The popular comedian Mario Sardiñas, in his enduring character Chequera from the show "Vivir del Cuento," has just solved in one fell swoop what the Cuban regime has been unable to resolve for years: he simplified the chaotic electrical block system to just two categories. No more blocks one through six, no more rotating schedules or circuits with names and numbers. From now on, according to the new chequérica taxonomy, there are only the "block without power" and the "block with power."
The reel, posted on his Facebook page, shows Chequera talking on the phone with his "boss" to report on the progress of his mission: bringing down all the blocks of the National Electric System. The conversation begins with an urgent clarification: he didn't touch the block on the left. "Although I think that block belongs to ETECSA," the character explains, "because whenever I'm about to take them down, the phone rings first."
The joke is not just funny; it is surgically precise. In Cuba, the telephone signal and the electrical service share the same catastrophic fate, and the "left," at least in the realm of propaganda, is the hallmark of the country's leaders, who never experience power outages.
Then comes the climax of the sketch: the presentation of Block 6. "You know what they call Block 6," says Chequera. "The drunk one, yes, or the one that’s always on the floor." The nickname is not the humorist's invention; it’s the name given to that block, which he has to endure himself, symbolizing the energy desperation that every Cuban feels with theirs.
The joke comes at a moment of real change in the management of power outages. The Electric Company of Havana has officially abandoned the block system to manage power cuts by individual electrical circuits, a shift accelerated by the fourth total blackout of the year, which occurred on July 10 and left millions of Cubans without electricity.
Chequera, true to his style, got ahead of the bureaucracy. While the regime took days to announce the new system, he resolved it in a minute and a second of video. "Circuit, circuit, circuit. Boss, there's a huge issue with the blocks," says the character before proclaiming his definitive energy reform.
It is not the first time that Sardiñas has turned the darkness of Cuba into comedic material. In April, he traveled to the Moon aboard the Artemis spacecraft to escape the blackouts, a mission aborted because "the fuel for the spacecraft was stolen." In May, he awarded diplomas and gladioluses to the most outstanding blocks for their records of outages, with Block 6 taking all the honors. And in June, he greeted with "good evening" in broad daylight, because in Block 6, night begins when the regime decides.
The reality that Chequera satirizes is brutal: the energy deficit reached a historical record of 2,341 MW between July 8 and 9, with 73% of the population affected simultaneously. In some areas of Matanzas, there were reports of up to 87 consecutive hours without electricity. The country's largest thermoelectric plant, the Antonio Guiteras CTE, has failed 17 times so far in 2026 and has not received major maintenance since 2010.
The comments on the video reflect that Cuban blend of laughter and resignation. "You have to laugh so you don’t cry," wrote one follower. "I’m on 2 but from Nuevo Vedado; maybe I was connected to 6 and didn’t realize it because it’s always on the floor." Another person suggested an alternative use for the physical blocks: "With those blocks, I could make a cistern for water." Because in Cuba, when there is no electricity, there is also no water. And when there’s no water or electricity, at least there’s Chequera.
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