An SOS for Household Light Bulbs

Osmel Almaguer

HAVANA TIMES — Little by little, the fluorescent tubes that used to light my house and my father’s house have proceeded to burn out. He has, in turn, replaced them with energy efficient ones. Now his evenings watching TV are colored by a bothersome light he put in the dining room.

The energy efficient bulbs give off very intense light, but cover a small area, which is ineffective for the sizes of our rooms.

People use them in ceiling lamps. They put them up in twos or fours and use colored glass to slightly attenuate their intensity.

The problem is that neither my father nor I have the money for those kinds of lamps. To replace the ones we have could cost 100 CUCs or more (over a $100 USD). In my case, I’ve resisted relying on those energy saving bulbs, though now the last of my old florescent tubes has burnt out and my house has been left in the dark.

I don’t know why the stores fail to stock enough “cold light bulbs,” as they’re called here. They’re relatively inexpensive, about 1 CUC, but ultimately they don’t last that long.

It’s not my intention to criticize or to elaborate a treatise concerning the shortage of cold light bulbs. I’m writing this dairy entry today solely out of my need for help.

So, if anyone has seen that product recently in one of the shops here in town, please let me know where I can buy at least one.

 

osmel

Osmel Almaguer:Until recently I would to identify myself as a poet, a cultural promoter and a university student. Now that my notions on poetry have changed slightly, that I got a new job, and that I have finished my studies, I’m forced to ask myself: Am I a different person? In our introductions, we usually mention our social status instead of looking within ourselves for those characteristics that define us as unique and special. The fact that I’m scared of spiders, that I’ve never learned to dance, that I get upset over the simplest things, that culminating moments excite me, that I’m a perfectionist, composed but impulsive, childish but antiquated: these are clues that lead to who I truly am.

2 thoughts on “An SOS for Household Light Bulbs”

  • Why would one even dare to compare the historically constructed biggest economy/consumer market/world superpower to a tiny sub-industrialized blockaded island? Just to cry out loud a pathetic “We’re number one!”?

  • As the US prepares for Black Friday, the single biggest spending day in the world and the start of the Christmas buying season, I read this entry about light bulbs in Cuba. Tell me again why some people believe Cuban socialism works?

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