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The young Christian activist from Cuba, David Espinosa, published a harsh reflection on Facebook about what it means to survive today in Cuba, without electricity, without gas, without water, and without enough food for the children.
"Imagine that you have no electricity. Not for a few hours, but you have been without it since yesterday. Night is falling, and your apartment is descending into silence, with unbearable heat," wrote Espinosa on his Facebook profile.
The text describes a scene that millions of Cubans recognize as their own: cooking without gas, improvising with charcoal in the yard; without water since the previous week; with just a package of ground meat and rice on the table; with the phone out of battery and no internet connection.
"You look at the phone… no battery. And even if it did have a charge, there's no signal. You can’t text, you can’t call, you can’t ask for help; it doesn’t even work as a flashlight," the story continues.
The publication is not 'literature': it is the exact depiction of what happened on May 10 in Cuba, when the country recorded an electricity deficit of 1,710 MW, with an available generation of only 1,590 MW against a demand of 3,300 MW, leaving up to 52% of the national territory without power.
In Havana, the outages lasted for 14 continuous hours that day; in the interior of the country, they exceeded 20 hours.
The next day, the projected deficit increased to between 1,955 and 1,985 MW during the nighttime peak, with availability of just 1,245 to 1,430 MW against a demand of 3,200 MW.
Cuba has experienced at least seven total collapses of the National Electric System in 18 months, and the historical peak deficit in 2026 was 2,075 MW on March 6, when more than two-thirds of the country was left in the dark.
The comments on Espinosa's post turned into a mural of collective grief.
From Güira de Melena, a user reported six days without electricity due to damaged transformers and a lack of available replacements.
From Santa Clara, another reported that electricity was restored at 3:36 in the morning.
A Cuban woman recalled that Mother's Day passed in complete silence: "I didn't hear music in a single house; many people have nothing to eat and can't give their mother a gift."
The energy crisis is compounded by a similarly severe water shortage: only 18.3% of Cubans receive drinking water every day, a drastic drop from the 34.1% recorded in 2024.
In terms of food, 33.9% of Cuban households reported that at least one member went to bed without eating in the past year, according to the survey "En Cuba Hay Hambre 2025."
According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, 89% of the Cuban population lives in extreme poverty, with an average monthly salary equivalent to about 13 dollars.
Espinosa is not an anonymous citizen denouncing from obscurity; he is an activist subjected to systematic pressure from the regime.
On April 12, he was summoned along with his wife Laidy García by the Ministry of the Interior.
The next day, during an interrogation by State Security, agents attempted to recruit him as an informant to report about a possible visit from the head of mission of the United States Embassy.
On May 6, he was summoned again under the pretext of an "interview regarding possible illegality," a notion that does not exist in Cuban Criminal Law, and ETECSA has cut off his phone lines in a coordinated manner as a repressive measure.
Despite everything, Espinosa continues to publish and makes his faith the central element of his public resistance.
"This writing is not to elicit pity; Cuba does not need pity. Cuba needs the Earth to not look the other way. And perhaps, that someone (upon reading this) decides to do something more than just keep reading. For me, today, all I can do is lift a silent prayer," he concluded.
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