US blockade on Cuba: Cubans turn to firewood and charcoal to cook

It's been a long time since Daimí García cooked with gas. Instead, she and her husband gather wood so she can cook. With firewood, there's all the smoke. The people next door cook like this too. Their children have asthma. I hear them coughing at night. Ever since the Trump administration imposed an oil blockade on Cuba in January, most Cubans have had to make do without cooking gas. Until this year, most Cuban households received gas canisters like this from the state every few months. Now, they don't receive any. The US has prevented shipments of cooking gas from reaching the island. More importantly, it's stopping deliveries of crude oil. In the last six months, just one Russian oil tanker has docked at a Cuban port. Cuba refines around 40,000 barrels of its own crude oil every day, enough to keep the lights on for a few hours at least, and to provide piped gas to some 200,000 households in Havana, the only city in the country that receives gas directly. Business owner Ale Lugones is one of the lucky few. The power's just gone out again. This light has six bulbs, and now only two are still on. To refrigerate food in his store, he recently bought an electricity generator that runs on gas. But he says it's a short-term fix. In any case, he plans to leave the country. I don't think the gas supply can last more than another year if things carry on like this. Everyone is installing gas now, and sooner or later, the pressure is going to drop. Daimy has fewer options. She endures long days without electricity, and today is the first time in a week she has running water. But she takes it in her stride. Of course I'm smiling. What else am I supposed to do? Break down and cry? Give up? No. You have to keep going. As long as you're alive, you have to keep living. But with the Trump administration succeeding in degrading the infrastructure people's lives depend on, smiles are becoming strained. Ed Augustin, Havana, Al Jazeera.