The Cuban comedian Mario Sardiñas, known for his character Chequera from the show Vivir del cuento, published a new sketch on Facebook in which he satirizes Cuba's energy crisis: the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant personified as an elderly woman wants to "leave" —meaning, disconnect from the national electrical system— but Chequera prevents her from doing so.
“Let me out! Let me out!” exclaims “Guiteras” in the video. Chequera responds, “You can’t go out anymore, Guitera. Besides, my friend, where are you going? You just got in.”
The central argument of the sketch is that every time the plant is disconnected, the consequences are devastating for its health and for the people.
"You don't realize, my dear, that every time you go out, you cause a big problem," Chequera tells her, before reminding her that "this year you've fallen about 14 times" and warning her that "before you know it, you’ll be left without a hip."
The figure is not a comedic exaggeration: the Guiteras experienced at least 14 outages of the National Electroenergetic System between January and June 2026, with recurrent failures in the boiler and the economizer.
The climax of the sketch comes when "Guiteras" asks for permission to go see his "friends" Felton, Mariel, and Renté—three other Cuban thermoelectric plants also in crisis. Chequera cuts him off immediately: "No, Guitera! No! You know that I can't stand bad associations!"
The joke accurately summarizes the state of the Cuban thermoelectric park. On June 5th, an engineer publicly stated that they do not have the necessary parts for a major repair of the Guiteras.
On June 1, it was reported that the failure in the economizer was occurring for the third time in two weeks, with repairs estimated to take between 72 and 96 hours. On May 30, the plant went offline again due to a leak in the boiler less than 36 hours after being reconnected.
The Felton thermoelectric plant in Holguín also went offline on June 7, a day described as one of the worst of the year for the Cuban electrical system.
This widespread collapse has resulted in power outages of more than 20 to 22 hours daily in Havana, with reports of up to 40 continuous hours without electricity in some areas of the country during May 2026, when the generation deficit reached 2,204 MW.
It is not the first time that Sardiñas has turned the energy crisis into comedic material. In April, he published a viral sketch about power outages from Artemisa, and at the end of May, he satirized the price of 800 pesos for a haircut with direct references to the thermoelectric plants.
The new video about the Guiteras has accumulated over 45,000 views and nearly 2,700 reactions, confirming that humor remains one of the few outlets for Cubans who face darkness on a daily basis.
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