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Yoani Sanchez: Three Weeks Later, I Return to Streets

and I see less food and more “Closed” signs

The offensive against private businesses has reduced supplies in a city where finding a package of chicken has become quite an expedition.

HAVANA TIMES – I went out after nearly three weeks of convalescence. I walked down the 14 flights of stairs like a woman over 80. When I reached the ground floor, I took a deep breath and consoled myself with the thought that by the time I returned, the electricity would surely be back and I could take the elevator upstairs. Wishful thinking.

I decided to walk along Conill Street, first stopping to say hello to the garbage dump on the corner, which, although it was collected once during that time, has already grown again to the size of a country, complete with its own ecosystem, its usual inhabitants, and people searching through the waste for food.

The steps of the Ministry of Agriculture were filled with people sitting and staring at their cellphone screens. The internet connection is so poor that customers of the state monopoly Etecsa go from block to block looking for a place where the mobile data signal works. At the entrance to the barely productive Ministry of Agriculture, they have struck a vein of 4G.

I cross Rancho Boyeros Avenue very cautiously. The last thing I need right........

© Havana Times