A Cuban mother identified on Facebook as "La Cubana" broke down in tears in front of the camera after finding out that 48 consecutive hours without electricity had spoiled the milk and meat she had stored to feed her children.
"It's been 48 hours without power in Cuba, and this is my face after seeing that both the milk and the meat have gone bad," the woman says at the beginning of the video, her voice trembling and her eyes teary.
The author of the clip describes herself as a positive and cheerful person, but she acknowledges that this time she couldn't contain her emotions: "I am a very positive, happy person, and I always try to keep a smile for you all, but the truth is that today I was overcome by emotion."
The trigger is not just the material loss, but the effort involved in obtaining those food items amidst the widespread shortages faced by the island.
"It's a tremendous effort and sacrifice that one makes as a parent to put a meal on the table for our children, only to have it all ruined overnight," he laments.
However, the woman does not give up. "The issue here is not to cry or lament, my love; it's about getting up and continuing to think about what we are going to do to feed our children," she states, and adds, "I am one of those mothers who dries her tears and moves forward for her children."
The testimony also reveals a double crisis. When the current arrived and she tried to use it to cook rice, there was no water either.
"When I went to put the rice on, my love, we ran out of water. Now we have to figure out where to get water to cook the rice," she explains. The solution was to go to a friend's house to fetch "a little bit of water" to be able to cook.
The video is set against the backdrop of the sixth national blackout that Cuba experienced in 2026, which occurred between August 2 and 3, when the power grid collapsed twice in less than 48 hours.
As of August 5, Havana had only recovered 108 out of 286 circuits—barely 38% of the capital—while in other provinces, outages accumulated between 20 and over 40 hours daily, and in some areas of Holguín, service interruptions exceeded 70 hours.
The loss of food due to lack of refrigeration is not an isolated case: it is a widespread phenomenon documented across the island.
The 2025 National Food Security Survey from the Food Monitor Program, conducted in the 16 provinces, revealed that 48.3% of Cuban households lost food due to a lack of refrigeration caused by power outages, and that 80.4% experienced a decrease in their cooking capacity.
In provinces such as Granma, Matanzas, Pinar del Río, and Sancti Spíritus, the number of households that experienced losses of refrigerated food exceeded 80%.
The impact on family nutrition is equally alarming: 33.9% of the surveyed households reported that at least one member went to bed hungry at least once in the 30 days prior to the survey, 9.3 percentage points more than in 2024.
Such testimonies have become common on Cuban social media. Other mothers have experienced similar situations in reaction to the loss of food acquired with immense effort, from chickens to beans, in a country where scarcity makes every purchase a challenge.
The electrical crisis, caused by the extreme aging of thermal power plants, a lack of fuel, and a shortage of spare parts, shows no signs of a short-term solution, and this Friday, power outages could last for 23 hours and 40 minutes in some areas of the country.
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