The playwright from Pinar del Río, Irán Capote, published this Saturday on his Facebook profile a story that combines humor, absurdity, and Cuban reality with a precision that only comes from the experience of living on the island: the tale of "Juan," a citizen who discovered that the master key to resolving a bureaucratic procedure is not patience, nor the early morning hours, nor having the right documents, but rather an EcoFlow.
"Yesterday, I was told a story. Not a Chinese story, a Cuban story. I can't say for sure if it's true, but when it comes to that bitter and picturesque Cuba, this absurd, real, wonderful Cuba, this Cuba that is a breeding ground, I believe it could very well be real," wrote Capote to introduce the tale.
The protagonist—whom the author names "Juan" to protect his identity—woke up early, traveled from another municipality, and waited seated by the office door until the clerks arrived, around 9:00 in the morning, "with a face that showed very little friendliness, like any self-respecting clerk or office worker."
At 9:30, Juan approached the counter, presented his documents, and awaited the verdict. The clerk perched her glasses at the tip of her nose, glanced at the papers, looked at Juan, glanced back at the papers, and then looked at Juan again. An awkward silence hung in the air. Then, removing her glasses, she declared, “Juan, Juan… honey, Machi, to do what you want me to do, to do what you need, to do what you traveled so far for, we need power, Juan, honey, Machi… I feel so sorry for you! You have to come back another day. Or wait there until the power comes back.”
The scene is not a literary exaggeration: in October 2026, the National Electroenergy System registers generation deficits that regularly exceed 1,600 MW daily, and in Pinar del Río —Capote's home province— some circuits have accumulated over 90 consecutive hours without electricity, as acknowledged by the first secretary of the Communist Party in the area.
Public offices, which rely on computers and printers and, for the most part, lack backup power sources, come to a standstill during outages, forcing citizens to return another day or to wait indefinitely for the power to return.
But Juan, according to Capote, "is from Pinar but not foolish." With the calm of someone who has been preparing for the energy crisis for months, he replied, "Mama, I came with my ecoflow."
What followed was worthy of a sitcom. Upon hearing the word "ecoflow" in that office, extension cords, phone chargers, and as a pièce de résistance, a rice cooker, sprang from every corner of the establishment, which the intermediary graciously sent for from her own home to prepare lunch in advance.
Juan's paper was printed in under a minute, but he had to wait for the rice to be ready and for the staff's phones to reach 100% charge.
The EcoFlow —a name that is generically used in Cuba for any portable power station, regardless of the brand— has become an object of cult admiration and an endless source of popular humor. The devices cost between 500 and more than 1,150 dollars, prices that are out of reach for most Cubans, and they mainly arrive sent by relatives from abroad.
The emergence of these devices in public spaces had already led to similar situations: a market administrator took it to sell chicken during power outages, and comedian Javier Berridy coined the name "EcoFlow Domínguez" for a boy who didn't attend school because he "ran out of charge".
The clerk, grateful and with the rice perfectly cooked, ended the episode with a promise of lifelong preferential treatment: "Listen, Juan, whenever you need a document from here, don't look for anyone else but me, Papito, Machi. I'll take care of it for you. Here’s my contact, and give me yours…". And so, in that office of procedures whose name Capote claims to remember but prefers not to mention, she saved the number in her phone under a name that says it all: "Juan Termoeléctrica".
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