Cuba: No power, no fuel, no internet

Braids, dear? Don't you want some? Good price. How's the family going? Tania is a school teacher. Like so many Cubans, she needs a second job just to make ends meet. Like braiding hair for passers-by. I'm a 50-year-old woman facing life head on. I won't lose the strength to keep fighting. Life has never been harder on this communist-run island. There's no tourism left. Everything's empty. No clients, nothing to style. Look at this hotel. Empty. Not one guest. Nothing. It's heartbreaking. In January, Washington tightened its energy blockade, then hit companies doing business in Cuba with new sanctions. Havana's terraces have been empty ever since. Tourism, one of the country's top sources of income, has collapsed, dragging the whole economy down with it. It's unrecognizable. The hotel is making enough even to pay the musicians. The whole island is suffocating. In the markets, local produce is still on the shelves. But with fuel running short, getting it there costs more. And prices are climbing on top of already chronic inflation. Call it survival, if you like. Cuba is put through one ordeal after another, every single day. And it's ordinary Cubans like us who pay for it. Frequent blackouts and a shortage of foreign exchange have brought banks and other institutions close to a standstill. I'm waiting to collect my wages. People are angry and shouting. I don't even have my own money to buy food to eat. Just to collect a salary or a pension means days of queuing at the bank. Tempers are fraying and Cubans are worn out. Civil servants like Tania earn next to nothing. I make six dollars a month and it doesn't cover anything. I have to buy everything, clothes, shoes. And if I'm buying shoes for the kids, I can't afford food. The power cuts are making already precarious lives even harder. Just one hour of electricity a day, often less. There's nothing in it. Anything I put in would just spoil. Too many hours without power. We buy what we need day by day. Despite a recent thaw, Cuba seems frozen in time. People resell whatever they can get their hands on. And in the newly authorised private shops, basic goods have become a luxury. This is a butcher's, a private one where Cubans do their shopping now. Seven dollars for a bag of chicken, more than my salary. Then someone steps in. This all has to be authorised by something. The committees for the defence of the revolution are still around, just less active. Worn down by the same crisis, Tania, for her part, has nothing to hide. I love my Cuba. Yes, I'm a revolutionary, make no mistake. Even if all I have to eat is a sweet potato, I love Fidel Castro. When he died, I wept for him. Trapped between political pressure and economic collapse, Cubans are scraping by daily. With little sign, the crisis will ease.