Transportation in the eastern province of Las Tunas has become a problem serious enough to be covered by the local official press.
Thus, the provincial weekly Newspaper 26who warned, with a source in Héctor Feria Ávila, deputy director of Hygiene and Obituaries of the Provincial Directorate of Communals, that there is “little availability of funeral cars.”
The official recognized that this problem “constitutes a reality in the territory” and that “the support of the province of Holguín” is what allows them to continue providing this service.
The manager also explained that the company has been in a hurry to use other variants of these cars, “which serve us in the same way for transportation.”
“To date, 2,284 funeral services have been carried out, which gives an average of 460 per month, and 15 to 20 per day,” reported Feria Ávila. “The situation of this type of transport is critical, because of a total of 13 cars, only two work.”
The director also explained that the company has been in a hurry to use other variants of these cars, “which serve us in the same way for transportation.”
Precisely the shortcomings of funeral services in Cuba have been denounced by many citizens in recent years through social networks. The last one, this Tuesday, Nadoska Almeida, mother superior of the Daughters of Charity in Cuba. “Almost two weeks ago a person dear to many of us passed away and, in addition to the pain of loss, and her absence that will be greatly felt, especially for the people to whom she gave her being and doing, I was surprised, with pain , for the coffin that, although it is not the first I see in horrible conditions, is possibly the worst I have seen in my entire life”, he narrates in a post of Facebook the nun, who continues: “It was something like a pallet made of wood, where there is a small board yes and another no, lined with the fabric that we all already know, without the cardboard on the bottom. What is my pain? See how the fabric below came loose and hung as if nothing happened. I just looked and asked myself the question with which I start this sharing: Do we deserve this?
The gruesome image was accompanied by another that also revealed the state of the funeral services: “As I accompanied the funeral, I stopped my gaze on more than one abandoned tomb, and I discovered them full of garbage, yes, garbage that they sweep and they throw there. And of course, again I was surprised by my reaction and I asked myself: What is strange? What are you surprised about? And I answered myself: we don’t deserve this”.
The same ‘Periódico 26’ recognized the lack of vehicles to cover the reservations of Camping Popular in Las Tunas this summer
But not only the transfer of coffins is affected by the crisis, but also the recreational sector. the same Newspaper 26 recognized the lack of vehicles to cover the reserves of Camping Popular in Las Tunas this summer. Elvira Ricardo Castro, commercial director of the state company, warned: “At this stage, unlike previous years, only a limited percentage of reservations will include transportation, since the company will use smaller capacity buses and therefore will not be able to cover to all the campers.
Those who want to reserve a place in one of the three Las Tunas camping bases “will have to go to the destination by their own means,” said the commercial deputy director of Campismo. As for Communals, they announced the establishment of “a 24-hour command post with powers to make decisions in funeral services throughout the province, with the aim of minimizing problems.”
Without the possibility of transportation, the Popular Camping, that idea of Fidel Castro to dissuade Cubans from going on vacation to a bourgeois hotel and which represents the most precarious option of national tourism – with cabins without air conditioning or rivers instead of swimming pools for customers–, is even, if possible, more diminished.
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