Havana/Guanabacoa evokes orishas, Catholic processions and water, a lot of water, as reflected in the word taine that has given it its name: land of rivers and hills. Although their springs continue to be part of the collective and religious imaginary, the dry pipes are changing the way in which numerous residents perceive one of the most deteriorated municipalities of the Cuban capital.
“Here in my house we are lucky because the water comes sometimes but in that block there it has been without months,” he says to 14ymedio Carmita, a neighbor who lives a few meters from Corrales Street, epicenter of the most serious supply problems in the area. “People have to come here to fill their cubes,” the woman details and adds that “it is not that among much, you have to have the engine to take it out.”
The Loma de Corrales, which gives name to the street, is an insurmountable obstacle to the old pipes where water flows with barely pressure. To the Law of Gravity are added the problems with the electricity supply, the poor state of the pumping equipment in the aqueducts and, especially, the chaotic management of the valves that allow the water to reach the neighborhood.
“This problem has been complicated more than 20 years when they did some tasks in 2022,” adds Carmita
“This problem has been complicated more than 20 years when they did some tasks in 2022,” adds Carmita. The woman refers to works that enable a new route for supply to other areas of Guanabacoa. However, also the call bypassdirected by Rosaura Socarrás Ordaz, deputy director of Operations of the Aguas Company of Havana, brought relief to some and a Calvary to others.
“From that moment he stopped entering water frequently,” warns the neighbor. The lack of pressure suffered by the entire area forces residents, such as Carmita, to have a thief water Able to suck the pipes To extract until the last drop. But in the houses of Corrales street or the most powerful of the bombs manages to get anything most of the time.
“Right now we have been between 20 days,” denounces a young man who has just returned on Monday from the municipal popular power office where complaints and claims about the water supply arrive more and more frequently. “When they send a pipe, if you reach for three houses and that is every 20 days or more, no one can live like this,” he emphasizes this newspaper.
This Tuesday, in Centro Habana, a group of people with cubes in protest of the lack of water cut Queen street after seven days without supply. Their complaints have even reached the International Presswhile Guanabacoa, with some investments in very scarce infrastructure in recent decades, is still considered by many the most forgotten municipality of Havana. Its historic center has suffered numerous landslides, its rivers are visibly contaminated, many streets lost the asphalt years ago and demand on the hydraulic system, mostly installed in the first half of the twentieth century, it has also grown marked by the appearance of marginal neighborhoods. The urgency of a renovation project is evident, but Aguas de la Havana has no resources to undertake it.
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“They give us long, they tell us that the country lacks currencies to buy abroad what is needed and the same speech of always,” complains a neighbor from inside his portal, where he takes refuge from the Fort Sun of August. “The pipes they send are small and water, when it comes, it comes from a rare color, as dirty.”
The issue summons other affected that ends up improvising an assembly in a corner corner. “The answer they give is that they score you on paper and nothing, they do nothing. They deceive the papers. They said that they were going to see if they sent us a pipe,” the young man complains. “They are asleep because when the water comes, then they take away the current and we cannot fill anything. From the 15th of last month the water does not come.”
Several neighbors point out a mismanagement of the valves located in the area known as the Mikito as the main cause for the low pressure that prevents the inhabitants of Corrales Street having water in their batteries. They have been able to continue bathing and cooking thanks to the solidarity of those who live in areas where the supply does arrive and allow them to fill their belongings.
Several neighbors indicate a bad handling of the valves located in the area known as the Mikito as the main cause for low pressure
“In my house we load it from the Santa María neighborhood, with cubes and tanks. Throughout this last year I had to put some blinks on the same wheelbarrow to move the gas ball and I lowers that hill several times a day,” says another resident that adds to the improvised meeting where the spirits raise their temperature and the signs to the laziness of the institutions are repeated.
“Aguas de la Habana is doing a bad job because when the key has opened in the mikito, the water has come to us with a little more pressure. They will have to change the employee who deals with that there. Change or throw it away,” speculates an old woman with the despair painted in the face. “That what is filling pools and making money,” says the woman.
The discussion dissolves when the imperative of going out to look for water is imposed. With a truck one, a shopping car and a backpack on the back a third party, they leave in different directions. They will not return until they can fill the whims and cubes that they carry. In the hill of Corrales, whole families wait for you to start cooking, bathe or wash clothes.
