A Dirty City

Paula Henriquez

HAVANA TIMES — Walking through there is almost impossible, not because something is blocking the way physically, but because breathing is an unbearable task. The riverbed is becoming narrower, not because of the plants that normally grow in its waters exactly, but because of the piles of garbage that build up on its shores everyday.

A lot has been said about the filth and irresponsibility that surrounds the Quibu river (a river whose source is in the Marianao municipality and which flows into the Nautico neighborhood in Havana’s Playa municipality), however, very little has been done in this regard; and I’m not only referring to national or municipal health authorities, but to the population as well.

The “mountain” of garbage bags can be seen from afar and not to mention the foul smell that is also rampant in surrounding areas. One might think that the local community doesn’t seem to care about this, because, in spite of everything, they continue to throw garbage into the riverbank. The excuse: garbage trucks don’t come to collect the garbage. And this is true, garbage trucks only come once or twice a week, and sometimes they don’t come at all. And the community is growing and so is their waste.

Celia Martinez lives near one of these neighborhoods where the Quibu river passes through. She says that sometimes from her house she can smell the foul odor of rotting and waste and that at times, she can’t see the river’s waters because it’s completely covered by the garbage that neighbors throw from the bridge near her house.

Is it because there aren’t enough garbage containers in the neighborhood? I ask her…

“Well, there are garbage containers in the neighborhood, however there aren’t as many as there should be, but we do have them. The thing is though that some of these people live further away and so they decide to walk a little less and throw their garbage into the river.”

And in fact, there are several garbage containers, jam-packed though, just a few blocks away from the aforementioned bridge, however like this neighbor in the Marianao municipality says, not everybody “feels” like walking that far.

“You also have to take into account the fact that the containers are almost always full to the top and that there isn’t any space to put another bag, so people have begun to throw them where they want, in the river, next to garbage containers, etc. Nobody can keep garbage in their house, which would be worse. So alternative dumps have sprung up all over the neighborhood, however, the one at the river is without a doubt the worst.” Celia adds.

And she’s right. If we stop along the bridge that is located in the Cocosolo neighborhood in Marianao, the only thing you can see is garbage. The bars that protect pedestrians were even cut so that garbage bags could be more easily “thrown”. The mountain of garbage almost touches the floor of this bridge and of course insects, rats, etc. thrive in this area and its surroundings.

I also went to have a look at the garbage bins. There were food scraps everywhere, not just inside these garbage containers. Other neighbors say that sometimes garbage trucks don’t come to take this away for up to five days. The reason: there isn’t enough fuel, they don’t have the spare parts they need to fix the trucks or quite simply there aren’t enough trucks to meet all of the city’s “demand”.

And that’s why garbage has flooded us. Not only in Marianao, you just have to walk through neighboring municipalities to confirm that this happens to the same extent or worse there too. Celia says that people complain about other people, claiming that its the neighbors themselves who are to blame, that they are the ones who are getting the surroundings dirty. However, others say that they can’t literally “swallow” this waste and so they have to leave it anywhere they can.

And they are also right. You can’t live with garbage inside your house but you shouldn’t have to live with it outside either. Who’s to blame? It’s a neverending story because on the one hand you have the authorities throwing you out of your house up to four times a week so that they can fumigate and kill the Aesdes Aegypti and this campaign is carried out nationwide, but on the other hand, they are breeding this mosquito… and other small animals that are dangerous to human health.

The subject has been spoken about to death. I’ve seen TV reports of “all stripes and colors”. Everybody criticizes but nobody is coming up with a way to resolve this problem. I don’t blame the authors of these reports. They’ve been told the same thing all of us have been told: things will get better; but nobody can find a solution anywhere.

Meanwhile, more and more streets are being filled with forgotten objects, food scraps and even dead animals, and days continue to roll on by… calmly…