Cuba: Where "Saving Energy" Can Cost You Almost Your Entire Pension

Yoani Sanchez - Award-winning Cuban blogger

Cuba: Where "Saving Energy" Can Cost You Almost Your Entire Pension
Posted: 09/05/2012 2:25 pm

The kitchen no longer smells of kerosene, nor are the walls black with
soot, nor is alcohol needed to "warm up" the stove. The tenement no
longer wakes up with the noise of the air valve stoking the fire, and
the lady's allergies are not set off by the stench of burning. The
little window no longer vents a gray smoke, and the food doesn't have
that faint taste of fuel. She no longer fears falling asleep and having
the flames crawl through the wooden door. Now, no...

Now the problem is the electricity bill. The rice cooker that they gave
out five years ago and that has had to be repaired dozens of time. The
stove that was handed out in those days of the so-called Energy
Revolution which seems to voraciously swallow kilowatts. The Chinese
refrigerator -- a replacement given out for the old Frigidaires -- which
spends more hours thawing than freezing. In short, now her great concern
arises from the excessive bill with the blue numbers that they slip
under her door.

If, before, she spent her day in search of fuel, now her pension goes to
the high costs of electricity. Using the stove and water heater at least
three times a week, means she now has to allocate 80 percent of her
retirement to pay for energy. It's gone from one distressing difficulty
to another desperate one. She exchanges a ceiling covered in soot for
several days a month with no electricity because she can't pay for it.
Before she could complain, swear, scream at the stove, howl to the four
winds because the damn burner wears her out. Now, no. Because it's all
been "the Comandante's idea," the "Comandante's program."

Translating Cuba is a compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban
bloggers in English.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cuba-where-saving-energy-_b_1853119.html