Life in each country is different, it has its peculiarities. In Cuba, the way
people earn their daily livelihood, what they eat, the living conditions in the less visited neighborhoods.
In this video we are going to walk through one of those neighborhoods less frequented by tourists, those
neighborhoods that surround the beautiful part of Havana, which are off the beaten track
but still a very important part of the reality of life in Cuba. Welcome to the neighborhood
of Jesús María, a neighborhood that at one point in history had a very bad reputation, it was said that it was a
neighborhood of men without a job or benefit, but in modern times the reality of this neighborhood
is very different. Perhaps the only thing left of that bad reputation is the handsome neighborhood and one of the
most popular places in Havana, where some people go to seek pleasure: Monte and Cienfuegos. (site well known for the prostitution that is practiced there)
The reality is that this is one of the neighborhoods most affected by blackouts and
water shortages. We will be talking about water precisely later.
Many people from other provinces have settled here, but the problem of
shortages in the agro-markets follows them wherever they go, four or
five products at astronomical prices, eating meat has already become a luxury. These are the
current prices: the loin costs 490 pesos. A Cuban who earns the minimum wage
can only buy 4 pounds of loin in a month, and his money has run out. The shortage reaches such a
level that even with money it is very difficult to get things; many spend the entire day
queuing to buy two packs of hotdogs and a bottle of oil. We will see that later in
one of the corners of this neighborhood. Meanwhile, enjoy this jewel of the 70s.
These days walking down the street I have noticed that the cafeterias are empty, they practically
have nothing to sell. The reality is that to get something you have to walk all of
Havana. Mysteriously, the dollar is falling in price, but nothing in the street falls in price,
everything remains the same. Look at what the man is doing, it's a camapé, that's for sleeping,
but don't be scared, that's something normal, even more so in large families, although the numbers of
the Cuban population are going down, as well as the desire to stay in Cuba. This thing
in the corner reminds me that later I'm going to be showing you why you can't drink
the water from the sink if you come to Cuba. Quite strong images, you will be amazed at what
I am going to show you. We are going to continue walking a little more through this neighborhood, a humble neighborhood, a
very popular neighborhood but it is also advisable not to walk here very late at night, although in general
we Cubans are used to walking through all these neighborhoods at night. In future videos
we are going to delve into other neighborhoods that also have a bad reputation. Many people who come from other provinces tend to settle here
to try to live a little better, to struggle, as
it is commonly called, to work in pedicabs, in construction, in carpentry. At the end of the day
Any of these jobs reports more money than being a professional; the pyramid is still inverted and
many wonder why be a professional if the salary cannot cover even
basic needs. It is fortunate that remittances continue to arrive, even more so for those who have children
, how difficult it must be to feed them now. An oil cucumber costs 1,000 pesos (5.88 USD),
milk, more than 1,200 (7 USD), which, by the way, the milk you can get on the street is what they
sell to women with young children, people on a diet, and
people with HIV. In order to be able to buy other things that are perhaps more necessary to them, they sell the milk.
Look at the blue tank on the right. Here in Cuba it is a practice to have elevated tanks to
use as a water reserve. 55 gallon tanks are typically used, they are the
easiest to install and the least expensive. Water scarcity affects, to a greater or lesser
degree, different neighborhoods in Havana and Cuba as a whole; the situation in general is unsustainable,
especially for the elderly, youth still find a solution and that is to leave the country. In the
black market these days there is a lot of movement of people who are exchanging euros for dollars, the
dollars of course to go to Nicaragua. Even houses are falling in price.
People get tired of precisely what they are seeing here, of seeing that time passes and there is no
future. Nothing, we are going to leave behind all this that I am going to show you what I had promised you.
Drinking water in Cuba
Imagine arriving home after three days without water and finding this.
A puddle that reaches from the kitchen to the room. It makes me think of Venice.
The good thing is that it seems that the water problem is already being solved, but what happened here?
At the beginning of the video I told you that in Cuba many people have water tanks,
I have two, and here the unimaginable happened, and one of those tanks struck out.
How the heck do you puncture a plastic tank? Now we have to empty them to lower that one that is struck out.
I am going to tell you how the distribution of drinking water works. In
the houses there is not a constant flow of water, the normal thing is that the water between one
day like this and another does not, but this varies, for example, now it is coming in every two or
three days, but do not be alarmed, do not be alarmed that I have been up to a week without water.
The water doesn't come strong enough to go up to the first floor either, that
's why when they open the faucet, the water doesn't have pressure. The buildings have cisterns, the water
falls into them, and then it is pumped up, and about the quality, I will show you in a minute.
In the house there used to be only one tank and it was made of metal, it
weighed a lot. This is almost finished now.
Basically this is how it works, the water does not come with enough pressure from the street and then,
from the cistern, it has to be pumped up. Then a faucet is opened and the water goes down for all
the apartments. If you are a tourist visiting Cuba, why can't you drink the water
from the tap? Many of the foreigners who come to Cuba when they drink the water from the tap give them
stomach problems. This, you have to be very careful with this, especially when you drink
cocktails in the street, because sometimes the ice they put in certain places, the ice is made
with water from the tap. So be very careful with this, because really the treatment that is given to the
water, we are going to say that it is not very good, normally what people in the houses do is boil the
water. Those who can buy a filter, filter it too, there are those who boil it and filter it, there are those who
do only one thing. Sometimes the water comes with too much chlorine, not in this neighborhood, but in Los
Sitios (a neighborhood in Centro Habana) the water sometimes comes with too much chlorine that when you put the knob in the freezer, which
starts to thaw, you feel the taste of chlorine, in the water. And on many occasions you have to be
buying new mugs from time to time, because look how the mugs turn out. This is how the jars look
when the water is boiled. Every so often you have to be changing them and
buy new jars. Those images that you saw during the explanation are already
a few weeks old, I downloaded one of those tanks, so now I am going to show you the
images of how the tank looks inside. Get ready this is awesome.
I think the images will speak for themselves, judge for yourselves.
What you are seeing here, in my opinion, is magnesium, which accumulates in the tanks.
This is a good part of what was inside the tank. This is the magnesia of the water
This is one of the reasons why you shouldn't drink the water from the tap
, because it doesn't come clean enough,
and about the punch in the Tank here you can see the crack, it looks like it was on
a surface that had imperfections. How was this resolved? With crazy tail, the inventiveness
of the Cuban. The truth is that a house is never finished, there is always something to do.
When there is not a problem with the stopcock of the tanks, there is a problem with the stopcock of
the house. Everything costs money. By the way, we always have water tanks, not
just elevated tanks. Here there are, I would say, about 9 knobs,
because as I told you before, the water does not come every day, I have even gone
up to a week without water. Buying those tanks costs money, paying the plumber costs money.
For example, painting becomes a luxury. Painting becomes a luxury for many people,
because here we are seeing that a gallon costs 1,500 pesos, and that is the minimum pension in Cuba,
1,500 pesos. I bought this thing that you are going to see right now, it had stayed in my backpack.
A sesame bar, if you can call it a sesame bar, and a peanut bar. This is quite
thick compared to what I bought before, which was quite expensive, by the
way. It comes wrapped in newspaper, don't be scared, the problem is that there are no
nylon crates. If you have doubts about what a nylon bag is, this is a nylon bag. In your countries
they probably call it a plastic bag. Well, here it is called a nylon bag. Previously
it cost one peso, then it cost two and now it costs 5 (0.03 USD). That is why in many places they
wrap your things with newspaper. There really is a huge difference in size.
This costs, this is peanuts and it costs 130 pesos (0.77 USD) and this costs 80 (0.47 USD). The interesting thing about this is
that last week it cost 100 and this one cost 50. It is so that you can get an
idea of ​​how inflation is going, how prices are going up. I know that many of you, when
told in a video what the average wage is, in Cuba, the minimum wage, the
minimum pension, which is 1,500 Cuban pesos, does not tell you much and sometimes you ask me in the comments to
make comparatives. Well I'm going to make a comparison. So you can see with the minimum pension
in Cuba, with what an elderly person earns, how many peanut bars can be bought per month.
Doing a somewhat cold analysis, 1,500, which is the minimum pension that an elderly person receives, between
130 pesos, which is the cost of this peanut bar that you are seeing here,
11.53, that is, an elderly person, with his minimum pension, you can buy 11 and a half bars of this that you
're looking at here. The truth is that it's not a lot of money, you can't do much with it. That
salary increase that the State made of 300 pesos and something, to start charging thousands,
many people were amazed, but the truth is that the joy lasted a short time because
everything began to rise in price, starting with the same services of the State. It is time
for the State to raise salaries again, raise pensions and start paying more, but
this time it is going to have to multiply that average salary, which is 3,200 pesos, multiply it by
at least three or four, and so and all I don't know if it's enough. Let me know what you think this.
Well family, I hope you have found this video interesting, I wanted to give
you an update on what is happening in Cuba and also that some people had
asked me about this topic, about water, about how it worked. I hope it has been
useful for those who wanted to know about the subject and for those who live abroad who are
interested in knowing how things are going here in Cuba. Let me know in the comments
what you think, remember to subscribe down there, on a button that goes down there that
says subscribe, leave a Like if you liked this video, share it so that it reaches
more people and also get to know a little more on this topic which is quite interesting.
Nothing family, I love you, see you in two or three days with a new video.