoro jam or VitaNova, which was the star product of this place,” she says.

The reluctance of customers also comes because food made in mini-industries is often far from the details printed on the labels. Tomato sauces mixed with beets to increase volume, tasteless pickles and sweets made with poor quality fruits are some of the most frequent criticisms of the production of these factories.

Customers also complain about long lines and say that every time merchandise arrives, no matter how little, they stop selling and until everything is downloaded and accounted for, marketing is not restarted. In addition, on several occasions they have demanded that the store workers place the notice board with the products that are dispensed in the window.

Since its inauguration, only one item from of each line can be purchased at La Casa de las Conservas and they scan the customer’s identity card “so that the same person does not buy again for a month,” a buyer complained on September 13.

According to various testimonies collected by 14ymedio, some people have arrived at the time when the 400 turns in line are distributed, at 5 am, and have not been able to enter until a day later. “The worst thing is that you cannot line up to buy a particular product, because it usually happens like in any other store, that things run out before your turn is due. That is why, after waiting so long, you have to buy whatever they have,” laments Alberto.

“Add to that that since your identity card has already been registered, if you don’t want to buy because the product you wanted ran out, you have to wait a month to buy again in the store.”

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3,000 and bearings 1,500. Most of the parts for these bikes are sold at ’millennial’ prices, so putting together a complete bike can reach more than 30,000 pesos.
As for racing bikes, the luxury is even greater, since the components are sold in dollars and a single tire costs no less than 100, almost 8,000 Cuban pesos at the exchange rate on the black market.

The expenses not only go include the parts and maintenance. In Havana, the number of bicycle parking spaces has fallen sharply. A few years ago it was common to have a place near each shopping center where, for one or two pesos, someone guarded the bike while the customer made their purchases, but as the use of cycles decreased, so did these places.

“Parking now is not less than 20 pesos and you have to walk a long way between parking the bicycle and getting to the place where you were going, it is a headache,” says Daniel, a young university student who regrets the limitations on getting many places by bike. “You come in and they tell you it’s forbidden but they don’t offer you a place to park.”

With classes suspended in recent months, Daniel has worked as a courier making home deliveries of pizza and other food through the popular Mandao service. “When a customer lives on a high floor and asks me to go up the elevator to deliver the order, I can’t, because if I leave the bicycle alone, even if I put a lock on it, it is very likely that it will be stolen and it is not easy for me to find place to park, and if I do I have to spend part of my profit on that.”

Daniel also regrets that the city “is no longer a place for bicycles.” In addition to the lack of parts and parking spaces, there is added “the removal of the cycle lanes”, previously marked on the main avenues. “Many of the tire repairers who used to work exclusively with bicycles have also gone out of business. This is going uphill, it is getting harder and harder.”

In the interior of the country, where the bicycle is used even more than in the capital, the situation worsens, since the prices exceed those of the capital. Jesús, 40 years old, resides in Sancti Spíritus and goes every day from his home to work by bicycle, a 7-kilometer journey.

“We have the Santa Clara factory close enough, which supplies us with a few spare parts. However, the quality is terrible and the variety is practically non-existent. What strikes us the most is the lack of tires, the Ring 26s are still available, more or less, because they bring them from abroad and they show up for about 4,000 or 5,000 pesos each. But for Ring 24, like mine, they simply don’t exist and, if they appear, I can’t buy them because they can ask for up to 6,000 pesos. That is to say: a single rubber tire could exceed my monthly salary,” he laments.

In spite of everything, Jesús considers that the rustic machinery which many entrepreneurs work with are helping to solve the problem. “Although the pieces are homemade, they have made our day to day a little easier,” he argues.

Last August, the State newspaper Granma announced that about a thousand students  from the Marta Abreu University of Villa Clara could benefit from the purchase in installments of bicycles assembled in the state company Ángel Villareal Bravo, located in the province and better known as Ciclos Minerva.

The price of each unit was 2,900 pesos, paying in full and in cash, but if the buyer chose to postpone payment (an option available since the option was approved in July), he had to pay 20% down and had one year to pay the remainder with an interest rate of 2.5%.

The official newspaper said then that it was a great opportunity for young people, who could access a means of transport in a more flexible way. But the great advantage, as is being demonstrated, is the opportunity people have found with the resale of parts on the black market, at 12,000 or 15,000 pesos.

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Cuban pesos.

The phenomenon, known by the authorities and ridiculed in cartoons in the official press, has extended to all the places when the word spreads that a product of wide popular demand is about to be put out on store shelves. The families arrange for one person to stay up all night and the others to arrive after the clock strikes 5 am.

From nearby places, coming from all directions, numerous groups of people with anxious faces and hurried steps came running, trying to reach a privileged position in the line to be able to shop in the recently opened store that takes payment in Cuban pesos, an anomaly in a city ​​and a country that every day surrenders more to foreign currency.

Being first in line did not guarantee any privilege. The police officers did not allow people whose identity cards showed distance residences to join the line. Anyone who did not live within a five-block area could not have made it to the line at that time of the morning without violating the curfew, they said, with an argument they themselves did not believe, aware of the subterfuges to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

But, there were exceptions. “Look at this one, it is from Old Havana, but he says he is someone’s nephew,” a policeman shouted at an obvious State Security agent, dressed in civilian clothes, while pulling a man out of the line; the man gave the name of a relative who is an “official of the Ministry of the Interior,” and they let him stay. From that moment and without explanation, they no longer checked any more addresses, and began to hastily collect the cards from the rest of those present.

“It is not possible that there are 200 people in front of me in the line, because I live on that balcony that you see there and I came down at five o’clock,” a girl complained to a policeman. “I live with my little daughter and my mother with schizophrenia,” she said to get him to let her pass, without achieving any results.

The agent replied that he understood her situation but could not do anything. “We already have 57 people at the Police station,” he justified. Those arrested, all in the early hours of the morning, will be fined 2,000 pesos and will receive a “warning letter.” As the products sold by the store are not “essential,” argued the officer, there was no separate line for the “vulnerable,” people with disabilities or bedridden patients in their family who obtain a card that allows them to shorten the wait in other stores and markets.

Despite the early hours, the hubbub that spread through the place gave the impression that the clock was already ticking past noon. People yelled at those who sneaked in relatives and acquaintances who arrived later, to the indifference of the agents, who collected, in total, some 300 identification documents.

Ayestarán Street, which until recently was an artery full of vehicles and dotted with private businesses with offers of pizzas and soft drinks, has now become an area of ​​long lines, not only because of the recently opened Casa de las Conservas, but also because of the nearby Trimagen store complex, managed by the military and supplying products that can be paid for with Cuban pesos.

More than 300 people were still in line after the first 300. From them, they would collect, they announced, 200 more cards, but later. At that moment, a crowd rushed at the agents to demand that they finish collecting the remaining documents. “Pick up a few and fine them 2,000 pesos right here and you’ll see how they calm down,” one of the officers rebuked. The tumult dissolved immediately.

“My God, what is this, where have so many people come from?” said a surprised woman her 60s who had run two blocks to get there on time and barely reached number 350. “This seems to be the 11th of July of Jam,” she said jokingly, making reference to the recent protests throughout the country on July 11th.

“I am here to buy a can of mayonnaise, because my daughter has her birthday today and she has asked us to make her a cold salad,” a young man who arrived at five o’clock in the morning explained to this newspaper. “We managed to get an appointment but I think we will be shopping after one in the afternoon, so we are going to spend part of the festivities in line.”

A lady came by for guava jam. “My mother is bedridden and cannot eat anything she has to chew, so every day I have to find her some yogurt, compote or a base to make juices,” she explained. The woman was one of those who did not not manage to get a number. “My address is a bit remote and I couldn’t justify what I was doing there at the time I arrived.”

The locals are used to crowds and shouting. Not surprisingly, a few meters yard is a Trimagen store famous for being the epicenter of endless lines, traffic accidents and fights. However, when passing by the House of Preserves, they were stunned: there was no comparison with the madness that was seen here this Tuesday.

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in the papers.

The family, desperate, returns to Fajardo in search of Armando to try to say goodbye and bury him once and for all. “At the hospital they tell us they made a mistake and they give us another box with the deceased’s papers. There we discovered that the one they had given us before was from Caimito (Artemisa), and they didn’t even know where the corpse was,” explains the source.

Armando’s son, distrustful of what he experienced with the first coffin, asks again to open the box to confirm that this time he is taking his father. “When they opened it was a Chinese man, a resident of Havana’s Chinatown.”

Finally, after a “scandal” with the family in the hospital, Armando’s body appeared and he was able to be buried after 5 o’clock in the afternoon in Güira de Melena, his hometown. “Who knows how many corpses are buried in the wrong way. If we had not insisted on opening the box, we would never have found out,” complains the relative.

With the collapse of the healthcare and funeral services, dozens of complaints have arisen of corpses that spend hours and even days at home or in a state institution.

In a room at the Puntarena de Varadero hotel in Matanzas, which functions as a medical center for positive cases of COVID-19, the body of a traveler spent more than two days without the authorities picking it up. In a video published on social networks at the beginning of July, an oxygen tank was seen at the entrance of the room and then the silhouette of the lower extremities of the corpse lying on a bed covered with a white sheet.

In Ciego de Ávila, Lisveilys Echenique’s brother died at home after spending 11 days with covid and without receiving medical attention. The body had been in the living room of the house for more than seven hours and an ambulance did not arrive to pick it up. “The situation in Cuba is precarious. The government does not want to ask for help and there are no doctors,” Echenique denounced.

After much insistence, a family from the municipality of Placetas, in Villa Clara, could not fulfill the wish of Omar, a covid-19 patient who asked to be cremated if he died. “The hears] did not have tires in good condition and it was not possible to move [the body] to Matanzas, which was where the possibility of doing it [cremation] was found because in Santa Clara you have to wait four or five days to do it,” the wife of the deceased identified as Nancita Ñanguita narrates in a Facebook post.

The woman also denounces that after her husband died on August 15 “for lack of an intensive care room and better resources,” she spent four hours in a hospital corridor. After that time, the family spent hours finding a coffin.

“Please reflect, gentlemen leaders, so that you can avoid the terrible pain that one feels when losing a relative in their hands without being able to do anything, neither the family nor the doctors,” Nancita requests.

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The most recent repair of streetlights on the capital’s roads was focused only on a part of the Malecón from Maceo Park to Paseo del Prado. In addition, according to the Office of the Historian of Havana, the Martí Park and the lights located at the entrance of the Bahía Tunnel were going to be included.

While other areas of the capital continue with deteriorated public lighting such as in the Plaza municipality, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel went to the La Güinera Popular Council, in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality, without taking into account a resurgence of covid cases that does not decline.

According to the official press, the president went to the place on Friday “to speak with the authorities, local actors and the population about the process of transformation that is being undertaken in the community.”

In a first stage, work is being done on “urbanization, asphalt, bridge repair, hydraulic and sanitary infrastructure, roads, housing connections,” according to information published in the official Twitter account of the Cuban presidency.

In exactly that area, one of the most depressed areas of Havana, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda was shot and killed by policeman during the protests that began on July 11 (11J).

After learning of the death of Laurencio Tejeda, the Government has used La Güinera for its regular political propaganda and has sent several officials. “They wanted to rob our neighborhood,” Díaz-Canel said this Friday from the community. The Government also affirmed that the “actions to improve the infrastructure” are carried out with the support of the community and various entities.

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went out this Wednesday morning to buy food.

This newspaper was able to verify that the scene was repeated in stores such as Trimagen, on Ayestarán Street. In that establishment they only sold one bottle of soda per person and two packages of ‘Pellys’ snacks.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets on Sunday, July 11 (11J) to protest against the Government, shouting for freedom on a historic day. In response, president Miguel Díaz-Canel went on TV to make a call for people to go out into the streets to confront the protesters and defend the Revolution.

Central Havana was an area where thousands of protesters concentrated that Sunday, and from several streets tried to reach the Capitol building without success, and others succeeded, although dozens of them were repressed by police and State Security agents along the way.

The demonstrations took place with the country mired in a serious economic and health crisis, with the pandemic out of control and a severe shortage of food, medicine and other basic products, in addition to long power cuts.

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prevent us from leaving,” Yantiel, age 25, told 14ymedio.

“In Punta Brava there are still many young prisoners, whose mothers have not even been able to see them since that day they were arrested,” he laments. “Although there have not been other protests like that one, it has happened that the neighbors have stoned the houses of the thugs who hit the people that day.”

María Elena, 64, also believes that “none of this would be distributed, much less for free, if it were not for the fact that people took to the streets.” According to this worker in an industrial products store, “we are living very badly here, there is hardly any food to be found and our electricity is cut off all the time.”

The free module is “a patch to cover the gap,” she adds, but it does not solve the serious problems of a neighborhood with more than 140,000 inhabitants, very affected by mobility restrictions with the Cuban capital. “They want to shut us up with a little rice, but don’t forget that this area is called Punta Brava [Brave Point] and it is for a reason.”

The delivery has begun in Havana, the epicenter of the protests, and will spread to other provinces with high population densities and where the demonstrations were also very numerous, such as Matanzas, Ciego de Ávila, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Guantánamo and Isla de La Juventud, before reaching the entire country.

The information was expanded on Friday by the Minister of Internal Trade, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, on the Roundtable television program. The minister explained that it was decided to distribute these modules after a donation from Russia and “after learning about offers and donations from Mexico, Bolivia, Vietnam and other nations.”

“In this way, a delivery schedule has been set up. In parallel, to those who are not receiving this module in the first 15 days, other products that are arriving will be delivered and others that will be received will continue to be delivered so that there is a benefit.”

The authorities have also announced the sale of an additional three pounds of rice per consumer from August to December, an increase that the minister justified from the profits of the unpopular stores that take payment only in freely convertible currency (MLC). “The result of the sales in those stores, it was always said, is for the benefit of the people,” said Díaz.

In a few hours, the report of the official’s words, published by the official press, has generated hundreds of comments, many of them critical. Several commenters alluded to the limited variety and quantity of the module’s products. “Minister, is there no chance of an increase in coffee?” Asked a netizen who identified himself as Luma.

But an official from the Ministry of Internal Trade responded that coffee “is not one of the donation products,” a statement that sparked another barrage of complaints from customers who have seen the popular drink disappear from stores in Cuban pesos, to remain available for sale in foreign currency or at sky-high prices on the black market.

“They have not been able to do like other times they have sent donations and have ended up selling them,” adds another neighbor who was waiting in line this Friday to acquire his family’s module. Last April, several Internet users denounced on social networks the sale in the rationed market of vegetable oil donated to the Island by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

At that time, the criticisms rose so much in tone that the Ministry of Internal Commerce had to come up with a statement in which it assured that the product “will be replaced” when the breakdowns in the national industry were repaired, but this action has not been reported so far by the official press.

This was not the first time that this type of complaint came to light on the island. In 2017, after the onslaught of Hurricane Irma, numerous governments, non-governmental organizations and UN agencies sent donations to Cuba to alleviate the shortages in food, medicines, water and construction materials. Several victims then complained that they had to pay the state for mattresses, stoves and even charcoal.

In Punta Brava they feel they have won a little battle. “At least this time they are not going to get money from us for something that was donated for the people,” adds the neighbor. “But here we are still very upset with the situation and a little macaroni is not going to calm that down.”

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raised their voices and peacefully took to the streets to join anti-government demonstrations.

“One of the most emotional things I experienced was when an incredibly enthusiastic older man in flip-flops joined us. He hadn’t finished putting on his shirt and face mask when people began applauding him,” says Yonder.

He describes bystanders appearing to be “surprised, astonished,” applauding them as they walked past. Others shouted “strength” or “freedom” from their windows or from the street.

“At certain points — never with us on the street — some people shouted slogans like ’Long live Fidel’, ’Long live the revolution’, ’Look at the worms.’ The marchers yelled back, ’Go hungry, we’re doing this for you too.’”

Police had blocked the main streets so Yonder and other protesters had to take alternate routes to get to the Capitol. When they got to San Rafael Boulevard, he noticed a man in a wheelchair was marching too. He notes that many older people joined them but, unable to keep up the rapid pace, shouted “enough already,” “freedom” and “right now” in support.

“There was a police cordon on San Rafael where they tried to disperse us. Then there was an altercation with the protesters who were marching ahead. We reorganized a little but I had to run. It was a stampede. I didn’t see anyone on the ground. We were all helping each other. We changed direction and headed towards the Chinatown gate.”

Along the way, the police arrested anyone they saw filming or shouting cheers. “I saw a lot beatings; they hit a lot of people. Many were taken away in trucks. When they had fifteen or twenty people in a truck, they took off. People with head injuries who were still bleeding. They were put on those trucks and taken directly to the police station, not to a hospital.”

The police also arrested a taxi driver who had stopped his vehicle in the middle of the street as a form of protest. “They dragged the driver away to jail, beating him. Then one of the soldiers got in the taxi and drove off.”

As this was happening, a large crowd near the Marti Theater in Central Havana was trying to move towards the Capitol while another large group was approaching Central Park.

Shortly before leaving for home, Yonder saw stones flying overhead, directed at the police. “I tried to get out, out of safety concerns. but I was worn out. I hadn’t eaten anything since the day before and I was dying of thirst.” Between Ayestaran and Aranguren streets he saw a sign that stuck in his mind: “Diaz-Canel, resign.”

 

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However, several complaints reached the 14ymedio newsroom, which on Thursday was able to verify that the interruptions in the service began much earlier than announced.

After the ATM discounted the balance of the Plaza de la Revolución customer’s magnetic card, he decided to go to the Aranguren bank to seek guidance. “When I arrive, it says on the door: ‘Closed by covid!’,” The man adds indignantly.

On the other hand, a young customer who approached the Ayestarán and Conill ATM on Thursday after trying to withdraw cash in several bank branches, gave up before the huge line that awaited him. “I’m not going to stand in that enormous line, I’m going to borrow from a friend until these people [the bank] solve the problem. This country is getting worse and worse,” he said irritably.

In a call made by this newspaper to the Banmet telephone bank to inquire if the maintenance could be extended beyond what was foreseen, an operator explained that she could not “assure anything” after 6 am next Sunday.

“Let’s hope that the service will be restored early Sunday. While the work lasts, neither ATMs nor Transfermóvil nor anything, all the cards will be temporarily disabled,” the operator said bluntly.

In recent months, Cuban banks have faced several technical problems. The Metropolitano bank, on April 6, transferred one million CUC to an account of a young businesswoman. Later in a statement, Banmet insisted that it was “an error” in a technical process “as part of the measures within the Ordering Task*.”

In that month a dozen Cubans shared the same experience on their social networks: an unexpected balance in their accounts. In at least five cases it was the same figure, one million CUC.

At the beginning of March, 14ymedio echoed a technical problem that had affected the balance of the accounts in national currency and foreign currency of the customers of Banco de Crédito y Comercio (Bandec) and Banco Popular de Ahorro (BPA), which operate Transfermóvil and EnZona applications in various provinces of the country.

On that occasion, several users reported having lost part of their savings, while others received surprising amounts of money. The official response was a brief message on Twitter that alluded to “some difficulties” in the network payment services due to “technical problems” in the Transfermóvil app.

The alternative to the ATM, could be the window of the bank branch. In Havana there are 90 branches of the Banco Metropolitano, but with the peak of COVID-19 infections, this service and the hours have been reduced. In addition, on weekends most of these stores are closed, which causes more lines in front of ATMs.

*Translator’s note: The so-called ‘Ordering Task’ (Tarea ordenamiento) is a collection of measures that includes eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and others.

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According to official statistics released in early June, fewer than fifteen million Russians — a little more than 10% of the population — has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Another three million have received one dose.

Russia was the first country to approve a Covid vaccine: Sputnik V. It was approved in August before phase 3 trials had been conducted, along with other government approved vaccines: EpiVacCorona (October 2020), CoviVac (February 2021) and Sputnik Light (last month).

International experts view these pharmaceuticals with caution. Though Moscow claims Sputnik has a 97.6% efficacy rate, this has not been confirmed through independent clinical trials. Simultaneously, none of the vaccines have been approved by the European Medicines Agency or the World Health Organization.

The employee claims that a significant number of hotel workers have not received the full dose of Cuba’s own trial vaccines. “The risk of getting sick is high. And we can’t even say that the fear is offset by economic benefits because Russian tourists are here on ’all inclusive’ packages and they almost never leave tips.

Even the cleaning staff, who do not interact directly with the guests, are frightened. “I see them in the halls not wearing masks, singing and talking loudly. I hold my breath when I pass them but that’s not really protecting me,” complains a maid from Cayo Coco, in Ciego de Avila province, another popular tourist destination.

However, it is in Varadero where the situation is most problematic. The city is located in Matanzas, the province where the public health emergency is suddenly the most acute. With more than 500 new Covid-19 cases reported on Monday, the region has become the focus of health officials’ concerns.

The Minister of Public Health, Jose Angel Portal Miranda, made an emergency visit to the province and met with local officials on Sunday “to analyze the complex epidemiological situation” in the region to evaluate “heightening measures to confront the pandemic” according to Twitter messages posted by health authorities.

But while the posts acknowledge an increase in infections, no reference is made to a possible link between the rising infection rate and the influx of tourists in Varadero, much less to role Russian visitors might be playing in this surge.

“Close the airport and stop letting tourists in,” writes Paulina Roques, a resident of nearby Cardenas. In a social media post last weekend, she complains, “Economic interests are taking precedence over the health risks that come with this reopening.” In a comment, another writer asks, “Will it be worth it, or will we ultimately spend more curing the sick than we earn off these tourists?”

Since June, more than 4,000 Russian visitors have been arriving daily in Varadero after the Russian carrier Aeroflot began direct flights from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and Juan Gualberto Gomez Airport in Matanzas.

Aeroflot uses Boeing’s 777-300ER planes, which carry more than 500 passengers, for its three weekly flights. It partners with Azur Air, NordWind and Royal Flight, which began connections between Russia and its main Cuban tourist destination.

British and German tourists had been coming to Varadero in previous months but virulent waves of coronavirus in both countries led authorities to restrict or prohibit travel overseas. Russia is now Cuba’s greatest hope. Russian and Chinese tourism is the only market that is growing. Canada still accounts for the largest number of visitors but the European market is declining.

From January 2019 to January 2020, the Russian market grew 48.4%. Experts believe Cuba is poised to become a top tourist destination for Russian vacationers because it is cheaper than the Maldives, its main competitor, and the UAE.

“That’s excellent news. We believe tourism to Cuba could grow 250% based on the number of seats available on planes flying there. There’s a lot of interest from airlines,” said Juan Carlos Escalona Pellicer, the tourism adviser at the Cuban Embassy in Moscow.

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A neighbor who lives near the building told 14ymedio that after the complaint, a government leader saw the publication on the networks and they sent a watertruck. “Apparently there is a break [in the pipes] that they have not found, that is why the supply does not reach the residents of the building, but in the rest of the area there is water every day, from 5 am to 3 pm,” he said.

“It’s now better to write on Facebook than to call any institution to solve a problem,” explains a resident of the property speaking to this newspaper by phone. “When we were calling Aguas de La Habana and complaining to the area’s delegate, we only got the runaround.” However, “it was enough for her to go online for them to start running.”

The man adds that the lack of supply put them “on the brink of a hygienic crisis.” The high temperatures, the high incidence of the pandemic in the capital and the shortage of personal and domestic hygiene products “came together in a perfect storm,” he details. “Luckily I could go to my daughter’s house to bathe, but here there are people who have been barely cleaning their mouths all these days and that’s it.”

At the beginning of last month, the residents of the Havana districts of El Canal (Cerro) and La Víbora (Diez de Octubre) experienced cuts in the drinking water service when the capital authorities established that the supply would be provided every three days and not on alternate days as had happened up to that time.

The reason for the new supply pattern was due “to the intense drought that the country is experiencing,” said the state company, which adds that “the water tables of the main sources that supply the city are very depressed.” For this reason, there are “effects due to lack of water and low pressure in some areas and neighborhoods of the central system.”

A few days later, there was an electrical breakdown that damaged the Cuenca Sur source, affecting the municipalities that receive that water: Plaza de la Revolución, Centro Habana, Cerro, Diez de Octubre and La Habana Vieja, in addition to the Miraflores and Altahabana neighborhoods, in Boyeros.

The supply of drinking water is one of the services that, with the elimination of subsidies on January 1, increased considerably in price. In this case, from 1.75 pesos to seven pesos per cubic meter.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

“No, it is not by the ration book but with the ration book”, clarifies an employee of a store of the Trimagen chain, managed by the Cuban military, which in recent months has sold these devices on several occasions. “We need the notebook to write down who has already bought and thus avoid hoarders and resellers,” he explains. “The problem is that there are households that have more than one television, even that there are several families in the same house and they can only buy one,” he acknowledges.

“Many people have been asking how long it takes between buying one box and being able to buy another, but they have not explained that to us yet. At the moment the data of those who have already acquired it is being archived and if anyone has doubts it must go to the provincial government,” clarifies the worker, who details that in the Trimagen store they are selling” the boxes for the municipalities of Cerro and Plaza.”

Digital television began its first steps in Cuba in 2013, but economic problems have slowed its progress. The authorities recently announced that they are preparing 318,000 Chinese standard digital TV decoders.

Until the arrival of these devices on the national scene, the word “box” was used in popular Cuban speech to designate a rectangular cardboard container where food is traditionally served at parties, cafeterias that sell to go, or situations where diners cannot sit in front of the plate.

With use, the expression “get a box” came to mean reaching something you want, taking advantage of a situation (even sexually) or being taken into account in some distribution mechanism. In April 1980, when more than 10,000 Cubans requested asylum at the Peruvian Embassy in Havana to try to escape from the Island, the phrase gained strength.

Squeezed into the embassy’s garden and on the roof of the building, in a short time the overcrowding of these thousands of people also turned into a humanitarian crisis that the ruling party skillfully handled. The distribution of the “boxes” with food became a moment of fights that the government cameras filmed to present those gathered there as criminals. “To get a box, you had to go over the top of others and beat each other with your fists,” one of those refugees would later recall.

Now, to get a box you need long hours in line, a large amount of money in your pocket and a ration book. Instead of food or a piece of birthday cake , you receive the right to be able to watch official television with better quality.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.