Cuban journalist Martha María Montejo, residing in Texas, returned a week ago from a ten-day trip to Bayamo, where her mother lives, with a devastating account: she spent 240 hours in Cuba and only enjoyed 20 hours of electricity, which represents less than 10% of her stay on the Island.
Montejo, who travels to Cuba at least once a year to visit his elderly mother and family, sums up the experience in three words: "Sadness, misery, and precarity."
"Every time I go, I think: 'It can't be worse than what I'm experiencing now.' And it turns out that each time I return, it’s worse. There’s always another degree of misery, of precariousness," he stated in an interview with Tania Costa.
The journalist outright rejects the term "blackouts" to describe what she experienced. "I don't think it's a country that has blackouts. I believe it's a country without electricity. Because if we have blackouts, it means we have a system that is delivering electrical energy. But that's not the case," she explained.
The last two days of their stay were the most extreme: over 48 consecutive hours without any electricity supply.
The absence of electricity brings with it issues related to access to water. Montejo explains that the supply system in Bayamo relies on electric pumps that draw water from wells, and that this water—now no longer potable—reaches the pipes every two or three days in the form of "a slight trickle." The problem worsens because this meager flow rarely coincides with the few hours when electricity is available.
Montejo also identifies a paradox within the regime itself: the government program for the electrification of domestic kitchens, launched years ago to reduce gas consumption, has increased households' energy dependence and makes the current situation even more critical, as electricity is now notably absent.
Montejo's testimony aligns with verifiable data regarding the crisis in Granma province. On the same day she returned from Cuba, the Electric Company of Granma warned that it was only generating one third of what was needed, with circuit 4117 accumulating over 45 consecutive hours without service. On May 14, the entire province of Granma lost electricity due to a failure in the Contramaestre-Bayamo line, with a national record deficit of 2,174 MW.
The water crisis is not exclusive to Bayamo. According to official Cuban data, almost three million Cubans suffer from water scarcity without regular access to supply, while around 10 million experience intermittent supply. The hydraulic system operated in May with only 37% of the fuel needed for pumping.
On June 5th, during Montejo's stay in Bayamo, the regime mobilized "fighters" to explain the blackouts to the population, a political response to a crisis that the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, acknowledged in May as "acute, critical," and "extremely tense" due to a lack of fuel.
"There is a great sadness," concluded Montejo, who could not find more precise words to describe the Cuba he left behind.
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