A House Full of Garbage in the Heart of Old Havana

In Old Havana, on the corner of Aponte and Gloria, a building in ruins was the living image of the pestilence.

By Juan Diego Rodríguez (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – The stench was persistent throughout the capital this Monday. The day dawned cool and threatened rain from early on, but the air, instead of cleaning the odors, carried them and brought effluents of sewage, decomposing food and dead animals. In Old Havana, on the corner of Aponte and Gloria, a ruined building was the living picture of the pestilence. Uninhabited, roofless and with a large part of the walls collapsed, its ground floor is occupied today by heaps and heaps of garbage, wrapped in a cloud of flies and other insects.

Next to the house garbage dump, however, there is a property with residents. A neighbor shouted at someone passing by: “Take a look, boy, at this plague, see how dirty everything is?” Faced with the disgusted gesture of the young man, who was almost running to leave the place behind as soon as possible, he asked, “Give me a little help, I’m sick.”

Another woman, who crossed the sidewalk in the face of the stench, murmured: “Oropouche, dengue and even the bubonic plague are going to take us away if this continues.”

The lack of fuel and the precarious Communal Services make the refuse flourish on virtually every corner, not only in Havana, but in other places on the island, including the cities of Matanzas, Las Tunas, Santa Clara and Manzanillo, as reported by 14ymedio.

A few days ago, the accumulation of waste in Havana Bay, to the point of preventing navigation, forced the authorities to suspend the service of the Regla ferry. This newspaper confirmed on Saturday that, although the route that connects the port of Havana with the other side of the bay was now operating, garbage was still floating in the water.

Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba

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