In Havana, a 20-minute surge of electricity feels like a rare blessing these days, sometimes arriving as unexpectedly as 3 a.m.
That’s when 72-year-old Leidis Rodríguez rushes to cook beans, taking advantage of the brief return of power after enduring long blackouts.
Following extended blackouts in Cuba—exacerbated by the oil blockade introduced by the Trump administration in January—Cubans have begun structuring their lives around those fleeting moments when the lights flicker back on.
These brief moments of relief may last mere minutes or stretch a few hours, striking unpredictably day or night. More often now, they interrupt the sleep of Rodríguez and her 41-year-old daughter, Yaimara Matos.
When the power returns, everything else comes to a halt for the family.
“We want to do everything at once—launder clothes, iron, cook, tidy up because it’s impossible in the dark, and even find some respite from the heat,” Matos explained. “What used to take 10 hours now must be squeezed into just two.”
This scenario is common across Cuba, where life has emerged as one of the island’s most severe crises since its famous revolution. Day-to-day existence has become a maze of overlapping challenges that families must navigate.
Public transportation and cultural events have ceased. So has tourism, a key economic sector, especially with tourism companies withdrawing and leaving 25,000 hospitality jobs vacant. Flights to the island are frequently canceled and workdays shortened to accommodate life without power. Scarcity of medicine is worsening and food spoils as refrigerators lose power.
Power outages are hardly new in the Caribbean nation. Widespread blackouts began worsening five years ago due to an aging energy infrastructure, decades-long U.S. sanctions, and unsuccessful economic policies under the communist government.
However, living conditions took a sharp downturn when President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba, its main energy source. Combined with stricter sanctions, these measures aimed at provoking political change mostly strained the everyday lives of ordinary Cubans.
Previously, blackouts were scheduled by the government as a power-saving measure, allowing families to prepare for outages typically lasting two to three hours. Nowadays, predictability has vanished: outages can stretch for 12 hours, 30 hours, or longer. Increasingly, the entire island plunges into darkness; last weekend marked the sixth grid failure this year.
Cubans like Rodríguez and Matos, accustomed to crisis adaptation, have devised their coping strategies. The family invested in a small power generator they can only afford to run a few hours daily.
Earlier in the week at around 9 p.m., Matos cranked up their generator—its noise filling the air as she spoke—to pump water and operate her washing machine. Some install solar panels sent by relatives abroad. Others buy rechargeable fans or solar-powered vehicles due to gasoline scarcity.
Lianet Barroso once used a gas stove but now cooks over a wood fire. With no certainty of her next water supply, she fills as many plastic bottles as possible when power resurges.
“Living in Cuba has become tough, hard, and depressing,” she remarked.
Across several municipalities, particularly in Havana, residents took to the streets protesting blackouts exceeding 48 hours by banging pots and pans and igniting garbage piles on street corners. Meanwhile, inflation and rising dollar prices have made it difficult for many to afford perishable goods like chicken that could spoil during outages.
Under the glow of a rechargeable lamp during a blackout at 10 p.m., 64-year-old engineer Caridad Delgado prepared food for her cat—affordable thanks only to remittances from her three children who left Cuba.
“At this time I’d normally watch a soap opera on TV. Now that’s just a dream,” Delgado said.
