A charcoal stove that "was not part of her plans" became the only option for a Cuban woman to prepare food for her family during the most recent collapse of the National Electric System. The TikTok user @lilianne.calunga posted a video on July 11 that summarizes in fifty seconds what millions of Cubans experience daily: improvising to do something as basic as cooking.
"I had to light the charcoal grill, which wasn't part of my plans, but when it's time, it's time," she recounts in the video. With what she had on hand, she prepared white rice, took advantage of a can of tuna she had stored away, and seeing some malangas available, decided to make fritters to complete the menu.
"It takes a bit of work, but it's worth it; we love it here at home," she says about that traditional Cuban dish historically associated with charcoal cooking and times of scarcity.
The video is not an isolated incident. The Cuban recorded it on the same day the Western microsystem collapsed again, leaving only 12.6% of customers in Havana with electricity at noon. It was the fourth total blackout of 2026 in just four months.
In the days leading up, the island experienced two complete system failures in less than a week. On July 6, the outage of Unit No. 6 at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant left 9.6 million people without electricity. Four days later, a failure in the 220 kV transmission line between Santa Clara and Sancti Spíritus caused the fourth total blackout of the year, affecting approximately 10 million people and setting a historical record for generation deficit: 2,341 MW, with only 935 MW available against a demand of 3,100 MW.
This Tuesday, 106 power plants remained out of service across the island, according to data from the regime itself.
The scene of the charcoal stove is repeated in thousands of Cuban homes. Due to the inability to cook with electricity, the population has turned to firewood, sawdust stoves made from metal cans, improvised burners, and parabolic solar cookers that are sold in Havana for $135. In areas like Matanzas and La Lisa, cuts of up to 87 consecutive hours have been reported.
The massive return to coal and firewood evokes the Special Period of the 1990s, when Cuba went through a similar crisis following the Soviet collapse. In March 2026, Miguel Díaz-Canel himself ordered to "ensure materials for cooking, from charcoal to firewood," implicitly acknowledging the regression the country is experiencing. The regime had admitted in December 2025 that power outages would persist throughout 2026 without offering concrete solutions.
Social discontent is escalating alongside the darkness. In June, there were a record-breaking 107 street protests, and in July, Cubans have taken to the streets with pot-banging and slogans of "Freedom!" and "Down with the dictatorship!". Prime Minister Manuel Marrero attributed the blackouts to the American embargo, a statement met with widespread indignation.
"This is the reality we are experiencing today in Cuba: an entire country once again in the dark, families changing their routines and seeking alternatives just to do something as basic as preparing their meals, a situation that repeats itself time and again," concludes the protagonist of the video.
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