Coping Without Electricity in Holguin, Cuba

By Lien Estrada

HAVANA TIMES – A math professor from the University of Holguín tells me he wants to bring me his books to sell. I tell him he can bring them to my house, or I can go to his and pick them up. He says he lives in the Doce Plantas (a twelve-story building). I’m glad because it’s not far, and we keep talking about many things. Among them, the most terrible and constant topic lately: the power outages.

The professor poses a piercing question: “Imagine living on the tenth floor and being in a blackout, day or night.” I had thought about the poorest houses, families with very young children, households with bedridden people, the mentally ill… But I hadn’t thought about these cases. All are dreadful.

When the power went out on Friday, October 18, at exactly 12:00 PM, I wasn’t scared. We were already experiencing a lack of electricity every 6 hours. But then I found out we were in an emergency, and this time it was serious: we wouldn’t have the coveted power all weekend. Until Monday, or, if not then, until further notice.

Everything was closed: schools, banks, businesses, except for hospitals and a few select food preparation centers.

That’s when we started scrambling like before, but now with more fear. My family lent me a rechargeable lamp that my aunt had brought from West Palm Beach on her last trip. They gave me a cell phone that was good for nothing except the flashlight, which is indispensable in these cases.

I asked, “What do we do about the mosquitoes?” when I’ve done everything I can and lost all the battles. My aunt tells me the neighbor around the corner mentioned mint. Nothing works better than mint. She puts a sprig in the room and rubs her arms with its leaves to repel mosquitoes.

I search for mint sprigs wherever I can. I place them on top of the closet, at the door as if to block the annoying, unbearable invaders, and at the head of my bed. We survive the first day. Phones on airplane mode, apps frozen, magic, more magic to stretch the battery life, but then it reaches a point where it’s just no more. Then a savior arrives. Thank God someone always shows up. A friend of my aunt’s who lives in the twelve-story building!

What does the man say? My mom tells me to give him my cell phone to charge it because people who live there have power! “Oh, really?” I react. “Why’s that?” “Because they’ve been placed in the priority areas where the power isn’t scheduled to go out,” my mom says. I hand over my phone, the lamp, the other phone whose flashlight still works, and we give him all our household lights to endure a little longer.

Then comes more news: a hurricane nearby! Just as if being without power 24 hours a day with all it entails weren’t enough. I remember an unlucky friend who once told me: “You have to be careful because evil can be bottomless.” My friend is spot on. But I was already stressed out with the blackouts, so I thought, “It will be as God wills.” I embrace fate. It rained all night. The wind against the window. My cats and I huddled in bed. The cyclone wasn’t of the high categories.

Morning came.

It was a blissful dawn. I even collected water in buckets and basins I’d placed outside because I hadn’t had water in my tanks for several days. That’s another challenge: saving every drop, trying not to relieve yourself as regularly as when you have blessed running water. That washing up, that cleaning, everything in the house is measured. Even your body, because you’re not going to bathe as often as you’d like. But that’s another story.

I said it was a blissful morning. We had survived so much! That’s when I found out the hurricane hadn’t even passed! “Oh, it hasn’t? What about last night?” “Just gusts,” my family tells me, “it’s now over somewhere else. It has an anticyclone on one side and is stalled for that reason.” “Oh, alright,” I reply. We stay on alert.

The mint leaves dry up within hours, and their scent brings me back to my maternal grandmother’s room. That smell of dried plants in glasses of water for the saints. I think: it’s karmic. I brush off the thought and look for more sprigs in the streets above my house.

I feel they do hold the mosquitoes at bay a little longer. I don’t leave the house. The atmosphere is dark with that cyclonic spirit: dark clouds, drizzle, that strange air that might cool you down, but you know what comes after could show you true catastrophe.

We congratulate ourselves because at least we have a bit of food. A cousin called from Miami and is planning to send some money. He knows about the recent challenges. I suspend my walks and the street book sales.

Monday arrives. The power doesn’t. I’m pretty much resigning myself to not having it back soon. The waiting is worse. Although it’s terrible to realize how deeply learned helplessness can sink into your own soul. I dedicate myself to reading poetry, the biography of a Hindu yogi, “Prabhupada, Only He Could Guide Them.” Interesting. I keep telling myself I should meditate a bit.

Around 11:37 a.m., my fan turns on. The electricity finally came back. We didn’t have to wait until tomorrow. A big deal, considering in Cuba everything is always in the future.

I connected; I could do it. I replied to my messages, and I decide to visit friends to see how they’ve managed through this mess. I imagine many of them saying, as they almost always do, “At least we’re alive.” I hate this greeting.

Because is it really enough to just be alive? I don’t think so. Life can be hell if it lacks rights, respect, fulfillment, joy, reasons to keep going…

But it’s the response I hear the most lately. At least, the one I hear most in my context. But maybe they’re right. The first thing is to be alive before everything else, then, if God allows.

We still have power, and it’s 2:30 p.m. Pure happiness in these times.

Read more from the diary of Lien Estrada here.