This July 26th the residents of the ceramicists’ community of Holguín didn’t have their dream fulfilled
14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, 27 July 2024 – The residents of Cayo de Mayabe, a village in the district of Holguín, have spent more than 20 years asking for the construction of a food store that would allow them to get their groceries locally without having to traipse to the main town four kilometres away. This year, with the characteristic slowness of all state projects, the first bricks were finally laid, but at this point the residents are already expecting that the whole thing will be of no use to them at all.
“We’ve been begging for a long time for a food shop and when they do finally get round to it there’s no food to sell”, complains one woman from the village. With the walls now built and temporary zinc roofing in place, the structure, however, seems to be taking one step forward and two steps back. “They had put in some aluminium doors and doorframes but after a short while they got stolen. They haven’t been back to start the joinery”, she says.
According to the residents of Cayo de Mayabe, they had expected that the building would include not only space for the market but also for a pharmacy. The project would be a big help for the hundreds of locals who have to travel frequently to the Pueblo Nuevo district of Holguín where they are registered for food rations.
They had expected that the building would include not only space for the market but also for a pharmacy
However, the slow pace of construction of the mixed premises is driving the neighbours to despair, having seen five months pass without anything more than the foundations and the walls being built.
The skeleton of the building has now even become filled with weeds, shrub and cacti, which wouldn’t survive if the cement or lime work were carried out at a proper, constant pace.
The residents of Cayo Mayabe – a community made up principally of ceramicists, who make bricks and tiles – were hoping that by this 26th of July (the date when the regime insists on renovating towns to simulate a festive atmosphere) the shop would already be selling vegetables and other foodstuffs.
However, the construction continues to be stalled, running the risk that, if the authorities keep letting time pass, the building will become weakened or will collapse and will need to be restarted from scratch. Many have even given up hope of having a functional food store: “If they didn’t open it 15 years ago when things were going better, then I don’t believe they’ll finish it now, when there’s nothing to build it with nor anything with which to stock it”.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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