A Cuban Farming Town Where “There Is No Life”
only resignation for the 800 inhabitants of Flor de Itabo
“Nothing ever comes to the ration store. We’re living off the small private businesses, off hot dogs that cost 450 pesos.”
HAVANA TIMES – “Everything’s totally bad. There’s no life. I see no future.” With those three phrases, spoken with utter desolation, Pedro sums up the situation in Flor de Itabo, a remote rural hamlet in Madruga, Mayabeque Province, where he has lived for over 12 years. Life there has always had its ups and downs, but the situation in recent months defies description.
The town, consisting of twenty four-story apartment buildings housing nearly 800 people, was founded in 1972. There is also a ration store, a primary school, a daycare center with about 40 children, a medical clinic, and a pharmacy. Flor de Itabo is surrounded by former cattle farms. Mayabeque is a livestock province, historically sustained by milk and meat, Pedro recalls. Now, everything is “practically empty.”
A recent investment brought a few “imported cows” to the farms, he explains. But that hasn’t improved living conditions in the town.
Food, for instance, is worse than ever, says Pedro. “Nothing ever comes to the ration store, we’re still waiting for the rice and it hasn’t arrived. We’re surviving thanks to the small private businesses, on hot dogs that cost 450 pesos a packet, on expensive chicken…” Bread, he adds, is also “nowhere to be found.” “We don’t know the reason. It’s been days since any arrived.”
Small private businesses, or mipymes, are a world of their own, continues the rural man, who clarifies that although you can get bread and some other food items there, the prices are often unaffordable. “We get by with their bread at 350 pesos per little bag, we have to eat, otherwise we die.”
There are many other problems plaguing the residents of Flor de Itabo. For about three months, they’ve had no running water because the water pump is broken. “No one has said anything, there are no solutions for anything.” When a water truck does appear, many people seize the chance to fill buckets and tanks, which are later resold. “I live on the third floor and I buy a little water just to keep from starving,” he says. A full large tank, for example, costs 1,000 pesos; buckets cost less, he adds.
“There are poor people, and there are people who have the means and will pay the 1,000 pesos, but I pay what I can, and we get by little by little. There’s nothing else we can do.” It’s the same with charcoal. “When the power goes out, I have to go buy a sack, which costs another 1,000 pesos. There’s no life,” he says with resignation.
Pedro doesn’t have much hope that things will improve any time soon. “Who do we complain to? No one. Where? Our only option is to go to those expensive mipymes. Money doesn’t fall from the sky. Some are doing fine, because they have their little businesses, but others of us can’t afford it. Things are never equal,” he laments.
Few people in town are willing to give their opinion when asked by this newspaper. “If you tell the truth, people don’t like you. So you keep quiet, because you might end up in jail. Things are really bad here,” says Pedro. But over time, he argues, people have grown used to neglect. “Not me. I’m 65 years old — it doesn’t matter if I die tomorrow — but there are still others left in this town.”
The children in the village are one of Pedro’s biggest concerns. He says the school lacks enough teachers for the few students it has. Third and fourth grades, he points out, are taught together as if they were the same grade. And the park, “all run down,” as he describes it wearily, is no use for playtime. For recreation, they only have a patch of red earth, with makeshift goals made from sticks, which serves as a soccer field.
Pedro prefers not to talk about the blackouts. Although they still give him headaches, power outages have become a routine part of life. “We go up to 20 hours without electricity. I don’t even fight it anymore; I just don’t care about that issue.”
Sitting under a palm tree, taking advantage of the shade, Pedro watches from afar as several children enthusiastically jump on a trampoline. Below, the owner of that and a few other worn-out amusement rides lies resting on a sack.
The calm is almost total, broken only by the occasional laughter of the children, and even the animals seem to have caught the mood: a cow grazes peacefully, and a dog naps beneath an old tractor. In Flor de Itabo, little blooms — and its residents, long accustomed to daily hardship, are no exception. In the meantime, says Pedro, “we make do and keep on struggling, there’s nothing else we can do.”
First published in Spanish por 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.