An Ordinary Day in Cuba
HAVANA TIMES – I step out onto the street with an empty backpack and a list. The sun beats mercilessly on the broken streets, and I dodge the potholes that seem like traps ready to twist my ankle. Garbage piles up on the sidewalks; a dog with protruding ribs rummages through the waste, lifts its head, and watches me with weary eyes.
I walk toward the nearest small private store. The shelves are full, but the prices take my breath away. A liter of oil costs about what I earn in a week. I stare at it, feeling the helplessness tightening in my throat, and count my bills, calculating what will be left for the other things on my list.
A woman carrying a small child looks at the meat products. She picks up a pack of sausages but puts it back with a sigh. The elderly woman at the counter counts her money and can barely afford a bag of bread rolls.
I head back out into the street, searching through stores and kiosks, but the story is the same everywhere: impossible prices or empty shelves, discouraged faces.
The sun burns my skin and sweat runs down my back. I think about my husband and the morning coffee we couldn’t drink, about my neighbor and her rituals, about my daughter and the lack of a future, about my mother standing in front of a wood-burning stove.
A group of young people pass by, laughing and singing a song by Bebeshito or Chocolate—one of those that’s trendy right now. But there’s something forced in their laughter, as if they’re trying to convince themselves that everything is fine. But it’s not—I know it, they know it, we all know it.
Here, in the middle of these streets, I understand that I am trapped in an eternal cycle, like being stuck in a dream from which I can’t wake up, where every day is a battle against the heat, hunger, power outages, and the lack of everything that makes us human.
As I walk, I feel a breeze that reminds me of the sea. I let it hit my face and visualize it, but it doesn’t cool me down. That sea that surrounds us is more of a prison than a gift. It only reminds me that we are here, on this island, far from everything, forgotten by everyone.
Near my house, I come across an elderly man sitting on the sidewalk. He greets me with a vague gesture.
“Girl, this isn’t easy. What are we going to do?” he murmurs, as if speaking to himself, but his words echo in me. I have no answer. No one does.
I return home with just a few items in my backpack. What I bought will barely last us two days. It’s not enough, but it’s all there is. And as I open the door, with the weight of the afternoon on my shoulders, I can’t help but wonder how much longer we can survive in this endless loop.