Category: Yoani Sanchez

The offensive against private businesses has reduced the offerings in a city where getting a package of chicken is a whole expedition

14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, August 19, 2026 / I went out into the street after almost three weeks of convalescence. I descended the 14 flights of stairs as if I was an 80-year-old woman. On reaching the ground floor, I took a deep breath and consoled myself with the thought that, by the time I returned, the electricity would surely be back on and I could take the elevator. Lost illusions.

I decided to take Conill Street, stopping first to say hello to the garbage dump on the corner. Although it had been cleaned once recently, it had grown back to the size of a country, with its own ecosystem, its habitual inhabitants, and the people who scavenge for food among the waste. The steps of the Ministry of Agriculture were crowded with people sitting and staring at their mobile phone screens. The internet connection is so bad that customers of the state monopoly Etecsa wander from block to block looking for a spot with a functioning data signal. At the entrance to the unproductive Ministry of Agriculture they’ve found a 4G hotspot.

I cross Rancho Boyeros with great cautioun. The last thing I need right now is to twist an ankle on one of the many potholes or get hit by one of the few electric tricycles that travel along the avenue. Upon reaching the other side, I come across the first of several signs I’ll see along this short walk. “Closed,” it reads in the window of a small shop that until a few days ago offered a limited selection of basic products. I turn onto Central. On the corner of Tulipán, another handwritten sign repeats the same word. Across the street, at a garage where you could buy everything from cold water to soda crackers, the gate is down.

The offensive against on private businesses that don’t respect the price caps ordered by officialdom, or that refuse electronic payments has reduced the number of small markets in my neighborhood to just a handful of poorly stocked shops with long-faced employees. There is no chicken, sausages, vegetable oil, or ground beef, among many other missing items. Faced with the option of opening and risking a fine of thousands of pesos, the owners prefer to suspend sales and accumulate days of zero profit until the storm passes. “This is the land of the two-week break,” a neighbor I run into tells me. “Right now, the inspectors are giving up,” she adds.

Frustrated, I start heading home. The Tulipán Street market is still on my way. “I’m sure I’ll find something there,” I encourage myself. My body, at rest for so many days, is starting to show signs of continue reading

After two weeks of illness, I contemplate a Cuba that seems to have plummeted even further.

Two weeks of convalescence is a long time. In those days, a body can become exhausted from fighting fever and pain, a neighborhood can sink even deeper into the health crisis, and a country can plummet even further than it was the last time I walked its streets. I feel like the end of July and the beginning of August have been stolen from me, bringing me back to a moment where everything is worse than when I left it.

From the rooftop, I can see the trash dump on the corner of Factor and Conill, which has become a veritable country. It has hollows, peaks, burnt areas, a growing ecosystem of flies, mosquitoes, and rodents, as well as regular visitors rummaging through the garbage looking for food. My sense of smell barely functions because of the virus that has kept me in bed these past few days. It is almost a blessing, because I’m told the air smells of rotting waste and burnt filth.

I haven’t dared to go down the 14 flights of stairs. I still don’t have the strength. Waiting for the electricity to come back on so I can use the elevator might be pointless. The most recent blackout lasted 28 hours. When the power returned, we were so exhausted we didn’t even have the energy to celebrate. With aching joints and eyes red from the illness, I rushed to connect the backup batteries, turn on the washing machine, and try to store water. This crisis doesn’t care about ailments.

With joint pain and eyes reddened by the illness, I rushed to connect the backup batteries, turn on the washing machine, and try to store water.

A neighbor says that we are being punished with long hours without electricity so that on August 13, the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth, we can have electricity all day and thus give thanks for the gesture of allowing us to drink some cold water, bathe with a light bulb on, and even soften some beans in the electric pot.

My brain is still working very slowly, so I don’t get the irony. I’m numb, but I feel rage. The rage continue reading

A virus, an empty medicine cabinet, and the haunting image of those who grow old alone reveal the depth of Cuba’s health and demographic crisis.

14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, August 1, 2026 / Day One. I wake up with a tingling in my right shoulder. “I must have slept in the wrong position,” I tell myself. By ten in the morning, the discomfort has spread to my other shoulder and upper back. I keep hoping it’s just some muscle spasms, the result of all the acrobatics I have to do in bed during a night with a blackout and mosquitoes. But by the afternoon, it’s clear I have something more. I’ve caught one of those many viruses circulating in Havana, where the epidemiological situation worsens with each passing hour.

I start taking stock of the medications and medical supplies I have on hand. There aren’t many because the illness has hit my family and my neighbors hard in recent months, so a good part of the medicine cabinet is empty. There are two dipyrone tablets left, no thermometer, and the oral rehydration salts are gone. “It can’t be that bad,” I fool myself a little, although when night falls I know this isn’t the result of curling up in bed trying to find some air, nor a passing discomfort. The early morning will confirm it in the worst way.

The headaches are so intense I can’t sleep. They’re throbbing and seem to come from everywhere. Behind my eyes, in my forehead, on my cheek, and near my ears. Just when they reach a crescendo and I think I’ll get a few seconds of relief, they start up somewhere else. Sitting down is torture because then the throbbing becomes even more frequent. I’m irritated by sounds, lights, and the hum of the nearby Ministry of Transport power plant. When I try to get up, I realize I can’t speak or swallow. My entire neck, throat, and larynx are swollen and painful.

I resort to a Chinese ointment I found at the last minute. I rub it in until it’s all gone. Then the fever hits. I take a second dose of dipyrone and start crying for a thermometer. But my head hurts more as the tears flow, so I try to compose myself. What is this? Where did I catch it? Trying to answer these questions is as futile as it is agonizing. The hospitals lack the reagents to determine the name of what’s afflicting me, but I suspect it’s a virus I caught through a mosquito bite. continue reading

A tour of El Vedado reveals the decline of the commercial network that the military built to control remittances, tourism, and foreign currency stores.

14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, July 29, 2026 / There are buildings that collapse with a crash, while others crumble in silence. The former Fincimex card processing center on 23rd Street in Vedado belongs to the latter category. I walk past its entrance and barely find a faded sign still proclaiming the grandeur of a company that once controlled a significant portion of the dollars entering the country. Behind the dusty windows, there are no longer lines, nor rushed employees, nor Cubans waiting to receive the magnetic card that unlocked the door to the remittances sent by an emigrant relative. Only the echo of a bygone era remains.

For years, that building was a funnel through which the money of thousands of families flowed. The prosperity within their homes fit on a plastic card with a magnetic strip and the Fincimex seal. You had to wait days to get one, but whoever left with the card in hand felt like they had conquered a lifesaver. Today, the building stands abandoned, the plaster is peeling from the walls, and silence has taken the place where impatience once reigned.

I cross the sidewalk and retrace my steps. The heat turns the asphalt into a griddle, and the shade from the trees is scarce. On the way, I enter one of those dollar markets that, just a few years ago, symbolized the power of Cimex, that immense business network of the Business Administration Group SA (Gaesa), the military conglomerate that wanted to control almost everything: remittances, hotels, hard currency stores, imports, ports, and even the last centavo a Cuban received from continue reading

Blackouts, shortages, and uncertainty have narrowed the horizon for Cubans to the point that planning for next week seems like a luxury.

14ymedio, Havana, Generation Y, Yoani Sánchez, July 21, 2026 / “Can you sell me just one pound of chicken?” a woman asks pleadingly as she enters one of the many privately owned shops on Monte Street in Havana. But her plea falls flat: “Only the whole package,” the clerk says firmly. In a city where electricity is increasingly scarce, taking home several kilograms of food that needs refrigeration is like shooting yourself in the foot.

But these small offerings aren’t just affecting our plates and refrigerators; our lives are also being scaled down. I run into an old acquaintance who needs to undertake repairs so he can use his shower again. “What’s the point if we don’t even know if there will be water, or if we’ll even have a country left in a couple of weeks?” he asks, paralyzed by fear. Forecasts have become so unreliable that it’s best to plan only for a few hours; for tomorrow, if that.

We live in such a narrow present that any medium-term plan seems extravagant.

There’s a word that has become too big for our reality: future. It used to encompass buying a refrigerator, fixing up a room, or taking an August vacation. Now it barely allows us to decide whether it’s worth defrosting a package of sausages or saving our phone’s dwindling battery for an important call. We live in such a narrow present that any medium-term planning seems extravagant.

Uncertainty has ended up colonizing everything. Friends who postpone weddings, parents unsure whether to enroll their children in extracurricular activities, elderly people missing doctor’s appointments because they don’t know if there will be transportation or electricity that day. Everything has become provisional. The sensation that any decision could be overturned by a blackout, a breakdown, or a new crisis turns daily life into a kind of makeshift camping. continue reading

After almost seven decades of promises, the problem is no longer the horizon, but the distance between official discourse and everyday life.

14ymedio, Havana, Generation Y, Yoani Sánchez, July 23, 2026 / Miguel Díaz-Canel tried to get philosophical. In a recent interview, he spoke about utopia and attempted to repeat a phrase popularized by Eduardo Galeano, which he didn’t even manage to quote correctly. He said that “utopia is on the horizon. When we take two steps forward, utopia takes two steps back. And the horizon moves ten steps forward.” A strange mix that ended up sounding more absurd than inspiring.

And yet, perhaps the most revealing thing is not that he muddled the quote. What is truly revealing is that, after almost seven decades of this regime, the country’s top leader continues to offer us a utopia instead of a reality.

I, sincerely, am already tired of utopias.

Not because I’ve stopped believing in a better country. On the contrary. Precisely because I want a better nation, I refuse to continue living within a dream that belongs to others.

We inhabit a utopia that is not our own. Some who don’t even experience it try to convince us, from a distance, that we must conserve it intact.

We inhabit a utopia that isn’t ours. Some who don’t even experience it try to convince us, from a distance, from an office, or from the comfort of their privilege, that we must conserve it intact. They ask us for resilience, sacrifice, and faith. But they aren’t the ones who spend entire nights without electricity, who have to walk miles because there’s no public transportation, or who have to bring even antibiotics when a family member is hospitalized. They aren’t the ones who have to choose between buying medicine or putting food on the table.

It is profoundly alienating to live within the illusion of another person. To carry for a whole life the weight of a dream we never continue reading

The Cuban crisis forces people to give up the basic habits that sustain communal life

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, July 22, 2026 / The street I walk down is called Hidalgo, but on one of its corners, the poorest people in my neighborhood gather, while waiting for their bread from the ration books. Some couldn’t survive without this support, which, for others, is just a small piece of dough, sometimes sour, sometimes almost greenish. I have a neighbor who goes down more than ten flights of stairs and then back up just to make sure he gets this extra portion of his daily ration. Poor quality, but still subsidized, this bread remains the main source of sustenance for many of the people I pass every morning.

I jump over a sewage-filled stream, just a few meters from where a tamale vendor is hawking his wares. I quicken my pace toward La Timba. Only the building of the General Customs of the Republic appears freshly painted. Everything around me is parched from the heat and lack of rains, peeling from the crisis, and dulled by neglect. Even Paseo Street, once the sacred thoroughfare of power, where caravans of official vehicles escorted by motorcyclists used to parade, looks abandoned. Have the Party leaders boarded that plane and we don’t even know it? Like in some novels, is it that power in Cuba is nothing more than an empty shell that survives only in our imaginations and in the offices of State Security?

For the work and grace of daily survival, now “five” means five hundred and “two” is enough to describe two hundred.

It’s not summer. In July and August, everything usually slows down a bit; the heat is oppressive, and the city seems to yawn at every turn. But this year is different. This isn’t slowness. It’s paralysis.

“It’s three to Prado,” the driver of the electric tricycle tells me as I hop on in Vedado. Money has become so difficult to pronounce that we’ve ended up simplifying it. Thanks to the daily grind of survival, now “five” means five hundred and “two” is enough to describe two hundred. We drop zeros from conversations as quickly as those colorful bills disappear from our pockets. But if “one” equals one hundred, what do we do with that bill that showed José Martí’s face and that for so long represented one peso? That one no longer exists. It has been erased by inflation and by forgetfulness.

The almendrón, the classic American car, that’s taking me home speeds by. I’m pressed against the back door, and right in front of my face is a sign that warns: “Don’t slam the door.” They’re asking for a kind and courteous gesture amidst the chaos. “It’s five to Boyeros and Tulipán,” the driver explains. His statement confirms that zeros to the right of the fare are worthless; they’ve become as useless as those on the left. Just as we’ve eliminated hundreds and thousands of our conversations, we’ve also been stripping our days of any embellishment. There’s no room for frills anymore. Only the most urgent and basic needs remain.

Animalization rarely happens suddenly. It creeps in little by little. The real deterioration is not just in the streets or on the facades.

While walking down Colón Street a few days ago, a bag full of excrement flew over my head before hitting the pavement. The residents of that area have been without water for days. Instead of accumulating their waste in a toilet that seems unlikely to be flushed, they throw it in the nearest garbage can. In this country, we’ve been pushed to disregard centuries of basic lessons: mixing shit with public space ultimately turns life into shit.

It is not the only setback. There are neighborhoods where people cook with firewood in the middle of the city and where the darkness of the blackouts forces them to sleep with the chickens. A friend called me a few days ago to invite me to a comedy show. “I can’t,” I told him, “I have to get up before five in the morning to get online for a few minutes and get some housework done.”

Progress can not only stop; it can also reverse at great speed.

Havana wasn’t sustained solely by buildings or avenues. It was also raised on unspoken agreements: don’t throw excrement out the window, keep sewage away from where you cook. These are rules so old they seem instinctive, but a prolonged crisis is enough to reveal that they aren’t. We’ve begun to accept as normal scenes that just a few years ago would have seemed like something out of a refugee camp.

Animalization rarely happens in one blow. It creeps in little by little. The real deterioration isn’t just in the streets or the facades. It’s in realizing that, to survive, we’ve had to forget too many things that kept us healthy and sane.

Previous Havana Chronicles: continue reading

Rising prices force people to give up nutritious foods and reduce portion sizes.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, 18 July 2026 / You don’t need an economic report or a table full of statistics. It’s enough to spend a few minutes looking at the blackboard in any market to understand how Cubans’ wallets are shrinking.

A pound of rice, that food that for decades was the centerpiece of the family table, now costs 360 pesos. Black beans reach 450 pesos. A kilogram of wheat flour exceeds 1,000 pesos. A carton of eggs is around 3,000 pesos, and a liter of vegetable oil surpasses 2,000 pesos.

Meanwhile, the average monthly salary in Cuba still does not reach 7,000 pesos.

Looking at these numbers written on a whiteboard, you realize they’re not just prices. They’re decisions. Do I buy rice or oil? Do I buy eggs or save the money for transportation? Do I cook beans today or continue reading

The banging of pots was played by workers, government employees, and even officials who live in this area of ​​El Vedado.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, July 17, 2026 / On Thursday night, after 28 hours of blackout and a brief period with electricity, the people in my neighborhood reached a state of collective rage unlike anything I had never before experienced. The power was restored for barely 90 minutes, by which time the refrigerators were completely thawed, the water in the rooftop tank had run dry, and the heat had turned our bodies into dirty, sweaty surfaces.

Then, after that brief burst of light, the power went out again, and the banging of pots and pans erupted in indignation. I had never heard in this area of ​​Nuevo Vedado, in Havana, banging pots and pans with such force, frequency, and duration. I couldn’t film the chorus of anguish spreading everywhere because my phone hadn’t managed to revive from the coma it was left in by the previous power outage. But it is enough for me now to recall that melody of social anger etched in my memory. I even heard the clanging from balconies, windows, and terraces where I had never before heard anything dissenting, not even a curse word thrown into the wind.

I even heard the clanging from balconies, windows and terraces where I had never before heard anything dissenting, not even a swear word thrown into the wind

The potbanging came from the workers, government employees, and even civil servants who live in this part of the Cuban capital. In a neighborhood of high-rise buildings, constructed under the microbrigade system and with apartments often awarded based on work and political merit, we find everyone from bureaucrats who share their workday with ministers and secretaries of the Communist Party to retirees who once helped build the repressive apparatus that subjugates us all. They, too, banged their pots and pans. Hidden in the darkness, without going out into the street, without even looking out from their balconies, they banged the pot hard, pounding on the pan as if it were the wall of the Electric Union or the facade of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Last night this neighborhood changed. Will my neighbors take to the streets to protest like they do in continue reading

In a country where the state no longer provides electricity, water, medicine, or bread, each family tries to survive however they can.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, July 16, 2026 / Today I couldn’t take the trash down the stairs. It wasn’t any heavier than usual, but my body sent me a telegram,  brief and forceful: “Don’t even try. Every cell is carrying too many days of accumulated fatigue.” So I left the bag by the door and went out with only my purse, umbrella, water bottle, mosquito repellent, and the garbage bags. I also threw my cell phone in my bag, increasingly useless in a country where connecting to the internet or making a call can take longer than delivering the message in person.

As I descend the building’s more than 120 steps, the greetings become increasingly brief, almost whispers. Few dare to say “good morning” or “good afternoon” anymore, because there’s very little goodness left. Conversations revolve around the accumulated hours without electricity, the unbearable heat that barely allowed anyone to sleep a wink the night before, or the problems with the water supply. One neighbor sums up the collective mood with a phrase that has become a greeting: “Here, surviving.” He says it as if we were all participating in one of those reality TV shows where you have to cross raging rivers, hunt for food, and find a cave to spend the night.

Few dare to say “good morning” or “good afternoon” anymore, because there’s very little good left.

I advance along Tulipán Street toward Ayestarán. The bakeries at the rationed market, which I pass every morning, remain closed. A woman warns another not to waste her time going back to the dark counter because today, she assures her, “they won’t even have enough to tie up the goats.” Coincidentally, just a few meters ahead, a young man has taken a small flock of goats out to graze among the grass that has sprouted on the ruins of a collapsed building. In this Cuban version of televised survival, that urban shepherd would have a good chance of becoming a finalist.

While some wage their daily battle in the streets and on the sidewalks, others have decided to barricade themselves indoors. Since no one places much hope in thermoelectricplants nor in the national energy system anymore, everyone is trying to construct their own island of stability. Those who can afford it buy a rechargeable battery; those with more resources install a generator or solar panels.

A friend, fed up with paying up to 640 pesos for a bag of bread at some private businesses, ended up buying a bread maker. To the initial investment, she’s had to add the price of flour, yeast, and the uncertainty of power outages. “I’ve used it three times,” she tells me. “Only once did it manage to complete the entire cycle.” The other two times, the power went out before baking, and the machine was left guarding a sour, inedible mass.

Another acquaintance has covered his roof with solar panels and designed an electrical system that allows him to power his entire house with a simple switch. “Now I run my electricity from the Indio, the Amarillo, the one whose boiler never breaks down or trips due to a fault,” he jokes, mocking the endless stream of explanations offered by the National Electric Union to justify each blackout. “I actually carried out an energy revolution,” he boasts, showing off the inverters and batteries that have restored something resembling normality to his life.

Even leisure activities continue to be organized independently. Faced with constant television signal interruptions, several young people in the neighborhood have improvised a small room in the basement of their building to watch the World Cup. An EcoFlow, a television, and some planks converted into benches are all that’s needed to gather the fans. From an apartment on one of the upper floors, a cable runs down to one of those satellite dishes that remain illegal, even though they’ve become almost as commonplace in Cuba as the daily insults hurled at Miguel Díaz-Canel.

After fracturing her collarbone, a former university classmate decided to prepare for a possible hospitalization. What she keeps in several boxes isn’t exactly a first-aid kit. There are urinary catheters, IV catheters, saline solutions, sutures, syringes, disposable gloves, and other supplies that any hospital should provide. “If I’m hospitalized again, I prefer to arrive with everything,” she explains. She, too, is trying to protect herself against shortages.

Every story seems different, but they all follow the same logic: to create, within the confines of the home, a small, functional country.

Every story seems different, but they all follow the same logic: to create, within the confines of their home, a small, functional country. A home bakery. A private electric company. An improvised cinema. A private medical supply store. As if each family were building a tiny republic where it was still possible to address what the State had ceased to provide.

But no house can become a country. There’s no bakery capable of replacing a network of bakeries baking every morning, nor enough solar panels to replace a national electricity grid, nor a dedicated medical supply depot to feed a healthcare system in ruins. Nor can we fit between four walls the hospitals, transport, communications, and much less the pieces of the nation we gather from the outside world each day.

When I got home, the trash bag was still by the door. Tomorrow, if my body allows it, I will try to take it down. In this competition, nobody wins a prize. The goal is simply to make it to the next episode alive.

Previous Havana Chronicles:

The Blackout Lunatics

From the Mariel Boatlift’s Weaponized Eggs to the Luxury Egg

Cuba Is Once Again Without Internet

Under the Shadow of a Giant Syringe, Cuba Remains the Land of Waiting

The Time For Reforms Has Passed

Surrounded by Garbage, Miramar Is No Longer the Glamorous Neighborhood It Once Was

A Circus Facing Off Against Power, and a City Growing Increasingly Lonely

Chronicle of a Monday That Feels Like Wednesday

“We Used to Complain About the ‘CUC’, But Now We Miss It”

The Roar of Despair of a Cuban Woman Returning to Her Country After Many Years

The Tulipán Market Closed: “They’ve Given the Order To Go to the March for Raúl”

Along Carlos III Street and towards Ethiopia

Sleeping Is Also a Privilege in Havana

A Desperate Plea in the Middle of the Dark Havana Night: ‘Light!’

The Refuse of Disenchantment

Under a Picture-Postcard Blue Sky, the Country is Crumbling

Fatigue Barely Allows One to Enjoy the ‘Lights On’ in Havana

Dollars, the Classic Card, and a Havana Without Tourists

A Journey Through the Lost Names of Havana

The Shipwreck of a Ship Called “Cuba”

Havana Seen From ‘The Control Tower’

In Havana, the Only Ones Who Move Are the Mosquitoes

Reina, the Stately Street Where Garbage is Sold

Searching for Light Through the Deserted Streets of Havana

The Death Throes of ‘Granma’, the Mouthpiece of a Regime Cornered by Crisis

The Anxiety of the Disconnected Cuban

One Mella, Three Mellas, Life in Cuba Is Measured in Thousands of Pesos

It Is Forbidden To Leave Home in Cuba Today Because It Is a “Counter-Revolutionary Day”

Vedado, the Heart of Havana’s Nightlife, Is Now Converted Into a Desert

Havana, in Critical Condition

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

The exodus, inflation, blackouts, and repression illustrate the cost of having responded to 11J with the “combat order”

14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, July 10, 2026 / There are questions that never grow old. On the contrary, time sharpens them. Five years after the protests of 11 July 2021, I wonder what kind of country we would have today if those in power had listened to those who shouted “freedom,” “we want change,” or “Patria y Vida” [Homeland and Life] during that day across this island.

We will never know that answer. But we do know the path that was chosen.

Repression was chosen. A citizen’s demand was turned into a police case. The response was the phrase that now occupies a dark place in our contemporary history: “The combat order has been given,” uttered before the cameras of national television by President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Imprisonment, beating, surveillance, expulsion, and the sowing of fear were chosen where there had been an opportunity for dialogue.

Governments, like people, end up resembling the decisions they make in crucial moments. And that July was one of those moments.

Thousands of Cubans discovered, simultaneously and in dozens of cities, that they were not alone in their discontent. However, the price has been enormous.

That day, a political system didn’t fall, but a spell was broken. Thousands of Cubans discovered, simultaneously and in dozens of cities, that they weren’t alone in their discontent. However, the price has been enormous.

In the last five years, Cuba has lost more than a million inhabitants to emigration, according to estimates by independent experts. The authorities themselves acknowledge a drastic demographic decline. Young people are leaving in droves, families are breaking apart, and neighbors are learning to say goodbye at a pace reminiscent of wartime.

The Cuban peso ceased to be a currency and became a symbol of lack of confidence. Inflation devoured salaries, pensions, and savings. Blackouts went from being a nuisance to becoming the clock that organizes daily life. Hospitals, schools, factories, and homes began to operate around the hours of available electricity, as if the 21st century had decided to turn back several decades.

At the same time, the clanging of pots and pans returned to the dark nights. No longer just to demand food or electricity, but to remind everyone that discontent remains alive even though the streets are more heavily patrolled and the prisons are overflowing.

Would we have arrived at this same place if, instead of mobilizing troops, a national dialogue had been convened?

Would we have arrived at this same place if, instead of mobilizing troops, a national dialogue had been convened? If the regime had understood that a protesting citizen is not necessarily an enemy? If it had accepted that governing also involves listening?

I have no way of proving that we would be living in a better country today. History never offers parallel experiments. What we do know is the result of the decision that was made. That experiment has already been realized. It is called Cuba, 2026. It is enough to walk down any Cuban street to find nearly empty buildings because their inhabitants have emigrated, shops where prices change several times a week, elderly people eating from the garbage, and young people whose principal illusion is to leave.

Five years later, the greatest failure of the regime is not only having repressed a protest of that magnitude. It is having squandered the last great opportunity to reconcile with its own country. The result is before us: a sadder, poorer, older, and more broken country than the one that took to the streets on that July 11th.
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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.

Amid banging pots and pans, plumes of smoke, and outages, the Cuban electricity crisis seems to have turned madness into a widespread state.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, July 7, 2026 / The day after a power outage, everything moves much more slowly. This Tuesday, I spent long minutes trying to flag down an electric tricycle on Calzada del Cerro to take me to Fraternidad Park, but yesterday, with the collapse of the National Power System, most drivers couldn’t recharge their vehicles’ batteries. So I had to walk. I was also walking at half speed because of lack of sleep, dragging my feet with the weariness of a nearly sleepless night.

From inside some homes and businesses along the avenue, a stench rises from the humidity and spoiled food. This Monday, when many were waiting  for the end of the blackout that had kept them sweating all night, the dreaded disconnection of Cuba’s dilapidated electrical grid arrived. Those who had put away a piece of chicken, hoping the refrigerator would hum again, saw their hopes turn into a foul-smelling drip escaping from the freezer.

A neighbor says they’ve authorized banging pots and pans. She tells me this with such conviction that, for a moment, I think I’ve missed some important official announcement. But no. The woman claims that Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that we have to bang our pots and pans for our neighbors to the north, who are the ones causing this blackout. The conclusion was immediate: “Well, we’ll have to bang them harder and every night, so that it can be heard outside the island too,” the woman adds mischievously.

“Well, we’ll have to hit harder and every night, so that it can be heard outside the island too,” the lady concludes mischievously.

Everyone has their favorite thing to bang on during power outages. A friend of mine has acquired an old saucepan which his mother, now dead, used to roast coffee beans. “It sounds best with a hammer; it sounds like a cathedral bell.” In another building in my neighborhood, there’s a family that even has a well-rehearsed orchestra. When one of them starts banging continue reading

The energy crisis and inflation are transforming a food that was abundant on Cuban tables for decades into an almost exclusive item.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 4 July 2026 / “You all really slept with electricity last night,” a woman selling bags of groceries chides me outside the Tulipán market. The woman, who lives across Rancho Boyeros Avenue, managed to see from her neighborhood that our building was lit up while her block was shrouded in darkness. The new source of tension among Cubans is no longer politics, or even food: it’s the number of hours some enjoy electricity while others learn to live in the shadows.

Just a few months ago, the Facebook pages of the National Electric Union were flooded with comments demanding that Havana residents be subjected to the same endless blackouts that plagued the rest of the country. Their wish was granted, but only partially. Now, in the capital, we also suffer outages that last more than 24 hours straight, and yet, nothing has improved in the provinces. Our time without electricity hasn’t resulted in a single new lightbulb being lit in Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, or Pinar del Río. It has only spread the darkness.

Dividing us and turning us against each other seems to have been an all-too-effective strategy. While we argue about who was hotter last night, who lost the contents of the refrigerator, or who managed to charge their cell phone, we stop looking at those who are mismanaging an electrical system that is falling apart. That’s why I avoid responding defensively. I comment to the woman that the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant has just gone offline and that most likely, tomorrow morning, we’ll all be trying to get to sleep drenched in sweat and plagued by mosquitoes. continue reading

Wi-Fi zones are disappearing, mobile coverage is failing, and customers are chasing an increasingly scarce signal.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 29, 2026/ Galiano and San Rafael Park is packed this Monday with people staring at their cell phone screens. “I got lucky,” I say with relief after passing through several Wi-Fi zones where there’s neither signal nor antenna left. But the joy is short-lived on the Island of the disconnected, and a young woman explains to me that there’s no longer any wireless internet service installed at that central corner. “We’re here chasing a 4G signal because  in Central Havana there’s almost no coverage.”

Without saying it, without prior announcements nor public justifications, the state telecommunications monopoly Etecsa has been dismantling those parks that, for many Cubans, were the first place they encountered the vast global internet. “People come early because it seems there’s still  tower nearby that still functions,” adds the woman, hurrying through the conversation so as not to miss a single second of connectivity. The internet has once again become a scarce and hard-to-obtain commodity, so we have to take the maximum advantage every time the messages start downloading, the web pages open, and the notification sounds return to our phones.

The scene reminds me of 20 years ago, when the only internet cafes in Havana accepted only foreign customers.

The scene reminds me of 20 years ago, when the only internet cafes in Havana accepted only foreign customers. In one of them, located in the Capitol building, passing myself off as a tourist, I published the first post of my blog, Generation Y. But now, no foreign passport is worth anything. When travelers leave their hotels, they’re just as disconnected as we are. Their cell phones, with the Cuban SIM cards they bought at the airport or at some Etecsa office, also remain silent for most of the day.

I decide to walk up Galiano Street, meanwhile thinking about how long it’s been since I last checked social media. I’ve been abandoning my profiles on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, only accessing them in the early morning to post my podcast, reply to a few comments, and occasionally wish a friend a happy birthday. I watch the people sitting in doorways along the central avenue, selling trinkets, begging, or scrolling through their phones trying to refresh a frozen page.

I pass by the Moure building, my favorite in Havana. It’s shaped like a ship, and at its base, a mountain of garbage already spills out toward the entrance. A man is rummaging through the trash. continue reading

At the top of Reina Street I flagged down a tricycle. The back was packed with passengers, but the driver offered me a seat so I could sit next to him. Necessity multiples the spaces in these vehicles. “If they let me, I’ll add a second level to carry more people,” he joked. A classic Ford, in use as a private taxi, honked loudly nearby. The rivalry between the classic American cars and the recentlyarrived tricycles was evident. Some accused the others of constantly taking up the middle of the road. Others insisted that the old cars from the beginning of the last century move around the city with arrogance because “they’re tougher than a tank and can crush these sardine cans.”

I avoid taking sides. I’m one of those walkers who tries to go everywhere on foot, and when tiredness or haste gets the better of me, I feel just as blessed whether a nearly hundred-year-old Chevrolet stops for me, or an electric scooter with a seat so narrow I have to hold on tight to the driver to avoid falling off. Finally, I get off in front of Plaza de Carlos III. As a child, I loved this place. There was a shop window with mannequins that reproduced the inside of the human body: models of livers, lungs, and a face, made of plaster, half normal and half skinned.

All those objects belonged to a state-owned company that, in the upper floors of the Plaza, produced supplies for medical schools and the high school or pre-university classrooms where biology was taught. I was fascinated, staring at them while my mother hurried me inside to buy sweet potatoes or some green papaya, which were the only things sold outside of the ration book in those years. Then came the 90s, and the market was dollarized. They named it after a king of Spain, like the street that runs in front of its entrance, although years earlier the authorities had renamed the avenue Salvador Allende.

Today, when I enter the Plaza, I’m hit by the heat from the air conditioning set to its lowest setting. The store has switched back to dollar-based pricing, but there’s very little to buy.

Today, when I enter the Plaza, I’m hit by the heat from the air conditioning on its lowest setting. The store has switched back to dollarization, but there’s very little to buy. The smell of dampness and mold is everywhere. In the food market, there are only a few products, and the sporting goods store barely displays a single bicycle. Looking at the household goods section, it seems that we Cubans only need curtains and pillowcases. And don’t even get me started on the frozen food section, with its empty freezers.

I continue climbing the spiral ramp by inertia , the one I loved running up as a child. The cell phone signal inside the Plaza is minimal, and the data service is practically nonexistent. When I reach the top, I come across Raúl Castro’s face on a wall. He’s clasping his hands in a victory gesture. An employee is watering the plants near a sign that says one should dedicate oneself “modestly and without fanfare” to one’s assigned role. I leave the market with an empty bag.

I manage to climb into a bright blue almendrón,  a classic American car. Next to me, an elderly man with a cane is carrying an enormous plastic water jug. “In my neighborhood we haven’t had a drop of water for almost 20 days,” the main justifies, unable to prevent the jug from resting partially on one of my legs. A tricycle passing nearby cuts in front of our car. The driver’s curse echoes inside. Every time we stop at a traffic light, some passengers automatically swipe their thumbs across their phone screens to see if they’ve gotten a signal. But not a single notification pops up.

Previous Havana Chronicles:

Under the Shadow of a Giant Syringe, Cuba Remains the Land of Waiting

The Time For Reforms Has Passed

Surrounded by Garbage, Miramar Is No Longer the Glamorous Neighborhood It Once Was

A Circus Facing Off Against Power, and a City Growing Increasingly Lonely

Chronicle of a Monday That Feels Like Wednesday

“We Used to Complain About the ‘CUC’, But Now We Miss It”

The Roar of Despair of a Cuban Woman Returning to Her Country After Many Years

The Tulipán Market Closed: “They’ve Given the Order To Go to the March for Raúl”

Along Carlos III Street and towards Ethiopia

Sleeping Is Also a Privilege in Havana

A Desperate Plea in the Middle of the Dark Havana Night: ‘Light!’

The Refuse of Disenchantment

Under a Picture-Postcard Blue Sky, the Country is Crumbling

Fatigue Barely Allows One to Enjoy the ‘Lights On’ in Havana

Dollars, the Classic Card, and a Havana Without Tourists

A Journey Through the Lost Names of Havana

The Shipwreck of a Ship Called “Cuba”

Havana Seen From ‘The Control Tower’

In Havana, the Only Ones Who Move Are the Mosquitoes

Reina, the Stately Street Where Garbage is Sold

Searching for Light Through the Deserted Streets of Havana

The Death Throes of ‘Granma’, the Mouthpiece of a Regime Cornered by Crisis

The Anxiety of the Disconnected Cuban

One Mella, Three Mellas, Life in Cuba Is Measured in Thousands of Pesos

It Is Forbidden To Leave Home in Cuba Today Because It Is a “Counter-Revolutionary Day”

Vedado, the Heart of Havana’s Nightlife, Is Now Converted Into a Desert

Havana, in Critical Condition

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Mosquitoes continue to bite near the monument to the scientist who fought yellow fever

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 25, 2026 / Some monuments take on a different meaning over time. This Wednesday, I was walking near the Marianao Obelisk, that stone needle erected in homage to Dr. Carlos J. Finlay, and I couldn’t help but notice the irony. The structure stands elegantly, with a shape reminiscent of a giant syringe, but in its shadow, in Cuba in 2026, obtaining a simple hypodermic needle or an antibiotic often depends on having relatives abroad or venturing into the informal market.

It was mid-morning when I arrived at that large area where several healthcare facilities are concentrated: the Pando Ferrer Hospital, which many still call the League Against Blindness; a polyclinic; and the popular Workers’ Maternity Hospital. A little further on is also Ciudad Libertad, formerly Camp Columbia. It’s a fragment of the city where the constant flow of patients, their companions, and healthcare workers puts to the test transportation networks that long ago ceased to function normally.

I see a woman with a bandaged eye approach an old Chevrolet that has just stopped to pick up passengers. To take her to Infanta and San Lázaro, in Central Havana, the driver tells her the trip costs 1,000 pesos. The price is enough to dissuade her. She takes a step back and returns to the sidewalk. A few meters away, a young pregnant woman tries to convince the driver of a beat-up Ford to take her to the bridge over the Almendares River. “I can’t give you more than 300,” she explains. The man shakes his head and drives off.

The thieves also took “the yellow outfit the boy was going to wear when he left the hospital, in honor of the Virgin of Charity”

The true protagonists of the avenue are the electric tricycles. They’re so overloaded they can barely move. Their narrow seats carry recently discharged patients, nurses finishing a 24-hour shift, relatives laden with bags of toiletries, doctors trying to make their shift change on time, and elderly people returning home after appointments they waited months for. Some are so tired or so old they can barely manage the high step to get on the tricycle.

A few surviving classic cars and a handful of motorcycles are still circulate. The rest of the traffic seems to have vanished along with the fuel. The nearby bus stop has the aspect of a medical observation room. Exhausted faces, improvised fans fashioned from X-rays, and conversations that inevitably lead to blackouts, gasoline, or hospitals. A woman recounts how her cell phone was stolen while she was caring for her newborn daughter at the maternity ward. “I went to the bathroom, and when I came back continue reading