“Nothing comes to the bodega. We’re living off the small and medium-sized businesses, off the hotdogs that cost 450 pesos.”
14ymedio, José Lassa, Havana, 13 June 2025 — “This place is completely bad. There’s no life. I don’t see any prospects.” With these three phrases, spoken with utter desolation, Pedro sums up the situation in Flor de Itabo, a remote batey in Madruga, in the province of Mayabeque, where he has lived for more than 12 years. Life there has always had its ups and downs, but he doesn’t dare put a name to the situation its residents have been experiencing in recent months.
The town, consisting of about twenty four-story buildings housing nearly 800 people, was founded in 1972. There’s also a bodega , a primary school, a daycare center with about 40 children, a doctor’s office, and a pharmacy. Flor de Itabo is surrounded by old dairy farms. Mayabeque is a cattle-raising province and has always relied on dairy and meat, Pedro recalls. Now, everything is “practically empty.”
With a recent investment, he explains, a few “imported cows” arrived on the farms. But this has not contributed to improving living conditions in the village.
Food, Pedro cites as an example, is worse than ever. “Nothing comes to the bodega, we’re waiting for rice, and it doesn’t arrive. We’re living off micro, small and medium-sized businesses, off hot dogs that cost 450 pesos, off an expensive chicken…” Bread, he points out, is also “conspicuous by its absence.” “We don’t know the cause. It hasn’t arrived for days.”
The MSMEs — small and medium-sized businesses — are a world apart, the guajiro continues, clarifying that while it’s possible to get bread and some other foodstuffs there, the prices aren’t always affordable. “We’re getting by with their bread, at 350 pesos a bag, and we have to eat because otherwise we’ll die.”
Many other problems plague the residents of Flor de Itabo, who have been without running water for about three months because the turbine is broken. “They haven’t said anything, there’s no solution.” When a water truck arrives, many take advantage of the situation to load buckets and tanks that they later resell. “I live on the third floor and buy my little bit of water so I don’t starve to death,” he says. A large tankful, for example, costs 1,000 pesos; but the buckets cost less, he adds.
“There are poor people, and there are people who have the budget and give 1,000, but I give as much as I can, and that’s how we get by little by little. We can’t do anything else.” He does the same with coal. “When the power goes out, I have to go and buy a sack, which costs 1,000 pesos more. There’s no life,” he says, resigned.
Pedro has no hope that things in the village will improve anytime soon. “Who do we complain to? No one. Where? We have no choice but to go to those expensive MSMEs. Money doesn’t fall from the sky. Many are doing well because they have their own little business, but others can’t afford it. It’s never a level playing field,” he laments.
Few people in the town are willing to give their opinion when asked by this newspaper. “Telling the truth makes you unpopular. Then you keep quiet, because you could end up in jail. Things are incredibly bad here,” but, Pedro argues, over time they’ve grown accustomed to neglect. “Not me. I’m 65, it doesn’t matter if I die tomorrow, but there’s still a town.”
The village’s children are one of Pedro’s concerns, as he claims the school lacks teachers to teach the few children. Third and fourth grades, he points out, are taught together, as if they were in the same class. And the park, “cramped,” as he tediously describes it, is also useless for them to play in their free time. For recess, they only have a patch of reddish land, with improvised fields made of sticks, which serves as a soccer field.
The blackouts are an issue Pedro prefers not to touch on. Although they continue to cause him headaches, they’re a reality that’s already settled into his routine. “We go up to 20 hours without power. I don’t fight it anymore; that topic doesn’t interest me anymore.”
Sitting under a palm tree, taking advantage of the cool shade, Pedro watches from a distance as several children jump enthusiastically on a trampoline. Below, the owner of that and other children’s games—dreary and rickety, awaiting a child’s attention—rests on a sack.
The calm is almost absolute, interrupted by the occasional laughter of the children, and it also spreads to the animals: a cow grazes impassively, and a dog rests beneath an old tractor. Little blooms in Flor de Itabo, and its residents, accustomed to daily problems, are no exception. Meanwhile, says Pedro, “we ’invent’ and continue to fight; we can’t do anything else.”
____________
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.
