English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Madrid, 12 May 2023 — In 2022, wages in Cuba rose an average of 9.4% compared to the previous year, while the cost of living increased by 39% according to the official data and around 140% if we look at the informal market. The result is a brutal deterioration of the purchasing power of … Continue reading “Official Data Confirm the Brutal Deterioration of the Standard of Living of Cubans”
14ymedio, Havana, 3 March 2023 — Every morning, a fleet of 101 carretoneros [cart drivers] tries to empty the rubbish dumps and sweep up the debris of Las Tunas. This small city in eastern Cuba, with fewer than 170,000 inhabitants, produces 1,172,447 cubic feet of garbage a month. The Communal Services regrets not having more … Continue reading “Because the Cuban State Doesn’t Pay Them, Cart Drivers Stop Picking up the Garbage”
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 3 January 2022 — The rattle of the Community Services trucks has people climbing sidewalks to make way for the giant. Two men get out and push a garbage container cracked on its sides. Among flies and shouts, customers waiting to shop at the Plaza de Carlos III see the garbage … Continue reading “Garbage Collection in Cuba: From Creative Resistance to Desperate Patch”
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 13 October 2022 — Along with the inflation of the CPI in Cuba last August, the other data that have come to cast dark shadows on the nation’s economic landscape is the growth in GDP recorded in the second quarter of the year. Economists must be attentive to these intense … Continue reading “The Cuban Economy is Not Growing… and is Getting Worse and Worse”
14ymedio, Havana, 15 September 2022 — Some 100,000 inhabitants of the province of Las Tunas face a severe drought. The water deficit affects 450 communities, especially the municipality of Manatí, which is located in the northwest of the area. Faced with this situation, the inhabitants have had to be supplied with tanker trucks sent by … Continue reading “In Las Tunas, Cuba, Drought Forces Water to be Brought to 31 Villages by Train”
14ymedio, Havana, 16 May 2022 — The latest demographic data from Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei) are unappealable: in 2021, 55,206 more Cubans died than in 2020. According to a report dated May 11, last year 167,645 people died on the island, compared to the 112,439 who did so the previous year, an increase … Continue reading “The Cuban Government Declared Only One Seventh of the Deaths from Covid, According to National Statistics”
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 8 January 2021 — Trucks and buses that circulate with three tires on the rear axle, instead of four, are no longer an exception on the streets of Cuba. Given the lack of spare parts, exacerbated by the economic crisis of recent years, state services have chosen to keep their … Continue reading “Not Only Buses Travel the Streets of Havana With One Wheel Missing”
14ymedio, Havana, 19 August 2021 — Chaos in hospitals, in cemeteries and, now, in the numbers of deaths from covid-19 in Cuba. The Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, has admitted that the official data are “imprecise” in statements this Wednesday to Invasor, the provincial newspaper of Ciego de Ávila. The high official recognizes that the statistics only … Continue reading “Official Data on Covid Deaths in Cuba are ‘Imprecise’ Admits the Minister of Health”
14ymedio, Havana, 17 August 2021 — With an incidence that exceeds 1,300 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 inhabitants, the Santa Clara authorities have opted for the most drastic measure and imposed on the population the obligation to stay at home, as of this Wednesday, except for those issues that are absolutely essential. Work is also … Continue reading “People of Santa Clara, Cuba, Quarantined Until September 2”
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/ Natalia López Moya, Havana, 8 August 2021 — An image invades social networks since the unstoppable increase in deaths from Covid: that of white coffins, a very unusual color in Cuba, where gray and black reigned until now at funerals. “There is no black fabric,” they tell 14ymedio employees of funeral homes in … Continue reading “In Cuba, the Dead Go in White Coffins for Lack of Black Fabric”
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus , 2 August 2021 — The upsurge of Covid-19 in the Cuban province of Ciego de Ávila has accelerated the works to expand its main cemetery, some works that have been rejected by the closest neighbors who have been denouncing bad smells, the hectic bustle of corpses and the use … Continue reading “With the Upsurge in Covid, the Bad Odors from the Ciego de Avila Cemetery Invade Homes”
14ymedio Havana, 1 January 2020 – On Thursday, the authorities of the Cuban capital handed over 11 apartments to families in Central Havana, an event picked up in the official press and celebrated “in commemoration” of the 62nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The homes, according to a report in the Tribuna de La Habana, … Continue reading “It Took 23 Years to Deliver Apartments to 11 Havana Families Whose Buildings Had Collapsed”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 September 2020 — A woman died on Wednesday night in the collapse of a multi-family building in Old Havana, which occurred around 7:00 pm on Cuba Street, between Luz and Acosta. “Rosa died, she was trapped under the rubble,” said Lucero, a neighbor on the same block, speaking to 14ymedio earlier this Thursday. … Continue reading “A Building Collapse in Old Havana Leaves One Dead”
14ymedio, Havana, 3 August 2020 — The ceiling of the presbytery of the chapel of the Immaculate Conception in Havana, the mother house of the congregation of the Daughters of Charity, collapsed this Sunday afternoon. The church was empty, so there were no victims to regret. On Monday, several workers could still be seen inside … Continue reading “The Roof of the Church of the Daughters of Charity in Havana Collapses”
14ymedio, Havana, 22 July 2020 — A man died Saturday morning from the partial collapse of a building in Central Havana, according to neighborhood sources. The victim, whose name this newspaper could not say, was a worker with the Communal Services who was collecting the garbage in San Miguel and Belascoaín when part of the wall fell on … Continue reading “Man Dies in Partial Collapse of a Building in Havana”
