Category: Yoani Sanchez

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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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.

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

Amid blackouts, protests, and empty bus stops, Cubans are receiving the 176 economic measures announced by the government with skepticism.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 20, 2026 / She carefully climbs onto the electric tricycle, while clarifying that she has had knee surgery. At 81, she says she dedicated her entire life to training athletes and that, many days, she has to choose between paying for transportation or buying food. “I won’t live to see any results from these measures,” she declares about the package of economic reforms announced this week by the Cuban government, which has failed to inspire hope or enthusiasm on the streets.

The days have become stifling in Cuba. By day, the sun beats down relentlessly; by night, the bonfires of the protests, fueled by mountains of garbage, dot the horizon with flames. I walk to the Faculty of Arts and Letters, where I graduated a quarter of a century ago. The dust accumulated on the windows and the silence that pervades the hallways reveal the academic paralysis that began last February. I turn to the right and begin to climb the hill that leads to the Calixto García Hospital. Next to the fence of the university stadium, more than fifty people try to share a tiny patch of shade.

“I won’t live to see any results from those measures.”

Some sweat under the sun; others seek refuge under umbrellas. They all share the same expression of annoyance while waiting for a bus to take them somewhere in a city where most of the stops remain empty. People have lost hope that any bus will ever come, and those images of passengers overflowing like bunches of grapes from the doors of the 22, the 30, or the 195 are a thing of the past. If during the Special Period passengers were practically hanging out of the windows, now many don’t even try to get around. They have given up on mobility.

Near the Physics Faculty, a woman and her teenage son sleep on the sidewalk. It’s evident they’ve been there for several days: they’ve improvised a bed, hung bags from a tree, and spread out blankets on which they display items salvaged from the trash, hoping to sell them. There are cables, a doll lacking one arm, and a few books. One of them is a manual of socialist economics, one of those texts that warned us continue reading

Havana has become a hostile and unsafe city, where it is increasingly difficult to sleep and bathe due to the lack of electricity and water.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 17, 2026 / I collapse into bed, exhausted. A stroll through the Miramar neighborhood can be worse now than sprinting along the uneven sidewalks of Reina Street in Central Havana. The once glamorous western neighborhood of the Cuban capital is as full of garbage as any corner of Cerro or La Lisa. Mansions with gardens on one side and mountains of trash on the other. Embassies with their national flags flying behind their gates, the stench of filth seeping through the bars.

I walked to 3rd and 70th from my house in Nuevo Vedado. There are fewer electric tricycles because the long hours of blackouts prevent them from charging the batteries of what has become the most common way to get around Havana. The journey submerged me in an zone I gazed at with wonder when I first visited it in my childhood. From that era, I remember gardens with impeccably trimmed hedges, the tranquility of its side streets, and the cleanliness of the central promenade on Fifth Avenue — a far cry from my neighborhood in Cayo Hueso. But none of that remains now.

My walk this Tuesday was through an area of ​​boarded-up, crumbling mansions, traffic lights out, old markets empty, and small businesses with refrigerators that weren’t cold due to the energy crisis. Life, what is life, I saw only outside a few consulates that receive dozens of visitors every day, desperate to leave this island. Returning to my building, I had the impression that a memory had been stolen from me, that memory of my first time walking down 3rd Street, visiting the National Aquarium, and passing through the tunnel under the Almendares River.

I go to bed early. It’s four in the morning on Wednesday, and I’m woken up by a strong smell of burning. I check the house, but the stench is coming from outside. A plume of smoke rises against the sky in front of our balcony, seeming to come from somewhere in the Cerro neighborhood. They’ve probably set fire to a garbage dump. My eyes are burning, so I grab a mask and put it on. There’s no electricity, so I use my rechargeable flashlight to get to the kitchen.

I make some instant coffee. The night has been long and the mosquitoes never give up. I’m more afraid of dengue fever than anything else. My self-esteem, like that of my neighbors, friends, and acquaintances, is at rock bottom. In the midst of speeches that extol national dignity, everyone I meet seems to have lost all their individual dignity or to have only shreds of self-respect left. Unwashed bodies, sleepless nights, and the smell of food on the plate, which seems to scream that it’s spoiled, are like corrosive acid poured on my self-respect.

The ten commandments of survival include not going out at night, remembering to apply insect repellent before going outside, and having as many bars and locks as possible to protect our homes.

Pride is also at odds with fear. Threats come from all sides. “Watch out for the mosquitoes,” a friend tells me, still unable to walk due to the aftereffects of chikungunya. “I don’t go out without this,” a neighbor tells me, showing me the machete he carries on his motorcycle to defend himself against the increasing number of robberies. “Don’t even think about going into that neighborhood alone,” a neighbor advises when I tell her I have to move south in a few days.

Fear has taken root in our lives. The ten commandments of survival include not going out at night, not forgetting to apply insect repellent before stepping outside, installing as many bars and locks as possible to protect our homes, and trying to calm our racing hearts when we repeatedly call someone and they don’t answer, all the while imagining some tragedy that is later explained away by the poor service of the telecommunications monopoly. We live in a constant state of anxiety, with news of fights, stabbings, murders, and robberies coming from all sides, rarely reported in the official press.

But the greatest fear is that nothing will change. The main terror is that this will drag on for weeks, months, and years, robbing us of what little dignity and peace we have left.

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Previous Havana Chronicles:

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.

While a tent is set up next to Revolution Square, blackouts and urban decay deepen the isolation of Cubans.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 14, 2026 / They’ve set up a circus in my neighborhood. A blue tent now stands just a few meters from the Council of State, and the tower of the Plaza de la Revolución blends into the horizon with the yellow stripes that crown its roo. Children wander around curiously, and the neighbors haven’t missed the opportunity to joke about the clowns and illusionists who always proliferate in the area. “If they’re the trainers, then we’re the animals,” an old woman warns me as soon as I approach the plaza where the hammering of preparations still echoed this Saturday.

I came here via Hidalgo Street. Earlier, I passed the bakery at the rationed market, with its endless line of people carrying empty bags. I had to dodge the stream of sewage that gushes from a drain and snakes for over a hundred meters. Garbage also stretches for entire blocks in what was once an area dominated by vegetation and tall buildings. Not anymore. Nuevo Vedado is, at this moment, like much of Havana, a succession of mountains of trash, broken streets, and weary faces.

“They didn’t cut off our power all night,” another neighbor tells me, relieved. He says it in a low voice, almost a whisper, as if afraid of alerting the electric company that our building had finally been able to sleep through the night for the first time in weeks. You almost feel guilty for having so many hours of electricity. When I woke up shortly after four in the morning and looked out onto the roof, I saw several buildings near Colón Street plunged into darkness. “Those are the victims of our left-on lights,” I thought to myself.

In my building, fewer and fewer people are using the elevator. The fear of being trapped in the middle of a power outage discourages anyone from entering that metal box, which transforms into a sauna as soon as the electricity goes out. Some neighbors spend entire days without leaving their homes because knee pain and other ailments prevent them from going up and down the stairs. The energy crisis has a less visible face: immobility and social isolation. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of Cubans across the island have lost contact with friends, acquaintances, and even family members because getting around has become too difficult.

A friend who lives in Central Havana tells me that an elderly man in her building died of “loneliness.” She says it just like that, abruptly, as if desolation had already crept into the Cuban medical lexicon as an official cause of death. continue reading

Packed onto an electric tricycle through the streets of Havana, the passengers reminisce about better times.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 5, 2026 / After waiting for ages, I manage to catch an electric tricycle on Carlos III Street. There are already five passengers, so I’m the last to get on, and my leg doesn’t fit. The only option is to leave it dangling to get anywhere in a city where every opportunity to get around shouldn’t be missed. So I travel to Fraternity Park with my thigh, calf, and foot hanging off the vehicle. I feel lucky to finally reach my destination.

Across from me, a woman with a worried expression says she can’t take it anymore. “I moved to the Isle of Youth more than 20 years ago, when it seemed like things were finally going to take off,” she reminisces, though we’re all caught up in our own dramas. Me, for example, took my first shower in three days at two in the morning this Thursday. I no longer know if it’s day or night, and sleeping at least five hours straight seems like a painful pipe dream.

“I made a little money buying good fish on the Isle of Youth for 18 pesos a pound and selling it here in Havana for two CUCs [Cuban convertible pesos],” the talkative passenger explains. The mere mention of those chavitos sets off a wave of nostalgia in the entire vehicle. “We used to complain about that currency, but now we miss it,” remarks a man sitting next to me. The times of the dual currency system looms as a new period of nostalgia, much like the 1980s once did. A decade some remember as one of abundance, but which I recall as one of strict surveillance and absolutely Orwellian. continue reading

I no longer know if it’s day or night, and sleeping at least five hours continuously seems like a painful chimera.

“With the little money I made selling fish, I bought a house in Nueva Gerona, even though I’m from here, from Cerro,” the woman adds. “Now my little house is locked up there because there’s no way to leave the island; it’s like being in a double prison.” The tricycle advances. A Lada behind us accelerates, and the driver lets it pass, but not before shouting, “Are you in a hurry?” Haste is a bad advisor in a city at a standstill. Even looking at your watch is considered bad form in a country where time is worthless.

I get off in front of the Aldama Palace. The entire area is boarded up, and sections of the roof on the upper floor of the once-imposing building have collapsed. A toothless man offers me a handful of hibiscus flowers in exchange for some money to buy food for his “little granddaughter.” I take out an Antonio Maceo, as the 50-peso bill is known, and exchange it for the bouquet of fragile petals. There was a time when I used to walk around Havana eating these flowers. It was a mixture of hunger and experimentation. I know the best part. There’s a fleshy area just below the pistil that you can chew with gusto; it has a flavor reminiscent of almond, but much milder. If the authorities at the Ministry of Domestic Trade find out, they’ll ration the hibiscus flowers too.

I jump off the tricycle, my leg completely numb. I limp like an undignified old lady crossing Fraternity Park as frail as I am. I run a few errands nearby, but almost everywhere I go, I find closed doors and a power outage. “No country can function like this,” mutters an old man as he passes me. “No country, no services, no people,” I add, amidst a yawn that reminds me I’ve been up for nine hours after barely three hours of sleep.

Returning home. There’s a green minibus at the taxi stand for the route along Rancho Boyeros Avenue to Santiago de las Vegas. In the back, a refurbished area for passengers, there are two low benches facing each other, each meant to fit ten passengers. It iss not the time to be overweight. Anyone who gets on the vehicle with a few extra pounds is looked at suspiciously. Where that man displays a broader frame, that young woman must be squeezed against the next passenger. Size matters, and so do pounds.

When we are about to depart, a woman appears carrying a framed picture, one meter wide by one and a half meters high. It’s one of those cheap prints, mounted on flimsy wooden boards, with a photo of a quinceañera. She asks us to make room for her to put the image on board, which ends up dividing the bathyscaphe in half lengthwise. The airflow between the windows on either side is cut off, the passengers are separated by the flimsy structure, and the rickety vessel starts moving.

I look at the flowing blue dress of the quinceañera in the portrait. It’s accompanied by a smaller painting of her in a swimsuit, smiling in profile at the camera. There are still people celebrating birthdays, baptisms, and weddings amidst the disaster we’re living through, I tell myself. The woman asks for help covering the large painting with a sheet and explains, “They were asking for 8,000 pesos to Mazorra, and I can’t afford that.” Once aboard the bathyscaphe, like any other traveler, she paid 1,000 pesos and treated us all to a surreal scene.

I arrive at Boyeros and Tulipán. I get down carefully so as not to spoil the image of the quinceañera that everyone inside the car is protecting, as if to safeguard this innocence that the harshness of reality will shatter. I get out, pay the driver. I turn right. I reach into my purse and find the withered hibiscus. The Ministry of Transportation’s generator is already whirring, a sign that there’s no electricity at my house. I take a bite of the bunch of flowers and head towards my own hill, towards the steep mountain that awaits me.

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Previous Havana Chronicles:

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

______________________

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 man who a decade ago shook hands with the US president at diplomatic ceremonies is today an old man cornered by the justice system of that same country and reviled in Washington

I walk by the corner of Carlos III and Rancho Boyeros Avenue in Havana. A few meters from the Faculty of Dentistry, a newly erected billboard interrupts the urban landscape. It doesn’t announce a campaign against Washington, nor a partisan rally, nor even any of those slogans that have survived the passage of time like old furniture that no one dares to take out of the house. It simply says: “Raúl is Raúl.”

The phrase, that purports to be a celebration of Raúl Castro’s 95th birthday on June 3rd, has a strange effect. Four stars, a dark green background, and the insignia of an Army general convert the sign into something much more like a death notice than a tribute. The message doesn’t convey vitality, but rather evokes farewell. As if those who ordered its placement knew that the end of an era was approaching.

It is difficult to look at that billboard and not think about the distance that separates the man who turns 95 today from the figure who for decades held the second most powerful position in Cuba. For much of his public life, Raúl Castro existed in the shadow of his brother Fidel. From the years of the insurrection to the consolidation of authoritarian power, his role was that of an indispensable companion, a disciplined executor, and the guarantor of the military and repressive machinery.

While Fidel Castro favored improvisation, interminable speeches, and epic campaigns, Raúl cultivated an image of a pragmatic administrator.

It was Fidel Castro who drew him into the revolutionary adventure and placed him in all the key positions of the system. But it was also Fidel who condemned him to a subordinate political existence. For half a century, Raúl was the eternal number two.

However, those who knew him well always insisted that there were important differences between the two brothers. While Fidel Castro favored improvisation, endless speeches, and epic campaigns, Raúl cultivated an image of a pragmatic administrator. While one seemed obsessed with history, the other was focused on the mechanisms of power. While one spoke to the masses, the other preferred continue reading

Leaving us out in the sun rather than allowing us into the air-conditioned room feeds the custodian’s authority and might even give him a dopamine rush.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, May 28, 2026 / After more than two decades in Stockholm, a childhood friend has recently returned to Havana. The death of her grandmother brought her back to an island where she had only spent a few days on vacation since emigrating. Acting as a guide for a Cuban living abroad is a bitter task. The first thing is to make it clear that the country she remembers no longer exists, that the nation she cherishes in her memory disappeared long ago.

For the first few days, my friend enjoyed everything. She told me she felt relieved to barely be able to communicate on the internet and hardly at all by phone, after years of overexposure to social media in Sweden. She savored a mamey and felt like she was in heaven. She tasted a cherimoya and fell into a trance. But that naive joy soon ended. Reality seeped like corrosive acid through the cracks of her illusion.

Empowered with a foreign bank card, my friend decided to go shopping for groceries to prepare a family dinner. I reluctantly accompanied her, knowing that frustration is the most common commodity found in those stores that operate in dollars. We walked up the hill on Tulipán Street and then down to La Mariposa. Inside, all the refrigerators were empty. There was no meat, no butter, no sausages, and certainly no fish. My friend pouted like a Swede in distress.

Then, with that indefatigable energy that comes from eating well for the last quarter of a century, she told me we should go to a market on 26th Street. “I read online that it has Spanish products and is well-stocked,” she explained to me. My face responded with a skeptical expression. We passed the Acapulco movie theater, and then she told me that’s where she had her first kiss with her high school sweetheart. The dark lobby, the marquee without advertisements, and a faint whiff of urine wafting from under the door brought her back to the present.

Near the Chinese cemetery, a man under 30, dressed in rags, caught up with us and gave each of us an azalea flower. “Something to eat,” he said immediately after handing us the fragile, purple petals. My friend didn’t have any cash, but she gave him a bag containing a can of soda and a ham and cheese sandwich. The young man started crying like a child, and she couldn’t tell if it was from emotion or because she had offended him by giving away her snack. “Those are the tears of hunger,” I had to explain continue reading

I can imagine the number of onions, potatoes, mangoes, and peppers that won’t survive another day to be sold this Saturday.

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, May 23, 2026 / I need onions. I take advantage of the electricity and go down in the elevator, also carrying the garbage that has accumulated during the days of blackout on our 14th floor. On the corner, the bins are no longer visible because a mountain of waste has covered their blue plastic. Several wheels have also been ripped off to make wheelbarrows for hauling water. One has its plastic ripped lengthwise, the other has holes caused by the flames of some fire. Neither has a lid.

I continue along Factor and turn onto Tulipán Street. A cart loaded with plantains and papayas catches my eye and makes my mouth water. It belongs to a family who come every weekend from San Antonio de los Baños, in Artemisa. I calculate the distance, consider the work it must take to move the merchandise to Havana, amidst the fuel shortage. “Everything is brought here because this is where the money is; in our town, there’s not even enough room to tie up a goat,” the matriarch of the clan, who also sells guavas, confides in me.

There was a time when I used to go to San Antonio de los Baños a lot. I would take my German students to visit the Museum of Humor, we’d go boating on the Ariguanabo River, and we’d even sneak into the International Film and Television School. The last few times I’ve been to that small town, a bridge between so many other areas of “red earth” and old pre-university schools in the countryside, I’ve barely recognized the once beautiful village. After 11 July 2021, which erupted right in its streets, the small town has become a place of silence. “We don’t even have water,” the vendor tells me as she offers me a handful of tiny plantains.

They tell me that “they’ve given the order to go to the march for Raúl [Castro]” and that’s why the most important market in the area hasn’t opened.

I continue along Tulipán Street to the farmers market, but I came across a closed gate and other people, like myself, arriving and feeling frustrated to see the empty stalls and an eerie silence that hangs over the place, on a Friday that is traditionally bustling. No one knew what had happened. I turned around and approached the other gate, which opens onto Marino Street. Inside, two young men were dozing in a guard booth. At my insistence, they told me that “they’ve given the order to go to the march for Raúl [Castro]” and that’s why the most important market in the area hadn’t opened.

An elderly man approaches with perplexed  look upon hearing the justification. “So all this is because we went to support that old guy who shot down the planes,” he says angrily. Fury has taken hold here, where complaints used to be voiced with a touch of irony, a half-smile. Now anger has become the state in which we spend most of our time. We’re angry the 24 hours of the seven days in the week. There aren’t even jokes left to tell amidst a collapse that, according to one of my neighbors, “hasn’t hit rock bottom yet.”

Standing in front of the silent market, I imagine the countless onions, potatoes, mangoes, and peppers that won’t survive another day to be sold this Saturday. A single day of closure skyrockets spoilage, costs, and losses. Nor can I imagine the private vendors who fill these stalls, once run by the Youth Labor Army (EJT), crowding into the Anti-Imperialist Tribune to support a man they feel is both distant and responsible for the debacle we’re living through. There go the military personnel, the relatives of Castro, a fugitive from US justice, where he has been indicted on criminal charges including murder for the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996. There go the workers from the military conglomerate Gaesa, who can’t refuse these calls to action. There go those who haven’t realized, or don’t want to realize, the rage that throbs in these streets.

There go the military personnel, the relatives of Castro, a fugitive from US justice, where he has been charged with criminal offenses.

The onions will have to wait for another day. I’m heading home quickly before the blackout hits. Last week was terrible. One day we only had electricity for an hour and a half, divided into two 45-minute blocks. They couldn’t pump water to our building’s tank those days, and to top it all off, the Havana Water Company announced a break. One morning we only had one pitcher of drinking water left, but a sunflower I’ve been carefully cultivating absolutely needed some water.

You have to hold on to something. Waiting for those yellow petals to open in the middle of the rooftop gave me hope. Should I drink the blessed glass of water or give it to this spindly plant that won’t make it to tomorrow if I don’t water it now? I faced the dilemma. With its drooping leaves and limp stem, it didn’t have much of a chance. I’m definitely not prepared to survive by trampling over other lives. I poured the last of my water on it. That morning, miraculously, the electricity came back on and they were able to pump water into the tank.

This Friday, when I returned from the closed market, the sunflower on the rooftop was waiting for me in full bloom. I’m not ready to give up on beauty, not even amidst so much pent-up anger.

Previous Havana Chronicles:

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

______________________

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.

Without internet, without public transport, and with appliances destroyed, Havana seems to be returning to its harshest origins.

14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, May 18, 2026 — “You have to go straight on Carlos III,” a weary-looking state employee tells me when I ask for directions to shop that repairs electric pressure cookers. With no internet on cell phones and phone calls hampered, people have returned to using the most reliable “street map”: asking around. On the wide avenue that runs through Central Havana, that’s easy, because there’s always some activity. The difficult part is distinguishing when someone answers with just anything, without knowing, and when they actually have reliable information.

While I make my way toward Reina Street, a señora, sitting in a doorway tells me she has “Alprazolam, the good stuff,” a powerful benzodiazepine that sells in this city as if it was candy for children. An old man, who has placed some broken objects on the sidewalk to attract customers, gives me further directions, and a stray dog ​​keeps glancing at the vendor selling bread and suckling pig, stationed with his cart on a corner, begging him to throw at least a scrap of skin.

Carlos III Avenue has become a strip of makeshift stalls. The softdrink bottling plant that fascinated me with its sounds in my childhood is closed. The garden of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, which I loved to wander through, has been fenced off for decades. The cultural center where I learned to draw and first stepped onto a stage barely plans any activities. But the worst is the Plaza, reconverted into a market in dollars as devoid of goods as it is of customers. From its dark interior, neither voices nor laughter ever emerge.

I walk past a sign advertising the Domestic Trade Knowledge Management Center (CGC). “What kind of information will be stored there?” I wonder. Will they teach us how to share our experiences regarding how many peas we consumers in the rationed market get every few months? Will the innovation they promote have to do with how to make smaller, worse-quality bread each day to sell through the ration book? What will future scholars find when they open the archives of this institution? Will they be as empty as the shelves of the corner store in my neighborhood?

These days I’ve been thinking about the planes of Ethiopian. I’ve never been there, but my fascination with every drop of water, every glimmer of light, and every step I take must be very similar to that of those early Homo sapiens, surprised and frightened by so many things they didn’t understand. I chase clouds with my eyes to see if it’s going to rain in my neighborhood so I can fill a bucket, I calculate how long cooked beans will last without refrigeration, and I gauge where the shade will be when I set off on the long walk from anywhere in the city to my house.

I have seen scenes in the streets of Havana that I only knew from ancient history books when they described the harsh survival of our ancestors.

The cave attracts the cave. I’ve seen scenes in the streets of Havana that I only knew from ancient history books, when they described the harsh survival of our ancestors. A couple of young men hunting laurel pigeons with clubs and sacks, just to eat. A young woman preparing, with sacks and bags, a space in a tree trunk to spend the night. A family lighting firewood right in the street to finish cooking their lunch. We’re all becoming somewhat feral, a little wilder every day.

We haveve returned to the origins of basic survival. Given that the elements of modernity that surrounded us are becoming ever more unstable, the wild animal that we are at our core emerges: the reptile that dwells within us. We go out during the day to try to “solve” whatever problems we can. At night, we must avoid setting foot on the street: the sidewalks are dark, muggings are on the rise, and recreational options are so depleted that it’s not worth paying thousands of pesos for round-trip transportation to a private club or bar.

The appliance repairman doesn’t mince words. “This rice cooker is beyond repair,” he tells me minutes after I finally find his small shop on Carlos III Street. A power surge after the electricity was restored sealed the fate of a pot we’d bought more than three decades ago, when my son was born. “It lasted quite a while,” I tell myself, and I leave it for spare parts with the busy entrepreneur, who already has a long line of customers. The blackouts leave a trail of victims in their wake: deep fryers, coffee makers, and pressure cookers that perish from “excessive current” when the power returns.

With my hands now free, I continue along Reina Street to seek the almendrón taxi stand at Fraternity Park. I hope that one day these people will have their own routes with comfortable and efficient buses that run throughout the city. If they’ve managed to create the most effective way to get around Havana under the worst conditions, they deserve to move up. With inspectors harassing them, police demanding ever-larger bribes, fuel shortages, and the old vehicles from the mid-20th century that they drive, the boteros have escaped the clutches of centralism. Many passengers complain about their prices, but we should be grateful that they exist.

You Havana residents are now experiencing what we have been suffering for years.

I climb into the “pisicorre,” an old Willys Jeep painted canary yellow. The young man who sits next to me is from Bejucal, a small town in what is now the province of Mayabeque, once famous for its brass bands. “You Havana residents are now experiencing what we’ve been suffering for years,” he tells me bluntly. “I can’t remember the last time I came home to electricity,” adds the man, who claims to be one of the few in his community who still commutes to the Cuban capital every day for work.

The scene he describes is depressing. “My wife has become an expert at lighting the charcoal for cooking, and many nights we take turns fanning the girls [ages five and eight]” so they don’t get bitten so much by the mosquitoes. What happens in his house is replicated throughout the town, and Bejucal “has become empty because those who didn’t leave through the Darién Gap left under the Law of Grandchildren.” I try to imagine what that place, which dazzled me with its festive rivalry between La Ceiba de Plata and La Espina de Oro, must be like at night, but I can’t quite picture it.

I arrive at my destination. I pass by Estancia Street to buy some basil. The vendor wraps the small bunch in a newspaper. The main headline is about the 2026 Economic and Social Program. Although only a few days have passed since its publication, the phrase seems like something from a distant past, when the State believed it had control over the present and future of every Cuban.

The reptile inside me stirs. It has heard the hum of the Ministry of Transportation’s generator. It’s the signal for the blackout, and it knows it will have to climb 14 flights of stairs. At the 10th floor, I close my eyes, hold onto the handrail, and imagine climbing a tree, crooked and with beautiful foliage, somewhere in the Ethiopian plains.

Previous Havana Chronicles:

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

______________________

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.