It’s 5:30 in the morning in Arroyo Naranjo, a municipality located to the south of Old Havana. Javier (who is 27) and his father, Elías (64), cannot remember the last time they walked hand in hand. Now they are taking short steps, side by side, because in the early-morning darkness they can barely see their hands in front of them. They can only hear the whispers of neighbors, chatting in their homes, as they walk in this suburb on the outskirts of Cuba’s capital city.
They haven’t showered in over a day and their house hasn’t had electricity for more than 16 hours. The power outage coincided with the day when the aqueduct pumps water into this area, so the neighborhood’s water tanks are also empty. They are hungry and thirsty. The little they had left in the refrigerator—some chicken and the last two sausages from a pack of five—had to be shared between four people. If they didn’t eat them, they would soon rot. To cook their meal, they built a makeshift charcoal stove on the roof, using stones and wood boards; gas tanks haven’t been refilled in this municipality for a month. They are tired. They have hardly been able to sleep because of the heat and the stench coming from the overflowing trash containers on the corner, which are now blocking traffic. And because there is no electricity, the only way they can make sure that they get up on time in the morning is to keep their eyes always half open so they can be their own alarm clocks.
Javier and Elías are the first to arrive at the bus stop that morning. Before long, five other people join them: four men and one woman. At 6:30 am, 30 minutes after the bus they’d been waiting for had been scheduled to arrive, they all decide to return home. The transport that was supposed to take them to military exercises that they were required to attend as members of the reserves of the Revolutionary Armed Forces never showed up. (Their participation in the reserves takes place on weekends: Javier works in tourism, and Elías is retired.)