With each movement, the flies return, and the stench sneaks through the shutters of a nearby building
14ymedio, Havana, Natalia López Moya, October, 23, 2025 — It was Wednesday, and at the corner of Factor and Conill, two workers from Communal Services are facing an enemy that already seems mythological: one of the many mountains of garbage in Havana, this time in Nuevo Vedado. Armed with shovels, they try to reduce what the blue containers can no longer contain: bursting bags, wet cartons, food scraps and even an old flip-flop poking through the blanket of flies.
The truck, which is older than the employees themselves, waits with its door open like a tired mouth. One of the men sighs before throwing in another shovelful, but the mass of waste is barely reduced on the asphalt. “This is hard,” he says, while the other one tries to scare away the flies buzzing around the debris. A few meters away, the door of a warehouse, where food for the rationed market is stored, remains open.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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