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A Desperate Plea on a Dark Havana Night: “Electricity”

From the crumbling arcades of Monte Street to neighborhoods without power, the Cuban capital displays the physical and emotional wear of the crisis.

By Yoani Sanchez (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES — May doesn’t feel like May. It has the face of July and the temperament of August. I know it from the irritability I encounter at every turn. People’s fatigue often expresses itself in fights over anything, in a shout here and a shove there that add even more anxiety to the hard daily life we are living. A shoe stepped on unintentionally, a phrase said to the wrong person, or an indiscreet glance can set anything off.

But I’m lucky. In the middle of the generalized discomfort caused by the long blackouts that have returned with a vengeance, the lack of water that leaves our skin sticky and our odors unbearable, I always come across some supportive hand. Like the man who helps me pick up the ají cachucha peppers that fell on a corner because the plastic bag gave way, or the young woman who supports me as I board the electric tricycle without stumbling, and the elderly woman who stands beside me and covers me with her umbrella because “this sun is unbearable.”

By now, electricity is barely supplied in my neighborhood. Not in my neighborhood nor in the rest of Cuba. One neighbor says that this weekend we must eat everything that requires refrigeration because we won’t have any more power. We’ll have to bid farewell to the........

© Havana Times