By Nike

HAVANA TIMES – We’ve all heard about the power outages in Cuba. For some time now the electricity has been cut more and more frequently, and there’s even a schedule going around announcing which block you belong to and the hours when the power will go out. Several friends have tried to send it to me, and I flatly tell them no. The truth is I’m not interested at all in knowing, because they cut it whenever they feel like it anyway—they lower the breaker on whatever block they want, whenever they want.

I don’t know what to think about Cubans sometimes, because they want to know when the electricity will be cut. My friends tell me it’s better to know so you can prepare. Prepare for what? I ask them. They don’t understand and think they’re doing me a favor, and I thank them.

In reality, Cubans have lost a bit of their right to decide. So many years without being able to do so have left their brains blocked; someone has to tell them what to do. A good example is following a schedule that they never actually keep. And on top of that, they wait for the blackout.

Every time the power goes out, the neighbor across from my house comes out into the street with her whole family. She turns it into a whole ritual and announces it out loud: “I’ve finished cooking and we’ve all taken our baths.” In other words, she’s ready for the outage as if it were a party. And when the power hasn’t gone out yet, they say: “The electricity still hasn’t gone off and it was supposed to at four.” I don’t understand that attitude, almost as if they were waiting for something good. The truth is that what we Cubans are living through is very sad.

Even I have found myself taking daytime blackouts with a different attitude. Since I can’t sew, which is the work I do to earn a living because my machine is electric, I sit down to read a book and sit on the terrace to enjoy some time that I prefer to think is a gift. If there was electricity, I’d be doing something else because of the responsibilities I have as a mother and head of the family.

I also work in my yard: I plant things, water my plants. It’s a wonderful feeling to connect with Mother Nature. I escape from reality and the constant worry of not having normal electricity service, one that we all pay for at a rate that is actually quite high compared with the salaries most Cubans earn.

The power cuts at night are different—they’re horrible, really. Now they happen at dusk, a time when darkness falls with a weight that feels very anguishing and disappointing. One has to fill oneself with optimism, to think that this won’t last forever and that the torture will end soon.

In any case, in my house we always try to make the best of everything in life as the Japanese say. We sit down at the table and have dinner with a rechargeable lamp that gives off plenty of light, and we talk about how our day went. We talk mostly about art, about movies, and about our reality, which we can’t ignore—it’s always present, even more so with that general darkness around us.

In a way it has that good side: during the blackouts we sit together and share a very close moment. I call it our after-dinner gathering. For me, wherever you live, you can’t allow things that are beyond your control and for which you’re not responsible to change, to make you unhappy, or drive you crazy, as unfortunately has happened to many people here.

I know the Cuban reality is dark—or as my sister used to say, “gray with little green dots.” I don’t know where that phrase came from. However, back in the 1970s when my sister was studying at the San Alejandro Art Academy, all her friends used to repeat it when referring to a very bad situation. I also know that for all of us it has been very hard, and it still is.

In the first days of March another nationwide blackout happened again, from Camagüey all the way to Pinar del Río. Once more we had to make the morning coffee and cook our food with charcoal.

A friend called me the other day saying she can’t stand cooking in the middle of the night anymore, which is when they are giving them just a few hours of electricity. She’s very tired of rearranging her life, especially her hours of rest, because now she doesn’t sleep at night and must sleep a few hours during the day. It’s crazy and it depresses her a lot. I’m very sorry for what is happening to us, and I have hope and faith that everything will change for our people who deserve something good—simply to live like human beings in the 21st century.

I’m going to wait until the electricity comes back to finish this article. In the meantime, I’ll finish the book I’m reading. It’s still daytime and there’s plenty of light, which is free because no one can lower the breaker on the Sun. You have to take advantage of it, enjoy it, and be grateful to nature for its blessing.

Note: I managed to finish the book and now I have another one in my sights. I’ve been able to read quite a few books during these power outages, making good use of my time, which is golden and I don’t want to give it away to anyone. That’s something I recommend to everyone.

Thank you for reading me.

Read more from the diary of Nike here on Havana Times