MARIEL (Cuba) — Rosa Lopez is a 59 year old housewife who lit a charcoal fire to prepare eggs and sweet potatoes for her grandchildren. Since almost two months, the gas cylinders that Rosa Lopez normally uses to prepare her meals in Mariel, an island town west of Havana, have been unavailable.
Ramon Victores, who works as a truck driver, moved produce between towns, spent a week in line for gas at a station near Pinar del Rio.
Cuba’s latest fuel shortage is crippling an already fragile economy. It has hit rural villages especially hard. Residents are forced to use coal to cook food and scramble to find transportation to get them to work. They also spend days and nights at gas stations waiting for fuel.
The Associated Press spoke to residents of a dozen villages located in the provinces Artemisa and Mayabeque to the east and west Havana to find out how the fuel crisis is affecting them and what they are doing to avoid another crisis.
The end of Cuba’s dual currency system, as well as the tightening of U.S. sanctions have led to a shortage of food and medicines in an economy already severely affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. The lack of cooking gas and fuel is the final straw for many Cubans living in rural areas.
Lopez, a housewife from Mariel, cooks her meals with coal and firewood since the government stopped selling gas cylinders a little over a week ago. The government has put in place a system of coupons to organize the delivery of cooking gas. But Lopez, who is number 900 on the list, doesn’t know when she will be able get one.
Rosa Lopez lights a charcoal stove to cook food for her grandchildren, amid a gas shortage in Mariel, Cuba, on May 18, 2023.
Ramon Espinosa / AP
Around 50 kilometers (30 miles), east of Mariel on the road towards Pinar del Rio a group small vehicles joined an extensive queue of tractors, other farming equipment, and a gas station, waiting to be filled up. Many waited up to a week.
Manuel Rodriguez, an 67-year old gardener, spent four days waiting in line to fill up his battered bike. Instead of accepting the three liters required to fill up his motorcycle, he devised an ingenious solution to make the most of the 10-liter limit per user. He attached a 10-liter tank to the frame.
He said, “It is a little dangerous” as he showed off his invention. “But it works!”
Lack of fuel also makes it difficult for small village residents to get to work or move between neighboring towns. Maria de la Caridad Cordero 58, a teacher from Guines in the province Mayabeque waited in Guines for a ride in order to go to Jaguey Grande and visit her brother.
She said, “If I can’t find something by noon, I will go home and try tomorrow or the next day.”
After two hours of unsuccessfully waving money to the drivers, she and 12 other villagers boarded a yellow bus that abruptly came to a screeching stop.
Lopez and her family found temporary relief on a small piece of land in Mariel where they had built a coal-burning stove and grew some fruits and vegetables. But basic food is still difficult to find.
She says, “There is no cooking oil in the bodega.” “Hopefully we’ll have some tomorrow.”
