The Cuban content creator Sofii Magdaleno, residing in Guanabo, East Havana, denounced the crisis in the country and questioned how much longer the people will endure this situation.
The young woman used the little battery left on her mobile phone, after more than two days of blackout, to record the video she posted on Facebook where she expressed a frustration shared by thousands of Cubans.
"Since the day before yesterday when they cut off the electricity, they came to restore it today and after 20 minutes they cut it off again. It’s the MB960 circuit, Guanabo, Havana del Este. I would like to know how much longer they plan to take us through this." he says.
The video does not only talk about power outages. Sofii describes a triple deficiency that has become commonplace in her neighborhood: electricity cuts lasting up to three consecutive days, a lack of water for bathing, washing dishes, and cooking, and now the start of the school year that the regime insists on maintaining despite these conditions.
"And they still say it's the start of the school year, come on, don't mess with me," she exclaims with indignation.
The post has accumulated over 15,600 views and dozens of comments that echo the same situation from other areas of the country.
"And without being able to iron the uniform, what a start to the school year. Speechless," wrote a follower.
One person remarked, "Oh, friend, we've been without water for three months." And another internet user summarized the collective despair: "Exactly, what school are they talking about under these conditions when they can't even sleep well with the heat and mosquitoes?"
A context that doesn't improve
In July, Sofii published a heartbreaking testimony about the blackouts in which she showed her defrosted refrigerator and described life under the outages as "living like animals."
The energy context in which this new demand arises is devastating. On September 1, Cuba began the school year in the dark. The Electric Union reported a available generation of only 960 MW against a demand of 2,910 MW, with a projected deficit of 2,280 MW.
The Minister of Education herself admitted a "dramatic start" to the school year.
The water crisis is worsening the situation. Since April, power outages that interrupt the water pumps have left hundreds of thousands of Cubans without a regular supply.
In July, specialists from Aguas de La Habana raised the number of affected individuals to over 500,000 people. In August, a failure in the hydraulic infrastructure left six municipalities in the capital simultaneously without water.
La Unión Eléctrica had warned weeks earlier that the blackouts would worsen between September and December due to the overlap of thermoelectric units undergoing maintenance or breakdowns, a prospect that makes it even harder to imagine when the nightmare that Sofii Magdaleno articulated will come to an end: "I will see how much longer the people can endure."
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