Anyone who wants to save the 50 or 70 pesos they charge for a 20-liter bottle must stand in long lines to obtain water
14ymedio, Carlos A. Rodríguez, Manzanillo (Granma Province), 7 January 2024 — Housewives, doctors and engineers, children and adults over 70 stand in long lines at any time to carry water in Manzanillo, in the province of Granma. It doesn’t matter that it’s 5:00 in the morning and they have to go to school or work later, or if it’s at night. Nor whether they are healthy or have heart disease, hypertension, hernias or any other health problem. Anyone who wants to save the 50 or 70 pesos charged for a 20-liter bottle or the 5,000 that the water truck charges cannot miss this appointment, which confirms the failure of the new aqueduct that the authorities announced – with their usual triumphalist spirit – in 2005.
The new infrastructure of the city of Manzanillo was announced as the most modern aqueduct in Latin America and was supposed to solve the severe crisis in the water supply, since it would provide the service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The project returned hope to a city, which despite being on the banks of the Guacanayabo Gulf, with an important water table and wells just 10 kilometers away, suffered a shortage due to the deterioration of the hydraulic infrastructure.
The reality was very different from what was planned, since not even in the beginning could the promise be fulfilled, except in the upper part of the city. In the populous neighborhoods of Caymari, Taíno, Dagamal, Horacio Rodríguez and Orestes Gutiérrez, the water supply cycles began every three days, quite an achievement if you take into account that, at present, the cycle is 45 days. Some areas even go two to three months without water, a situation that, especially since 2021, seems to be permanent.
The authorities have been exposing on local television and radio programs for almost 20 years what they consider the causes of the disaster: continuous leaks in the pipes, breakdowns in the pumps or in the storage and distribution tank within the city, the chlorine deficit, dispenser problems and, of course, power cuts. Endless misfortunes for “the most modern aqueduct on the continent.”
In the absence of solutions, the population has seen the need to turn the transport of water – in all types of containers and at any time of the day – into a daily task, although it often involves carrying it from a distance of 300 meters to their homes.
Elizabeth, a 37-year-old worker, says she prefers to go before dawn to get to work on time. She, her two teenage children and her husband get up early to collect as much as they can on each trip and, if possible, rest one day before repeating such a tiring task.
“In the municipality there are already two pumps to relieve the crisis, but no cement to repair them,” says Jorge, a 72-year-old retiree who carries, almost daily, two water bottles in a wheelbarrow. It takes him at least three hours, between waiting and walking.
Meanwhile, the abundant leaks found throughout the hydraulic network not only mean the loss of water but also the waste of what was invested in its sanitation, including chlorine, electricity and human resources, a highly worrying situation in a city that suffered a cholera outbreak in 2012. That year, almost 90 people were diagnosed with the disease and three died. Since the cholera epidemic in Cuba in 1882 and a last handful of cases in 1959, the condition had been eradicated.
Manzanillo is still without solutions today, but full of ditches like scars, left by the Aqueduct company. Scars or wounds that demonstrate indolence in the face of a thirsty people.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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