Cry from Cuba: “There is No Bread, No Milk, nor Electricity”

 In the darkness of her home, Catalina, 35, reflects on the problems of her daily life, similar to those experienced by millions of people in Cuba due to the serious economic crisis affecting the country, which has sparked protests in several cities in recent days.

“There is no bread, no milk. We don’t have electricity. The children don’t go to school because they don’t have breakfast, and when they do, they walk up to three kilometers because there is no transportation,” she tells the EFE news agency while her husband Victor, 49, only nods with a lost gaze.

He says he has already asked to leave work once because, amidst so much heat, blackouts of more than ten hours, and other difficulties, staying on his feet is a challenge: [I told them] “I’m leaving because I’m sleepy, I’m tired (…) This is tough, very tough.”

The couple lives in Pura y Limpia, a humble barrio near the town of Santa Marta, Matanzas in western Cuba.

EFE spoke with them a week before demonstrations took place there —and in four other municipalities on the island— on March 17th, with some involving hundreds of people, shouting “Food and electricity!”, but also “Freedom!” and “Homeland and life!”.

For Catalina and Victor, as well as their neighbors, life has become increasingly difficult in the last three years.

The pandemic, US sanctions, and errors in national economic and monetary policy have exacerbated structural problems in the Cuban system and led to shortages of basic goods (food, medicine, fuel), blackouts, inflation, mass migration, and social discontent.

Two classes of citizens within Cuba

Pura y Limpia, located near an abandoned sugar mill, is just six kilometers from Varadero, the country’s major sun and beach tourism hub.

The inhabitants of the barrio —several of whom work in the tourist area— witness two drastically different realities every day. The trip from Varadero to the neighborhood demonstrates this: at one point in the journey, when the line of hotels, rental houses, and private restaurants is left behind, the streetlights go out.

“I’m going home to the blackout,” say those who work in the tourist center when they return home, a neighbor who preferred not to give her name told EFE.

“Why do they (tourists and those living in Varadero) have more preference than us? Are we dogs?” complained one of the residents of Pura y Limpia to EFE, hours before nightfall.

Juan Luis López García, 54, and his wife express themselves in similar terms: “Why can’t we, who live near Varadero, have a better quality of life?”.

To cope with the darkness, Juan Luis connects several lights to an old car battery he rescued from a garbage dump a long time ago. And he has improvised a kitchen with a rice cooker he rebuilt himself, although with the lack of electricity, the invention serves only as a decoration.

“No one knows about the efforts and difficulties we go through (…) And I have worked hard for this country,” lamented this former bricklayer to EFE, who now makes charcoal and lives with his wife, Ivette, 47, and their 11-year-old daughter.

The Government has been betting for years on tourism as the engine of the economy, which has been in a deep crisis since 2020 due to the pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions, and errors in national economic and monetary policy.

However, tourism has failed to rebound after COVID-19 —in 2023, it attracted 2.4 million tourists, half of those in 2018 or 2019— despite the government’s investment effort including new hotels, which, not without controversy, has prioritized this sector over agriculture and other industries.

Food shortages plague the island

After the collapse of its agriculture, Cuba imports 80% of the food it consumes. And the state’s lack of foreign currency has made this task increasingly difficult.

The goods in the bodegas (state-owned stores selling subsidized basics), where you can only buy what corresponds to the ration book, has been shrinking, and delays in the delivery of rice, sugar, or coffee are common.

On the other hand, in the emerging private sector, products (imported) have prices beyond the reach of the vast majority of Cubans, like Catalina and Victor.

The Government has acknowledged that there would be problems in March in meeting the distribution of the daily bread rolls through the ration book and has asked for help from the World Food Program (WFP) to continue distributing subsidized milk to young children.

To make a turnaround in the economy —still below the 2019 level and with the forecast of its fifth consecutive year with a large fiscal deficit— the government is implementing a severe adjustment plan.

The program includes a 400% increase in gasoline, which came into effect on March 1, and increases in services such as water and electricity. This foreshadows more difficulties for the average citizen and more inflation.

Price increases in the informal market are even higher and have greatly eroded the purchasing power of meager state salaries.

Electricity crisis hits Cuba hard

To these problems is added the inability of the electrical system to produce the energy needed by the country, due to breakdowns in the power plants and a lack of fuel.

In the last five years, the Cuban government has leased up to seven floating power plants from the Turkish company Karpowership to alleviate the lack of generation capacity, but it hasn’t been enough.

The power situation was a little better at the end of 2023, but since late January 2024, cuts in service have resumed, and disruptions —at peak demand— have affected between 20 and 45% of the country in recent weeks.

Blackouts, of more than ten hours daily in many provinces, are a torment for many and the trigger —beyond other underlying causes— for protests like those last Sunday.

Sitting in front of his house, after a narrow hallway, Felipe Miranda, a 57-year-old resident of Santa Marta, Matanzas complains to EFE that the inconvenience of the lack of power is even greater because, in addition, blackouts are unpredictable in Cuba.

Such is what makes the difference between being able to cook the day’s food —in many humble homes, the kitchens are electric— or going hungry. “This is about running and doing when there is power,” he maintains.

At night, after more than ten hours of blackout, Catalina mourns what this causes in children like hers: “Adults get by as best they can, but children? It’s hard.”

This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.