An elderly woman in front of an improvised wood stove in the yard, cooking segments of a wild plant called "Uña de Dios" to treat ailments that she cannot afford with medications: this image, published this Sunday by Cuban playwright Irán Capote, brutally and precisely captures what he found during his visit to his grandmother in El Jíbaro, a rural community in the municipality of San Juan y Martínez, in Pinar del Río.
Capote chronicled the visit in a Facebook post after four months without being able to see his family, bringing "a few things that barely fit in a Cuban bag." What he found was not the relief he sought: no electricity for over four days, no running water for over 40, the store closed, and medications beyond the reach of any farmer in the area.
"In El Jíbaro, San Juan y Martínez, my grandmother, who is neither a witch nor knowledgeable about witchcraft, tosses into the dark cauldron, fueled by so much burning firewood, sprigs of a plant she calls blessed to heal an extensive list of ailments," the author wrote. The plant, which the elderly woman refers to as "God's Nail," has become the only available therapeutic resource. "The name of the plant seems too ironic to me," Capote pointed out.
The family had a small energy accumulator without solar panels, which they charged during the hour and a half of daily electricity, but that routine was interrupted. The grandmother, amidst the smoke of the stove, "repeats like a mantra that things are very bad and that medications cost an arm and a leg."
The power outage that Capote describes is not an isolated case: some circuits in Pinar del Río experienced over 90 consecutive hours without electricity during the week, as recognized this Sunday by the provincial first secretary of the Communist Party. And since more than 80% of Cuba's aqueducts rely on the National Electric System, each blackout leads to a cut in water supply: 52 out of the 177 water supply sources in the province were out of order during those same days.
"There's been no water there for over 40 days either. What irony!" wrote the playwright, who had spent many days in the city carrying water in five-liter containers. The neighbors in El Jíbaro solve their water supply issues by collecting rainwater in pots placed under the roof gutters, he recounted. The recent rain quenched their thirst but brought mud along with it, worsening the landscape of neglect.
"The people of the neighborhood already wear on their faces, in their bodies, in their voices, the pain of a country that has cast them aside," wrote Capote. When the neighbors asked him how the city was doing, he replied that "it's almost the same as in the countryside, though perhaps a little better." Their unanimous response was, "This has no bottom. We have to leave for wherever. There is no prosperity."
The energy and water crisis is compounded by the collapse of the distribution system. The neighborhood store remains closed, and bread has not been sold for some time. The tobacco farmers are awaiting payments for previous harvests while accumulating debts to buy "the most expensive bag of rice, the most expensive bag of sugar, and whatever else comes up."
The use of medicinal plants as a substitute for pharmaceuticals is not exclusive to Capote's grandmother: A digital survey conducted by CubaData for Diario de Cuba between February 23 and March 13, 2026, revealed that approximately 91% of participants reported experiencing some degree of difficulty in obtaining medications.
The regime itself has promoted the cultivation of plants such as aloe, linden, mint, and plantain in response to the chronic shortages in pharmacies. The “God's Nail” from Capote's grandmother is another variant of a survival strategy that the State has normalized by omission.
Capote closed his chronicle with a phrase that serves as a challenge: "The level of degradation, misery, and suffering of our farmers is painful. If anyone wants to verify it, go over there, deep into the countryside... and disprove me."
And until that happens, her grandmother will continue to hold on, as the grandson lamented, "not by the hand, but by the Nail of God."
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