US evangelicals provide water in dozens of municipalities in Cuba

Matanzas/“Everyone speaks and are scandalized by the blackouts, and it is true, electricity is fundamental in modern life, it is the first … until you lack water. Then you realize how vulnerable we are.” The testimony of Lázara, a neighbor of the Final City Hall Street, in Matanzas, summarizes the supply crisis that plagues the city, which has gone from simply difficult to criticism.

Neighborhoods such as the Navy have not received drinking water since November 2024, which has forced its inhabitants to resort to alternatives such as the purchase of pipes, the collection of rainwater or even the use of non -drinkable sources, such as the well -known pompon, a natural water outlet near the Zoological of the Watkins Park, in the Yumurine capital.

In the midst of this panorama, which They have been suffering months And it is similar in other parts of the country, such as the East, the American religious organization Living Waters for the World has become a lifeguard for hundreds of neighbors. Based in Texas, the NGO installs and maintains water purifiers in Third World countries through a network of evangelical churches, mainly Presbyterian.

Present on the island since 2006, with the acquiescence of the National Council of Iglesias, Living Waters for The World was officially established in 2012, to, as indicated on their website, “coordinate, train equipment and guarantee the sustainability” of the equipment. Currently, they indicate that they have 62 in Cuba – one of them “non -operational” – although they do not indicate where. From Matanzas, the Evangelical Seminar of Theology, the Kairós Center – belonging to the First Baptist Church – and the Central Presbyterian Church are its nerve points.

“Everything is worth when you see the acceptance and thanks of the people who come from afar to fill their packaging,” he tells 14ymedio Julio César, responsible for the purifying system of the Kairós Center. The man does not hide, despite Living Waters’ efforts, the difficulties he presents to maintain the equipment.

“It is a complicated routine, much more now, that the lack of electricity hits strong,” a circumstance that, “says, sometimes does not allow the process to be complete.” In addition, he explains, the city’s water is rich in magnesium, so the filters of the purifiers “do not last more than six months.” The NGO, he says, “tries that we do not lack the filters, but even so we have been tight, as they say in good Cuban.”

Another problem is that they have to “rationalize” the amount – that is, control how much water is distributed per person – “because we depend on the pumping of the street, although we have a large cistern and large tanks too.” Even so, it is the only alternative that many matches have.

Thus Lazara, who chooses to climb three times a week the staircase of the evangelical seminar to look for the water they purify there. “If there is no, I know there are two other churches in the center that also provide the service.” Faced with this solution, he regrets, he knows that “there are neighbors who drink from what they take out of the sewer.”

Indeed, this newspaper has witnessed the ranks against a sewer where someone, at some point, began to collect water improvised. Unable to buy pipes – which in Matanzas are around 8,000 pesos – or without conditions to store the water, some others turn to the pompom, even if it is only to wash, clean or download the bathrooms.

The city of Matanzas sits on the most important urban water table in Cuba, which extends from the Canasí arches – in the border with Mayabeque – to the springs of Bello. This groundwater network, of more than 70 kilometers, supplies a large part of the province and feeds a spring that underground the historical center of the city, leading to the aforementioned pompon, where it joins the Yumurí River.

This underground course, called the “Ghost River” by Ercilio Vento Canosa in his book Matanzas and their secretsis the one that has become one of the last resources for many families that do not have access to safe water.