Cubans grapple with fuel shortages and blackouts as US steps up pressure

Ana Rosa Romero lives on the 11th floor of the Granma Dos building, an imposing modernist social housing block in the Cuban capital, Havana. A widow in her 70s, she said that when her husband died recently, a blackout in her neighbourhood meant she had to sit with his body for hours before it could be moved. These days, with the lift so often not working, she says she barely leaves her apartment."You can hardly go out," said the former philosophy teacher, a framed picture of Fidel Castro on her wall. "If you do venture out, it's with the uncertainty of not knowing what's coming next. When is the power due to go out? When is it coming back? How many hours are we going to be without electricity?"It is a risk to find herself at the bottom of the stairs at her age with eleven flights to climb with bags of shopping, Ana Rosa says. But others in the building are worse off.Juana Garcia is trying to care for elderly, bedridden residents in the building she takes care ofThe building's superintendent, Juana Garcia, says nine residents have pacemakers and simply can't take the chance of being caught without the lift. Others have been trapped inside the elevator mid-blackout for hours.Juana has spent almost six months trying to pump water to more than 100 residents with no electricity. Some elderly residents are bedridden and get no water unless a neighbour carries it up several flights in the dark."It's dangerous to go up and down these stairs without lights. This is a such a difficult situation. We know we're going through tough times, but it's sad to see this great building stuck in the darkness," she laments. Her hope is the state can provide solar panels to bring some respite to her residents, particularly the most vulnerable.In another part of Havana, Barrio Toledo, a new form of social housing is under construction.Around 40 disused shipping containers are being repurposed into two-bedroom homes, with a kitchen and a bathroom. Around a dozen are close to completion while others sit with the logos of the shipping companies still visible on the outside, rudimentary windows cut out of the sides.The container homes in Barrio Toledo are meant to address Havana's housing crisisNone are yet inhabited as the Cuban state tries to carry out a plan amid the fuel shortages for a small community of container houses around a children's playground and a local store. Critics say the heat inside the metal homes will be unbearable in the height of Cuba's summer. But the site's foreman, a committed revolutionary called Orlando Diaz, insists they are a well-ventilated, smart solution to the capital's acute housing crisis."This technique is already being used successfully in other countries," he says. "We're just catching up."