In Cuba, a power outage affects much more than just turning on a light bulb. It dictates when meals are prepared, laundry is done, phones are charged, showers are taken, and even when couples can share intimate moments.
This everyday reality in Cuba has been transformed into a sort of "guide" for island living by Cuban writer Yasser Sosa Tamayo.
On Thursday, the writer and activist shared his thoughts on Facebook: "There are countries where electricity lights up homes. Here, sometimes, it decides when you can actually live in them," he wrote.
Sosa highlighted how daily routines are dictated by the availability of power: doing laundry, cooking, charging phones, or bathing. He extended his reflection to the domain of intimacy.
"Because Cubans, no matter how tired they are or how empty their pockets, still have a zest for life. And they still want to make love," he remarked.
The challenge, he added, is trying to do so in temperatures exceeding 86°F, in a cramped room, without a fan, with a child sleeping nearby, and conserving water for the next day.
"Even desire has to be calculated," he summarized.
For Sosa, power outages impact more than just appliances. A phone call, a visit, a movie, a conversation, a cold beer, or a romantic evening may be postponed simply because there's no electricity.
"It may seem trivial. But life is made up of precisely those things," he pointed out.
His reflection underscores the small sacrifices often absent from statistics: sleepless nights, rushed showers, birthday celebrations missed, interrupted conversations, postponed plans, and delayed emotional moments.
"It's not in any statistics. But the body knows," he asserted.
According to Sosa, the constant adaptation to scarcity forces Cubans to adjust their "sleep, hunger, finances, desires, and plans," leading to a conclusion that encapsulates his message: "we are learning to live with less life."
The writer clarified he wasn't referring to luxuries but rather to basic actions like eating without calculating every expense, sleeping without enduring the heat, or spending time with a partner without worrying about when the power will return.
"Having a Tuesday that's just a Tuesday," he wrote.
His reflection ends with a poignant question: "How much life can be postponed before 'later' becomes a slow form of dying?"
This aligns with recent accounts of how the crisis has increasingly reduced daily life to a series of calculations and survival strategies.
On the same day, a Cuban estimated that a small family in Havana spends over 200,000 pesos monthly on essentials like food, hygiene, medicine, transportation, and services, while still omitting several items from the tally.
Although this might seem unrelated to Sosa's description, the constant concern over meeting basic needs also strains relationships, adding tension, fatigue, and emotional stress to daily life.
This isn't the first time Sosa has used daily life scenes to illustrate the crisis's impact.
In July, he claimed the true "blackout" in Cuba was the cessation of questioning whether current conditions qualify as living and criticized the normalization of escalating deprivations.
A month later, he revisited the topic, warning that blackouts rob not only electricity but also hours of life, as people spend significant portions of their day fetching water, cooking, preserving food, or simply waiting for power to return.
The effects of power outages go beyond personal testimonies. A study published in Social Science & Medicine, based on an online survey of 415 Cuban adults between July and November 2025, found a link between prolonged blackouts, disrupted daily life, and severe levels of stress, anxiety, and depression among the participants.
Understanding the Impact of Power Outages in Cuba
How do power outages affect daily life in Cuba?
Power outages in Cuba impact basic routines such as cooking, bathing, and laundry. They also influence personal interactions and intimate moments due to the lack of electricity.
What is the psychological impact of these outages?
The outages lead to significant stress, anxiety, and depression, as daily life becomes a series of survival strategies and constant adaptations to scarcity.