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Jessica Castaño, a 28-year-old Cuban resident in Havana, posted on Facebook a testimony that encapsulates the exhaustion of millions: a photo of the dented base of her pot —used in protests— and a text titled "Tutorial on How to Leave a Pot Like This," in which she describes step by step the conditions that have pushed her to her limits.
"Step 1: Have the power cut for more than 24 hours and then restored for only five to 20 minutes, as counted by the clock," writes Castaño, brutally detailing each linked deprivation: without electricity, there’s no water pumping, the refrigerator becomes "a showcase with stench where the food you manage to obtain with sacrifice rots," liquefied gas is sold in dollars "supposedly to raise foreign currency, which I don’t know where they put because there’s no investment in anything here, there’s NOTHING here," and the price of charcoal skyrockets during the rainy season due to higher demand.
Wear and tear is not just material. "When you're about to turn 28 and feel like you're 50 because we are aging at the speed of light, the physical and mental toll is too much," she writes.
Castaño also recounts that his eight-year-old daughter asks him when the blackouts will end, and he doesn't know what to tell her.
The testimony concludes with a phrase that encapsulates the mood of an entire generation: "Here, no one is resisting, here, no one wants to resist; either give away the country or sell it to someone who cares, because no one wants to spend the rest of their life resisting."
Castaño's post adds to a wave of heartbreaking accounts about blackouts that Cubans are sharing on social media.
In provinces such as Granma and Holguín, the power outages last between 45 and 48 consecutive hours.
The researcher Jorge Piñón warned that the situation regarding blackouts in Cuba will worsen, noting that around 60% of the thermoelectric fleet —about 10 or 11 out of the 19 units— was out of service in June.
The dented pot has become a dual symbol: it is the utensil with which Cubans bang in protest, and at the same time, it is evidence of cooking with charcoal or firewood due to the lack of gas and electricity.
The casserole protests against blackouts have erupted in several neighborhoods in Havana and other cities since March, with the Cuban Conflict Observatory recording 1,245 protests that month and 1,133 in April.
The impact on mental health is documented. A study published in 2026 in the journal Social Science & Medicine, based on 415 Cuban adults surveyed between July and November 2025, revealed that 55.4% exhibit extremely severe depression, 66% severe anxiety, and 65.8% extreme stress.
Younger adults turned out to be the most vulnerable group, precisely the generation to which Castaño belongs.
Other Cuban women have shared similar experiences in recent days: Lia Benítez described more than 35 hours without electricity and an anxiety crisis, and Mileydis González talked about depression caused by the power outages, both on Saturday.
"Then it’s all justifications and no solutions, while you see your life suffering. I am tired," concludes Castaño, with a statement that the regime has no response to.
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