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A Cuban identified as Gretel Aparicio posted this Sunday on Facebook a heartbreaking testimony about the crisis in Cuba, in which she expresses her complete exhaustion from the water shortages, endless blackouts, and the inability to maintain a decent life for her family.
“I’m selling my bed since I no longer know what it means to sleep in it, I’m selling my refrigerator because it has ultimately become just another decoration in my home, I’m selling my house because I can no longer call it home, I only see it as a prison that no longer makes me happy,” Aparicio wrote in his post, which includes a photograph of his young son lying on a bed.
The text traverses, with a rawness that reflects the limits of exhaustion, every aspect of daily life that the crisis has destroyed.
"I am selling my tanks and the piping to the water vendors of La Güinera; perhaps they will make better use of them than I do, as having water has become a luxury," he noted, referring directly to La Güinera, a Havana neighborhood where residents have gone weeks without regular supply, dealing with contaminated water and illegal sales of water trucks for 40,000 pesos.
Nationally, about 2.7 million Cubans are suffering from a lack of daily water, according to data from May 2026, with the water system operating at 37% of the fuel it needs to function.
Aparicio also described the impact of the energy collapse in her home: "I am so exhausted that my son cries at night from the damn heat; I am so tired of having been cooking with charcoal for over a year as if I were an indigenous woman."
The shortage of domestic gas and the blackouts exceeding 20 hours a day in many areas have forced thousands of Cuban families to revert to using wood and charcoal for cooking, a situation that the UN has described as part of a humanitarian crisis particularly affecting children and the elderly.
The Cuban electrical system has experienced seven total collapses in 18 months, with a record blackout of 29 hours and 29 minutes recorded on March 16, 2026.
The Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant, the most important in the country, went offline for the 17th time in 2026 just last Friday, totaling 293 hours out of service.
The only connection Aparicio says he has in Cuba is his grandmother, whose situation he describes with particular pain: “Only God knows that the only thing that ties me to this country is my grandmother, a grandmother who suffers every night, and I have to listen to her cry because she has to sleep on a nylon that burns her skin so that her mattress lasts as long as God wants to make her suffer.”
"I am selling my dreams, perhaps they can be of use to someone; it hurts to wait for the day when the life of the Cuban will change," Aparicio concluded his post with a final plea: "God, if you really exist, have mercy on your people who need you so much."
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