An elderly Cuban became the most heartbreaking face of the crisis plaguing the Island this week after appearing in a viral video posted on Facebook, where she sums up how she survives blackouts, hunger, and scarcity: "Resist. What are we going to do? We have to resist."
The images depict an elderly woman, visibly thin, wearing tattered clothes, inside a humble home— a true reflection of the overall state of a house that speaks volumes about years of accumulated hardship.
Next to him, the refrigerator where only two pots can be seen, likely containing leftovers from a previous meal, with the freezer completely empty.
The woman explains with a painful calmness that she does not go out to protest or bang pots when the electricity goes out - directly referring to the cacerolazos that have shaken various municipalities in Havana - because she is "too old."
Her reason for silence is as simple as it is terrifying: "So that later I might end up in a place I don't even know."
That phrase, said without drama, is a veiled allusion to the repression of the regime, which has responded to protests with arbitrary detentions and imprisonments.
His nightly routine during power outages says it all: "The lights went out, what should I do? Pchum! I lie down calmly. If not, I turn on my lamp when it's charged and settle in. If that’s not an option, I sit outside for a while to enjoy the breeze with my neighbors. We chat until the lights come back on. If they don't come back, I do this, I get up and lie down."
The video, published on Facebook by journalist Javier Díaz from Univisión 23 News in Miami, has garnered nearly 177,000 views.
What the elderly woman describes is not an isolated anecdote: it is the daily life of millions of Cubans caught in the worst energy crisis in Cuba in decades.
In May, the electricity deficit reached a record 2,153 MW, leaving 51% of the country without power simultaneously, with blackouts in some areas exceeding 20 hours a day.
The scarcity of food and its high prices particularly impact the elderly. Seventy-nine percent of those over 70 cannot afford three meals a day, and ninety-nine percent of retirees state that their pension does not cover basic needs such as food, housing, or medications.
The minimum pension was raised to 4,000 Cuban pesos in September 2025, but at the unofficial exchange rate, it amounts to less than 10 dollars a month, a figure that is not enough even for a week's worth of food.
The survey "There is Hunger in Cuba 2025" revealed that 33.9% of households reported that at least one member went to bed hungry in the last year, and that 94.9% experienced some degree of loss in access to food.
While this elderly woman chooses silence out of fear and exhaustion, other Cubans have opted to take to the streets.
The Cuban Observatory of Conflicts recorded a historical high of 1,326 protests in November 2025 alone, with demands focused on electricity, food, and civil liberties.
In May of this year, new protests erupted in Havana under the slogan " electricity, food, and freedom."
The UN warned in February 2026 that power outages create "acute humanitarian risks" for the most vulnerable communities, and that five million people with chronic illnesses have their treatments at risk due to the energy crisis.
The elderly woman in the video asks for nothing. She demands nothing, she does not protest, she does not cry. She simply endures. And that silent resignation, more than any protest, captures the extent of the abandonment to which the Cuban regime has condemned its own people.
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