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A Circus in Front of Power, a City Growing Ever More Alone

As a circus tent rises beside Revolution Square, blackouts and urban decay deepen Cubans’ isolation.

By Yoani Sanchez (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES — They have set up a circus in my neighborhood. Just a few meters from the Council of State, a blue tent now stands, and the tower of Revolution Square blends into the horizon with the yellow stripes crowning its roof. Children wander curiously around the area, and the neighbors have not missed the opportunity to joke about the clowns and illusionists who always seem to proliferate nearby.

“If they’re the animal trainers, then we’re the animals,” an elderly woman warns me as I approach the open space where, even this Saturday, the hammering of preparations still echoed.

I arrived here via Hidalgo Street. Earlier, I passed by the ration-market bakery, with its endless line of people carrying empty bags. I had to dodge a stream of sewage water gushing from a manhole and winding its way for more than a hundred meters. Garbage also stretches for entire blocks in what was once an area where greenery and tall apartment buildings dominated the landscape. Not anymore.

Nuevo Vedado is now, like much of Havana, a succession of mountains of trash, broken streets, and weary faces.

“They didn’t cut our power all night,” another neighbor tells me with relief.........

© Havana Times