Cuba\u2019s oil reserves have run dry<\/a>, the government said this week.<\/p>\nScarce fuel and crumbling infrastructure have led to longer and longer blackouts; many people have electricity just an hour or two a day. There have been a smattering of small protests, including some where people have lit bonfires in the streets.<\/p>\n
Cuba is sliding toward a preindustrial state of darkened cities and towns, where people rely on open flames and muscle to replace absent fuel and the machinery that sits idle.<\/p>\n
Without reliable electricity or gas, many people have reverted to gathering wood and charcoal to make cooking fires outside.<\/p>\n
Matanzas<\/p>\n
Along streets that have grown eerily empty, gas stations have little or no fuel to offer.<\/p>\n
Havana<\/p>\n
Darkness envelops city streets normally illuminated by light spilling from apartment windows, storefronts and streetlamps. <\/p>\n
Santiago de Cuba<\/p>\n
Agricultural waste is cooked into charcoal, a fuel humans have made for thousands of years that is in rising demand in Cuba.<\/p>\n
Palpite, Cienaga de Zapata<\/p>\n
Makeshift outdoor kitchens, where people burn charcoal or scraps of wood, have been become commonplace.<\/p>\n
Havana<\/p>\n
Improvising with few resources is a longstanding habit for Cubans, like with a vendor this month whose old, battered car doubled as a banana shop at an open-air market.<\/p>\n
Alamar, Havana province<\/p>\n
Solar panels fill only a small part of Cuba\u2019s need.<\/p>\n
Havana<\/p>\n
With fans and air-conditioners \u2014 a luxury item \u2014 stilled, people sleep on rooftops or take to the beach to escape the heat.<\/p>\n
Havana<\/p>\n
People line up at street markets to buy what staples they can afford, like rice; cooking it poses even more of a challenge.<\/p>\n
Alamar, Havana province<\/p>\n
Children blocked Boyeros Avenue in the capital on Thursday to protest the lack of electricity.<\/p>\n
Havana<\/p>\n
A state-run grocery store this month had neither many offerings, nor many customers.<\/p>\n
Havana<\/p>\n
During a blackout on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Havana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cubans are no strangers to hardship, after more than six decades of communist rule and U.S. hostility and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,4054,77882,1480,9,24,63,5007,6842,56938,129,131,130,1554,21485],"class_list":["post-233440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-cuba","tag-embargoes-and-sanctions","tag-international-relations","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-oil-petroleum-and-gasoline","tag-poverty","tag-power-failures-and-blackouts","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-united-states-international-relations","tag-vis-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}