Wood Fires Are Lit Throughout Cuba to Save the Food

In the face of the total blackout

Desperation grows after the first nearly 30 hours without electricity that could last much longer

By Juan Izquierdo (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – The prelude to the total blackout was, for Magaly, very similar to a horror movie. The TV screen lost intensity, the fans began to move the blades in slow motion, and the refrigerator’s surge protector – whose red light turns on the alarm of any Cuban home – went off. The woman, retired in Santa Clara and a veteran of the Special Period crisis of the 1990s, launched her “protocol” to save food.

Months of intense blackouts (often for 12 to 15 hours a day) have prepared her for any scenario. Without wasting time, she took half a dozen bottles – real “blocks” of ice – from the freezer and placed them in the main compartment. “This keeps the cold in a little, but even if the door isn’t opened, the food will eventually spoil,” she explains.

The first to succumb are the vegetables and fruits. The meat lasts a little longer, but after several days it follows the same path. Cooked beans and stews do not survive very well. “I lost a papaya, in addition to a couple of jars of beans and cucumbers pickled in vinegar. Now I have to start sorting and throwing things away,” she says.

Classifying means arranging the food in chronological order, according to its expiration date. Throwing it away means losing resources and money in a country where food, in itself expensive, borders on the prohibitive in times of disaster. And, for Magaly, the “total disconnection” announced this Friday by the Ministry of Energy and Mines is a national catastrophe, like a hurricane.

In fact, the atmosphere on the streets of the city is similar to when a hurricane is expected: a swarm of people in front of each food stall, huge lines in front of stores, prices that go up as the hours go by. “The bag of cookies that cost you 250 pesos yesterday costs 270 today,” says a woman. “Not everyone can afford it. In the private stores that sell food, this Friday, because of the blackout, neither ham nor croquettes could be delivered. There is a lack of supply for everything and a lot of demand.”

The WhatsApp groups for the bodegas (ration stores) have become fashionable, where the administrator alerts people when “two little pounds of rice” or “anything” has arrived.” At midnight a message appeared in the chat: “Please, the milk for children has just arrived. Be considerate.” Magalys translates: the bodega wants them to go as quickly as possible because the milk was about to spoil. At two in the morning, other bodegas in Santa Clara sent similar messages to their customers.

The early morning was hard. Children were crying in every neighborhood; telephones – the only source of escape for many – couldn’t be charged; and flashlights ran out of battery. “It’s hopeless,” says Magaly. “At least the night was cool.”

With almost 30 hours of blackout in the municipality of Colón, Jorge, a teacher at a local high school, sees that the food in his refrigerator is on its last legs. “We had to cook everything,” he says. “We lit a charcoal burner in the doorway – it’s raining on the patio – and we threw on a piece of liver. It was the only thing left and it wasn’t going to last much longer.” In the absence of gas and electricity, the old wood stoves have shown that, unfortunately, they are not objects of the past.

Jorge has not had electricity since Friday morning; Susana, a resident of Remedios, Villa Clara, has been in a blackout since Thursday night. “People who have a freezer with food are trying not to open it to see if it can keep cold,” he says, “but those of us who only have a refrigerator already had to eat what we had left.”

This Friday, Susana and her family dismantled a package of chicken whose “shelf life” they planned to extend for a longer time. They took the pieces and cooked them on charcoal. “We invited the neighbors next door, who also had to finish off some tamales. They do spoil very quickly.”

In Camajuaní, a few kilometers from Remedios, Carmen, a housewife, could not save the milk or the little rice she had reserved. “Everything I had frozen was lost a while ago. Anything with bones – like chicken – I made yesterday; I’ll cook the rest today. At this rate, everything will have to be cooked.”

Wood fires are flaring up throughout Cuba, not only to save food but to have some light and a place to crowd around and talk. Without phones or radios to inform themselves, people are feeling uncomfortable and given to venting. An increasingly accentuated anger has filled the place. This Friday, Magalys was afraid that “something big” could happen.

The Government has announced some measures so that people “have food and some vital products.” In Cienfuegos, says the State newspaper Granma, a “comprehensive agricultural fair” is being prepared for all municipalities.

Meanwhile, in Havana, a truck parked this Saturday morning in front of the Miguel Enríquez hospital. The line did not take long to form, but the “reinforcements” to weather the storm are minimal: cookies at 1,300 pesos and a package of candles – made in Cuba – at 750. A woman’s reaction to the anti-blackout kit says it all: “Is this what they send us? What am I going to pay for it with?”

Checking the local news pages, such as the CMHW in Villa Clara or the bulletins of the Electric Union itself, provides a good inventory of curses to hurl at the regime. The complaints range from personal insults to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and requests for his resignation to jokes: “We should send a letter to the Space Station,” says a reader, “explaining to them that they are not going to see Cuba at night in the next few days.”

Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.

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