havana
Cuba’s cherished ballet tradition endures through daily blackouts and shortages
HAVANA | For months, two-thirds of Cuba had no electricity at night. Some neighborhoods in the capital of Havana have been without running water for more than two weeks. Transportation is scarce and eggs, bread and cooking oil are hard to find. Yet every morning, about 178 young students gather for classes at the National […]
As blackouts stretch for days, life in Cuba revolves around small bursts of electricity
HAVANA | A 20-minute burst of electricity is a small miracle in Havana nowadays — a miracle that sometimes comes at 3 a.m. That’s when 72-year-old Leidis Rodríguez frantically cooked beans after the lights switched on this week following hours of uninterrupted blackouts. “The power has come back on, everyone go!” Rodríguez shouted. In the […]
A garbage crisis engulfs Havana as fuel shortages stall trash pickup
HAVANA | On a recent afternoon in Cuba, the temperature climbed and anxiety grew among the residents of a Havana street. Their focus was an improvised dump site on the sidewalk with rotting food scraps, torn bags, cardboard and rubble. Swarms of flies and stray cats gathered around the trash whose stench wafted on the […]