Punta Brava, where Maceo died, is now "The most ripped village" of Cuba

Punta Brava (Artemisa)/In Punta Brava there is nothing to do with anything to do or anything that works. The Artemiseño village, nestled on the border with Havana, has an air -set air Wétern movie. Dust, garbage rolling through the streets and skeletons of unused buildings. Everything gives the feeling of being stagnant over time.

“It’s a disaster. I think the most ripped little town in the whole country is this,” they say 14ymedio Two guajiros busy under a bush, peeling corn cobs. His opinion is the same that each neighbor interviewed by this newspaper repeats, without exception: before there were “things” – a cinema, shops, a boulevard – today there is nothing.

The cinema, explain three elders sitting on a balcony where they avoid the heat of the day, “they disrupted it and took everything, to the slabs and the roof. It is not known who, but they stole everything.” Now, hollow inside and semi -driver, it is the public bath of Punta Brava. “They cleaned it a little, but it is still the latter of the town.”

History is repeated with all facilities and spaces for public use. “I was born here and I am 82 years old, but when I was a little boy, the park was in conditions. The only thing they left was the roundabout, and it is broken. The new generations have ended with all that,” says another of the elders, who from the balcony spot the park where a Maceo bust is nest.

In that town it was where the bronze titan fell, remember, and say, “without political fanaticism”, that the disaster in which it has become very badly stopped until history.

The decline of Punta Brava can be pointed out with the finger: “That was before the boulevard, now it is not even the cemetery,” “the Cochino river passes there, which honors its name, the buildings are old and careless.” When the enumeration ends, the retirees realize that the churches are still standing in the town. “The Nazarene, the Methodist, the evangelist, Jehovah’s Witnesses, all the churches work here,” they say.

Life in the town consists, for retirees, to sit in the portals to which the unbearable stench of the garbers arrives – “This is not the one who resists it, even dead animals throw there,” one complains. For the youngest, the goal is to embark on the first thing that passes along the avenue to reach Havana, where many work. But by Punta Brava, forgotten at the border with the capital, nor the bus passes.

“It is very difficult to go out and enter Punta Brava. Pass the Guagua 436 at 8:30 am, then grabber yourself,” describes the man, who rummage his pocket in search of his wallet. “I was Guagüero, look at my pass. What is it for me if there are no guaguas,” he questions.

Sometimes Route 180 also passes in the morning, which goes to Santa Fe, but outside those bus, almost nothing happens by road. There are particular cars, but a passage to the Lisa, the nearest Havana municipality, costs 150 pesos, so many prefer to stand at the edge of the road, raise their arm and wait for some driver to want to advance them to where he can.

The other transport is the train, which leaves tulip and passes through several stations such as one hundred and boyeros, the canoe, Punta Brava, Bauta, Caimito, and others until it arrives in Mariel. It has about five cars and all the inhabitants of the villages they pass use it to move to Havana, so it is always full. However, for the disgust of many, “three days ago she is standing, nobody reports anything. It is the only way I go to the hill,” says one of the neighbors of Punta Brava.

The rest of public services exhibit equal conditions. The blackouts are as annoying as in the rest of the island and the water supply is very poor. In front of the park, the neighbors point out, there is an aqueduct and a tank raised crowned by a solar clock and with the sign: pure water at all hours. “Before there was water all day, but now it is one of the firefighters. The water here comes one day yes and another no, but at my house it does not go up. I have to put the pump on the ladder to arrive,” he says.

The rest of the town is a postcard of the same disaster. The mail in full day is closed and in the park there are no children despite the holidays. “Look how the streets are, compadre. Here you have to put a cross in the middle that says: in peace rest,” the old man sighs.