How Cubans are navigating the US oil blockade with rechargeable fans and solar-powered Chinese tricycles

By Juan Carlos López, CNN

Havana (CNN) — How to conserve cellphone battery when recharging options are scarce; how to preserve food when the fridge isn’t working; how to cope with the heat when air-conditioners aren’t an option; how to generate power when the whole country has almost none left.

These are the sort of tutorials that have made the Instagram feed of influencer Dayán Marrero indispensable to many Cubans as they try to adapt to the rolling electricity blackouts and fuel shortages that are increasingly part of everyday life on this Caribbean island.

As the US-imposed oil blockade that is worsening the situation bites ever deeper, Marrero and his compatriots are having to get creative. Farmers pasteurize milk over charcoal fires; commuters ride solar-powered Chinese tricycles; tour guides grind coffee by hand for the vanishingly few visitors that remain.

Like his fellow countrymen, Marrero — a third-year computer science student at the Agrarian University of Havana — has become adept at adapting.

Previously, the idea that he might become a content creator had “never even crossed my mind,” yet here he is, in the living room of his home in Caraballo, a former sugar town, promoting the latest must-have items, such as a rechargeable fan that also provides light while he records his videos. And he is successful; one of his most popular posts, a tutorial on how to build an antenna to pick up the mobile network’s elusive internet signal, is approaching 800,000 views.

Still, if he is to reach his next goal as an influencer — establishing a presence on TikTok — he will have to get even more creative, as use of the app is restricted by US sanctions.

Tourism without tourists

Cubans have known for decades what it is like to live without abundance and — while it is true that things have worsened markedly since the US blockade and the subsequent loss of energy imports from both Venezuela and Mexico — people like Marrero are showing there is no scarcity of creativity or resilience on this island.

At 57 years old, Osiris Hernández has spent more than half his life as a tour guide in Viñales, Cuba’s ecotourism mecca. He works at one of Viñales’ main tourist attractions, the Indian Cave, where he operates a boat that carries visitors through waters deep underground and ends its journey with a spectacular view as it emerges from darkness into light.

The streets in Viñales are clean, signs advertising rooms for visitors are everywhere and there is even a market where artisans sell their wares. There’s just one problem: There are almost no tourists.

Tourism on the island fell 62% from January to July compared with the same period last year, according to official figures.

When Hernández hears a single Chinese tourist has arrived, a smile crosses his face. He is eager to please the few who, despite it all, still come to visit. He has set up rooms in his own home to accommodate them and cooks their food over charcoal, grinds coffee by hand and passes around the same type of rechargeable, light-providing fan that Marrero advertises on his Instagram.

He tells CNN his goal is to provide quality service, whatever is happening with the electricity. Even when the power is down, he says, he has an inverter that converts energy from solar panels for use in household appliances. It allows him to keep at least one freezer running.

Pasteurizing with charcoal

On the outskirts of Viñales is El Olivo agroecological farm, where Osnel Corrales and his family have installed solar panels and batteries to help them produce dairy.

Although they have an industrial generator, they do not have fuel, or at least not enough. On the day CNN visited, they were producing yogurt — pasteurizing the milk first by heating it over charcoal, then cooling it in vats using electricity generated by solar panels.

The farm has a restaurant specializing in Mediterranean food, but there are no customers. Yet they continue operating — the cows have to be milked no matter what — and produce cheese in addition to their yogurt, which they distribute through a branded store in Viñales and to customers in Havana.

Still, the lack of tourists means demand for their award-winning produce has dropped severely and given the shortage of fuel it’s not easy for the few tourists still arriving in Cuba to visit the farm.

A glimmer of light on the roads

The lack of fuel, however, does have one silver lining: Traffic congestion in Havana feels like a thing of the past.

With buses in short supply, a growing fleet of privately operated solar-powered electric tricycles provide public transportation for the city’s nearly 1.8 million residents.

Augusto operates one of the latest-generation models. Not only does it have a small fuel-powered engine but, more importantly, it has three rechargeable batteries. He can connect these to the power grid — when there is electricity — or charge them via the solar panel that serves as the vehicle’s roof.

Augusto, who has spent years driving taxis, rents the tricycle for about 9,000 Cuban pesos ($15) per day, whether or not he has passengers.

It can carry up to six passengers at a time, in a system in which operators have strategically divided the city into routes that take into account the distance they can travel based on battery range and the available charge level.

With or without fuel, Augusto manages to help his fellow Cubans get around every day by relying on a dynamic that is long familiar on the island. Augusto, Marrero, Hernández and countless others have little choice but to figure things out which, in Cuban parlance, means overcoming whatever obstacle is placed in their way.

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