A young Cuban identified on TikTok as @laurenlotti5 showcased the ingenious handmade oven her father built with his own hands to make pizzas and earn a living, in a video that summarizes in a minute and a half what it means to survive in Cuba today.
The clip condenses an entire day's activities of the family: hospital, waiting in line to get drinking water at the church, and searching for firewood in the woods.
"Today started with me accompanying my grandma to the hospital; she has an anesthesia consultation for an important procedure. In Cuba, transportation is a problem, but we need to get there, so we have to hop on." the young woman narrates at the beginning of the video.
Upon returning from the hospital, the family had to wait in line at a church to secure drinking water. "We can only fetch it when there's a water supply, and we have to hurry before it runs out," they explain.
The central moment of the video arrives when the TikToker reveals "her dad's secret": a built-in oven in a concrete block wall, made from an old metal tank, white dirt, and stone to retain heat.
"This is an oven that he made with a tank to retain its heat. This is how my dad makes pizzas to earn a living, and they turn out delicious," he says with evident pride.
The firewood that fuels that oven isn't bought; the family collects it from the woods themselves. "I go to the woods to gather firewood, like four of us, to reach the place in the woods where there's firewood," the young woman says in the video.
The description of the clip sums it all up without any frills: "Hospital, water queue, old tank pizza, and firewood from the woods. This is Cuba."
The oven of Lauren's father is not an isolated case. The energy crisis affecting Cuba has forced millions of families to improvise cooking solutions due to blackouts and a shortage of liquefied gas. In May 2026, the electricity generation deficit reached a record of 2,113 MW against a demand of between 3,000 and 3,250 MW.
The Cuban Minister of Energy acknowledged blackouts lasting 20 to 22 hours in Havana, and the Electric Union anticipated simultaneous cuts affecting up to 46% of the country during peak hours.
According to data from the Food Monitor Program, more than nine million Cubans were cooking under precarious conditions due to a lack of electricity and gas. A food security survey revealed that 80.39% of respondents were affected in their ability to cook by power outages, and 35% resorted to using wood or charcoal.
These types of handcrafted inventions have become common and viral. Just this week, there was a report about a Cuban grandfather who built a stove using an empty tank, a fire extinguisher, and soil due to the high price of gas.
The video by Lauren surpassed 247,200 views and 25,400 likes, generating a wave of supportive comments from various countries. "Long live Cuba and its people, what determination, that's the best, your human qualities," wrote one user. Another, from Nicaragua, said: "You are a millionaire, my love, with the family you have."
At the end of the video, the young woman reveals that her grandfather is also working on a new invention: "My grandfather never stops and is working on an invention that I'll show you soon."
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