San José de las Lajas/The night progresses with a slowness that exasperates Mayda. Since six in the afternoon, his small home on 42nd Avenue, in San José de las Lajas (Mayabeque), is plunged into a thick darkness that turns every corner into fertile ground for mosquitoes. Inside, a few shapes can be distinguished: a bucket to store water, a bed and an armchair are barely illuminated by the glow coming from a nearby house with its own generator.
Mayda dedicated 25 years to the Ministry of Education, but her checkbook does not allow her to buy a rechargeable lamp, much less a plant. electricity generation. With luck you can find a candle in the informal market for less than 100 pesos. “If I want to catch a little bit of light I have to sit almost on the sidewalk and wait for a car to pass by.” Under the light of those sporadic headlights, he performs some tasks.
“Sometimes I take my plate outside so, at least, I don’t eat in the dark,” he tells 14ymedio while he shoos the insects off his legs with a worn towel. “Each family tries to get light as best they can and at least I get something from that house that has a plant and a light bulb in the porch.”
“Those who leave the door open spend the night waiting for thieves and mosquitoes. The rest lock themselves up in fear”
The night images of the town confirm his words. The homes appear like illuminated islands in a sea of darkness. Some have rechargeable lamps hanging in the doorways; others remain completely dark. In a kitchen illuminated by a couple of candles, a family has dinner in silence. A few meters away, another home serves as a kind of makeshift shelter where neighbors take turns charging phones and chatting for a while while the worst of the blackout passes.
For Rodolfo, a Public Health worker, the inequality generated by these power outages is becoming increasingly evident. “The vast majority of houses are completely dark,” he laments. “Those who leave the door open spend the night waiting for thieves and mosquitoes. The rest lock themselves up in fear.”
He himself has not been able to buy a rechargeable fan. “My mother can, because my brothers from Spain sent the money. I have two children, ages 8 and 10. It breaks my heart to see them soaked in sweat at dawn.”
Daily life has been reordered according to the schedule of blackouts. A 15-year-old boy confesses that his parents have imposed a limit on visiting his girlfriend on Micro 1. “I have to come back early because walking here at night is dangerous. You can’t see the gaps and you fall easily. You have to go where there is a lamp in the doorway, and move forward with those reflections.” On the street, a horse-drawn carriage advances slowly, guided almost by groping.
“There are houses here where you can’t even see your hands. They are there, but it is as if they did not exist”
Yandro, born and raised in San José de las Lajas, explains that the cuts have lasted up to 20 hours in a row. “Sometimes I don’t even have time to charge the phone,” he says. “When the neighbor turns on the plant, at least I have some clarity in the doorway. But he says that gasoline is too expensive to turn it on every day.” Around him, the neighborhood is divided between those who can afford an alternative and those who simply wait in the dark. “Here there are houses where you can’t even see your hands. They are there, but it is as if they did not exist,” he adds.
Some people sit in the doorways to talk under the dim light of a light bulb connected to a battery. Other houses have just a flashlight illuminating the interior of a room where an elderly woman fans herself against the heat. All gestures seem focused on resisting the night.
For this Monday darkness will once again descend on the town. The Electrical Union has predicted a deficit that will reach 1,995 megawatts (MW), the highest figure in weeks. In San José de las Lajas, that number already announces another night like so many: long, dense and silent, where life is reduced to waiting for the next burst of light, even if it comes from the fleeting passage of a car.
