Sitting on a bench, a man plucked a rooster recovered from the trash this Friday.
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 21 March 2025 — Just a decade ago Fe del Valle Park in Central Havana was a hive of activity. People of all ages, but especially young people. The spot—named after the “heroine” who died in the El Encanto department store fire in 1961—was home to one of the first 35 Wi-Fi hotspots installed by Etecsa, the State’s telecommunications monopoly, before mobile internet was allowed. Standing or sitting on the ground, huddled together, concentrating on a mobile phone, tablet, or computer, dozens of Cubans were using the slow connection—it cost 2 CUC an hour—as if their lives depended on it.
Today, the landscape is very different. The people who live in the park are mainly homeless. Homeless, desperate for food, some clearly suffering from mental health problems. Many of them sleep there. A photo taken this Friday showed this. Sitting on a bench, a man was plucking the feathers from a headless rooster.
It was the remains of a Santeria ritual or some other syncretic religion. Not far from him, on another bench, was the trace: a black garbage bag, torn and half-open, filled with scattered ritual offerings, including a broken figure of an Indian, common in spiritualist practices in Cuban homes and cemeteries. “That’s where he took it, I imagine, to eat it,” observed an elderly witness.
According to one specialist on these rituals, “it seems that the chicken was a sacrifice to a dead person—to the dead person who lived in the broken Indian—and that’s why it was kept outside the house: offerings are made to ancestors in the courtyards, far from where one lives.” Far from being reused for anything, the expert continues, “they are left anywhere to rot, because, as a santero told Lydia Cabrera, the dead don’t chew with their teeth.”
Oblivious to the rest of the world, and without any remorse—Santeria dictates that the remains of the offering be buried in a cemetery or in the jungle—the man worked quickly and skillfully. Within minutes, he had plucked the animal, which suddenly looked gaunt and whitish.
“That doesn’t even have meat, you’ll know if it’s rotten,” said the same old man, who claims to reject these “obscurantist” practices: “This is a malignant country, that’s why we haven’t gotten ahead, nor will we.”
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