I just got back from almost 2 weeks in #Cuba last night. It was a rough trip! I spent the time in Central #Havana and the outskirts of the nearby city of #Matanzas. If you've heard of how difficult the living conditions are due to the U.S. blockade of oil, it's just as bad as you imagined.
I used to go once or twice a year, but this was my first time back in 12 years. Big difference!
There are power outages constantly that last for hours or days. It's too hot to sleep and you can't even turn on a fan. Depending on the household, the water supply may be just as unreliable as the electricity. When you get water, you collect it in every bucket you can find. But use it sparingly for washing yourself lest you don't have another bucket with which to flush the toilet! Same for the supply of cooking gas. People burn charcoal or wood on makeshift barbeques made out of the cages of fans or the hub of a car's wheel or whatever they can fashion together.
There's not enough diesel for the garbage trucks, so the trash keeps piling up in the streets until the stench is too much to endure, at which point somebody sets fire to it. And it can smoulder for days. I assume for the same fuel shortage reason, there isn't the level of police patrols that there were in the past (I was there for a week before I saw a cop). There hasn't been city buses in Havana for 2 or 3 months.
A new electric vehicle called a tri-cycle, that can transport 4 to 6 people, is taking over the job of the buses. Solar panels are being installed everywhere. Everyone talks about getting an "ecoflow" (they use it like a word and not a product name). But the price of solar panels and house batteries are far out of reach for most people.
Oh, and about that U.S. blockade... I noticed a great deal more American products than ever before. It left me with the impression that the blockade is now about being the exclusive supplier to the island over whatever they thought it would accomplish before.