A young Spanish woman who has been living in Cuba for almost a month as a volunteer in a hostel in Havana described this week on TikTok her first blackout experienced up close, in a video that summarizes with one phrase what many Cubans know all too well: the first day it hits you, by the third day you have internalized it so much that it even seems normal.
Laura, who publishes under the username @lauramonntana, arrived in Cuba in early March, and due to the random system of rotating blackouts, she had not experienced any power outage at the hostel where she is staying until a few days ago. When it finally happened, it was no minor outage: it spread from one province to another, passing through Havana.
"It's quite an shocking thing; I wouldn't know how to define it. I feel that if you don't experience it, you can't understand it. Something as basic as having electricity in your home here is an absolute privilege," he says in the video, published last Sunday.
What impressed him the most was stepping out into the street and finding a city completely dark. "I think the most shocking thing of all is seeing the streets entirely dark," he says. That night, he passed in front of the Capitolio de La Habana and confesses, "I swear I didn't even know where I was going."
He also described seeing tricycle drivers navigating the dark streets without any kind of lighting, something that left him feeling a mix of astonishment and unease.
Another detail that caught his attention was the visible inequality on the same street: illuminated sections alongside completely dark segments, a direct reflection of the block-cutting system that operates on the island.
In the hostel where she is staying, almost everything is rechargeable: fans, bathroom bulbs, portable chargers for phones. She herself recorded part of the video while doing her makeup with a solar light that she had charged beforehand. "It's not a big deal, it’s no problem," she says casually, before adding, "But just imagine cooking without light, showering without light, living without light."
Laura also emphasizes the community aspect of the power outage. When the lights went out, everyone poured into the streets. "What are you going to do at home if you don’t have electricity? In the end, everyone heads outside," she explains. And in this massive gathering, she found something unexpected: "I feel there’s a brotherhood among all the people, a bond that transcends all the chaos. It’s like a thread that connects everyone."
The video arrives at a particularly critical moment for the Cuban electricity system. At the beginning of this month, the Electric Union projected that 53% of the national territory would experience simultaneous blackouts during peak hours, with a generation deficit of 1,555 MW against a maximum demand of 3,000 MW. In many areas of the island, the outages last between 15 and twenty hours daily.
This is the other video that Laura publishes about her experience in Cuba. In January, she announced her trip with irony —I'm going at the historical moment when the country is at its best— and in February, after three days on the island, she declared it had been the best decision of my life. Now, with almost a month of stay, her perspective is more mature, though no less affectionate towards the country and its people.
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