When government trash pick-ups from private homes slowed from once a week to once a month and then to “cuando les da la gana” [whenever they feel like it] during the Special Period, many loyal Cubans predicted that cleaning up their neighborhoods would become a government priority once the economy recovered somewhat. It never did. Instead, urban residents, especially in Havana, have had to become accustomed to living by or regularly walking by the mounds of wet, stinking garbage that characterize virtually every neighborhood. Exceptions to the rule are neighborhoods like large parts of El Vedado, Miramar, Playa, and Siboney, occupied by los pinchos, slang for Cuba’s oligarchy of top Communists, security agents, and military officers who profit from control over foreign investments and capitalist businesses of their own—free from the constant legal oversight that undermines the politically disconnected. To these mounds of trash, years of seasonal storms have added escombros, heaps of accumulated debris from fragile housing stock pounded by rain.
