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A Cuban father wrote a letter in which he describes, with a rawness that has touched thousands of people, the daily life of his family under the crisis imposed by the regime: more than 20 hours a day without electricity, malnourished children, and the inability to take them to school because they don't have "a glass of milk to fill their stomachs."
The text was published on Facebook by the user Mary Canela. The author requested to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, a tactic that is becoming increasingly common among Cubans who wish to report on the crisis from within the Island without exposing themselves to state repression.
"I write in total darkness, but not only the kind from these endless blackouts, but also the darkness of a future that you have completely extinguished in Cuba," begins the letter, addressed directly to those who govern the country.
The man describes himself as a laborer whose income barely stretches to feed his family "for about three days" a month. He and his wife prefer not to eat to provide something for their children. "My house has ceased to be a home; it is a punishment cell, where we can only cry out to God and give the children whatever we can manage, even if my wife and I don't eat anything," he writes.
The letter details how the little food they manage to buy goes to waste due to power outages: "That piece of chicken that cost a month's salary spoils in the refrigerator, releasing a smell of defeat that fills the kitchen."
Her children do not sleep either. "They spend the night crying, drenched in sweat, eaten alive by mosquitoes and gnats in the suffocating heat, while we fan them with a piece of cardboard until our arms hurt," she recounts.
The lack of electricity is compounded by the absence of water and medication. "The pharmacies are empty. The hospitals are museums of scarcity. There is no painkiller, there is no antibiotic, there are no bandages," he laments.
The father firmly rejects the official argument: "I can no longer tolerate hearing them talk about 'blockades' and 'sacrifices,' because the only blockade that suffocates us today is the inability of their system to provide us with a dignified life."
Next, he lashes out at the country's leadership: "While you live in a Cuba of privileges and solar panels, we live in a Cuba of extreme survival, where a young person no longer dreams of graduating but of a passport to never return."
And he emphasizes the desire for change for himself and for the entire people: "We don’t want any more explanations on television, we don’t want any more meetings that don't guarantee change, we don’t want any more inept leaders who are a mockery in society. We don’t want rulers who do not represent us."
The father concludes his letter with a warning that encapsulates the exasperation of millions: "History will not remember them as heroes of the resistance, but as the administrators of misery. (...) A people that has already lost everything has also lost their fear."
The letter circulates in a context of unprecedented electrical collapse, with deficits exceeding 1,960 MW last Friday, leaving 65% of the country without power simultaneously.
The average state salary is around 6,930 Cuban pesos, about 13 dollars at the informal exchange rate, while a pound of pork costs between 900 and 980 pesos. The Food Monitor Program documents that 96.91% of the population lacks adequate access to food, and 33.9% of households reported that a member went to bed hungry in the last 30 days.
The comments on Mary Canela's post amplify the pain of the anonymous father.
"This is like a psychological war that we, ordinary Cubans, have to live through, because they, the leaders, are not going through this process at all and they don't care," wrote a follower.
A mother confessed, "I don't know how long my youngest son has been sleeping on the floor because of the heat; not to mention the mosquitoes. It pains me so much to see him on the ground."
Another woman recalled the Special Period of the 90s: "Now history is repeating itself, but I am older and tired, very tired of enduring so much injustice. In this country, we no longer live; we merely survive, and very poorly."
In April 2026, more than 1,100 protests were recorded in Cuba, an increase of 29.5% compared to the same month the previous year. The regime has responded with arrests and internet outages.
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