A 28-year-old Cuban woman living in the municipality of Artemisa recorded a video in which she reports being without electricity for more than five days after a transformer exploded in her neighborhood.
Gelsys Blanco is a graduated doctor, although she is not practicing her profession. She explained that on Saturday night an explosion destroyed the transformer in her neighborhood. On Sunday, the first reports were sent to the Electric Company of Artemisa, but they have not yet received a response.
"We are on a long list of people waiting for a transformer. People who have been waiting for months without electricity, without water, unable to work," he denounces in the video.
Without electricity, Gelsys cannot make the sweets that supplement her income or keep food preserved. "How can I work now if I don't have power? How do I maintain my home? What do I do?" she asks with visible exhaustion.
The most shocking element of his complaint is the corruption associated with the shortage of transformers: an intermediary reportedly told neighborhood residents that, by paying 100,000 Cuban pesos, the equipment "could appear."
Gelsys counters with a question that summarizes the situation: "Where is someone who earns 2,500 pesos a month supposed to find 100,000 Cuban pesos?"
As a doctor, she earned her first 5,060 pesos at the polyclinic and spent it on three tubes of ham and a pack of chicken. "We are animals, cooking with charcoal," she says at another point in the video.
The case of Artemisa is not isolated
In Güines, there are also neighbors who have been without electricity for over a week following the explosion of another transformer, with three unsuccessful repair attempts and no replacement equipment available.
In that area, the same scheme of corruption was documented: 100,000 pesos for the transformer to "appear." In Granma, the electric company acknowledged at least 14 damaged transformers as of June 10, with circuits accumulating over 45 consecutive hours without service.
The pattern repeats throughout the island: local breakdowns that turn into indefinite blackouts due to a lack of spare parts, creating a second layer of darkness over the already critical national electrical crisis.
On June 10, Cuba generated only a third of the electricity it needed, with a projected deficit of over 2,000 MW at night.
Gelsys also rejects the official argument that attributes the crisis to the U.S. embargo.
"I'm tired of the leaders of this country not solving problems and blaming imperialism," she asserts, recalling that blackouts existed before the sanctions from the Trump administration.
Gelsys ended her video with a phrase that encapsulates the mood of millions of Cubans: "This is not life, this is survival."
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