A Cuban who sells on the street items salvaged from the trash —hoses, books, records— sums up the depth of the crisis the island is experiencing with a single phrase.
"Everything right now, practically all of these things we have here, all of it is from the trash.", said the young man to the camera, in a report by journalist Alexis Boentes from Telemundo 51.
The vendor, positioned in a doorway like hundreds of people in Havana and other Cuban cities, does not attempt to hide the origin of his merchandise.
"A hose, a book, a record, even an absorbent. Why would people want an absorbent that someone found? They all know, they are aware that what we sell comes from the trash," he explained.
What stands out the most is not just the merchandise, but the demand: the seller himself notes that the flow of buyers never stops.
"It’s not that they are unaware or don't know anything. They are aware that we found it and put it up for sale to make some money," he added.
This scene repeats itself daily on the sidewalks and entryways of the Cuban capital. The streets of Havana have been filled with street vendors for years offering damaged appliances, cables, old phones, and reused parts, occupying public spaces and making pedestrian transit difficult in areas already deteriorated by accumulated trash and debris.
The practice discomforts passersby and visually degrades an urban landscape that already shows decades of neglect, but for those who sell, there is no alternative: it is pure survival.
Boentes summarized the phenomenon in the description of his video: "In the midst of the crisis in Cuba, one person's trash becomes another person's treasure."
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