Cuba: Garbage Has Destroyed Guanabacoa’s Waters and Springs
In the midst of disaster and plague, a graffiti in Guanabacoa reads: “I am Fidel. Thank you for the country you left us.”
By Jose Lassa / Juan Izquierdo (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – What appeared first? The “I am Fidel” sign on a battered wall in Guanabacoa, Havana or the garbage dump located next to it? The hand that painted the slogan, popularized by the regime after the leader’s death in 2016, perhaps didn’t suspect that a rubbish pile and Castro could converge on that corner of the Havana municipality. Blurry, another message completes the irony: “Thank you for the country you left us.”
Guanabacoa is full of such signs, next to a pile of garbage or a sewage ditch. In some scenes, the vultures—with their wings spread out in a cross, like a child’s game—are exploring the waste or pecking at cans in the stream.
“Please dispose of waste in the water,” reads another sign near the Santa Rita Baths, once one of Havana’s most popular spas. One wonders whether such an absurd request had actually been erased by the damp on the wall. Thirty-nine-year-old Yuliet’s window overlooks one of the tributaries that lead to the place. The stench, at any time of day, is unbearable.
It’s enough to glance over it to see how the vultures and rats scratch among the puddles. The panorama is so depressing that Yuliet prefers to keep the window closed, day and night. “I keep it closed not only because of the smell, which in the end we get used to, but because the mosquitos are coming out of the toilet.”
Water, once clean and abundant, characterized Guanabacoa since time immemorial. Both the native people who gave the settlement its name and the settlers who arrived later decided that its baths and streams were the area’s greatest treasure. Before the Revolution, 11 of Cuba’s 27 water bottling plants were located in Guanabacoa.
With its main resource contaminated beyond words, what was once its strength is now its weakness. Every stream, every well, every creek is an existing or potential source of disease. Garbage is taking over the land from Loma de la Cruz to Baños de Santa Rita, from the fields to the very center of the city.
“I love you, Yanisleidy,” reads the umpteenth graffiti next to a garbage dump. Fidel isn’t immune to the stench, but neither are declarations of love. The dump doesn’t believe in ideologies or feelings, and moves along with the increasingly turbid current that surrounds the hamlets and hills.
“People here don’t just go out and throw out the trash,” laments Juan, who arrived in the Mambí neighborhood from Las Tunas a decade ago. “They throw bags or whatever out the window, and it accumulates there until a good rain falls and washes away all the garbage.”
It’s a macabre sport that, with each “throw,” costs the city what little sanitation it has left. In defense of the residents, Juan claims the nearest trash container is six blocks away. “I used to use it,” he corrects himself: “It’s not there anymore. One day the Municipal Police came and took it away.”
In the residents’ minds there are two option: burn the trash or throw it in the stream, with the second considered ‘more hygienic.’ A cloudburst is the city’s only remaining ‘cleaning agent.’ When the rains come, the vultures hide under the trees, the rats drown or find a crack, and the trash floats away.
Caridad knows better than anyone that the downpour can wash away debris, but it’s deadly for those with low-lying yards. Less than a meter above the river level, the back of her house becomes a pool of rot when the current overflows. “It’s impossible to explain everything to my husband and I had to take out the patio,” she says.
“Some doctors came here to the neighborhood once, tested a couple of families, and left. No one else has come to check on our hygiene,” she says. Throughout the city, the feeling of helplessness is similar, fueled by the problems of drinking water shortages affecting all of Cuba.
A zinc sheet acts as a dike against the river. It doesn’t stop the dirty water or the diseases it brings, but at least it prevents the stink bombs from crossing the line into Caridad’s house.
When the rain subsides, she and her husband pile up the waste that has washed up on the patio. Loose or in bags, like the “paper boat” the children also play with, they throw all the rotten stuff back into the river. It’s a vicious cycle and also, the woman admits, a kind of revenge against the trash. Now it’ll be someone else’s problem.
Translated by Translating Cuba.
Cuban peoples immune systems are compromised due to the lack of a decent diet, water unsafe to consume ( if available), garbage, sewage all over, only a matter of time before a plague.
With no medical resources it will wipe out the Island in short order, the Govt working hard to supply hydro, but maybe no one left to turn the lights on.
So so sad.
Not much cleaner in poor parts of Miami.
The appalling conditions in which some communities live are nothing short of tragic. The sight of garbage strewn about, and especially dumped into waterways, is not just an environmental crisis; it’s a stark reflection of a deeper issue: a loss of self-respect. Many people in these areas may pay lip service to the seriousness of the situation, but their actions suggest they’ve stopped caring – not just about their environment, but about themselves, their families, and their neighbors.
Of course, it’s easy to point fingers at a failing regime for not providing proper waste disposal infrastructure. And yes, the government bears responsibility for its incompetence and neglect. But let’s be clear – the regime isn’t the one throwing trash into rivers. That is the doing of the people themselves.
There is power in community. If residents chose to come together and take collective responsibility, they could find better ways to manage their waste, protect their health, and preserve their dignity. After all, aren’t Cubans known for being resilient, intelligent, and resourceful?
The deeper issue, however, lies in the insidious damage done by socialism – a system that erodes individual responsibility and replaces it with total dependence on the state. When the system inevitably collapses, those conditioned to rely entirely on it are left helpless, like children without guidance – unable to think or act for themselves.
Yes, the regime is reprehensible for its treatment of its own people. But it’s just as shameful when citizens behave in ways that betray the very principles of good citizenship and basic human decency.
Wake up, Cubans! You are capable. You are strong. It’s time to reclaim your self-reliance and begin doing for yourselves what the system never will. Otherwise, you are destined to live in a toilet of your own filth forever.