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From Cuba - Street Sweepers


Cuban street sweepers
Cuban street sweepers

The hygiene of the streets of the capital is full of contrasts. Havana, like the whole country, often shows a very clean facade in general, it is true, we can affirm that Cuba is clean, but other times when we enter the depths of certain neighborhoods we discover a dirtier and more disorganized city, where the collection of waste is only carried out from time to time and the garbage accumulates in the corners, because the cleaning trucks often only travel the large avenues and not every day.


Today, habits that promote the cleanliness of the city have been somewhat lost, such as the collection of garbage every night and the custom of not taking out the daily garbage from the house until evening. Unfortunately, at the same time, other habits have proliferated, such as that of indolently scattering garbage in any corner.


It is worth noting that we do not always find the necessary garbage dumps in every corner of the city. Sometimes we walk hundreds of meters along busy streets and there is not a single trash can available. However, in other places you will find many garbage tanks assembled for fun.


In the effort to maintain the cleanliness of the city, we meet a fundamental character: the street sweeper. Street sweepers are indeed a vital profession that does not, however, receive all the recognition it deserves from our society.


Every day, shortly after 5 a.m., when the silence of the night still reigns, from the house one first hears the creaking of the unlubricated bearings and metal wheels on the sidewalk, of that cart invented to organize his work; then it stops and there one feels the regular rhythm of the broom that my neighbor sweeper uses to clean the streets and that the neighborhood always wakes up spotless.


His cleaning cart has two tanks to empty the collected waste, and to carry his work tools, that is, a broom and a dustpan, as well as some hooks that are used to hang bags, where he will usually place something to eat and drink, or store a valuable object found in his daily work. In the end, it is incredible how much he finds that can be useful, even commercial, but that others have thrown away. Digging through trash cans is sadly becoming an increasingly common practice.


My neighbor is an elderly person, like almost all those who dedicate themselves to this work, he is a sociable person, quite talkative, who likes to smoke a cigar while working, but also very devoted to his noble task that often goes unnoticed by the population, who unfortunately do not always contribute to respecting the work of these workers, to whom we owe much of the communal hygiene and an essential part of the beauty of the city too.


The job of street sweeper has always been looked down upon in Cuba. For many, it is the last option to consider for work. On the other hand, people are often indolent and throw waste left and right, sometimes unconsciously, or due to lack of culture and education, and thus complicate the work of the street sweeper who already has a hard time without the right means of work and protection, and without sufficient wage support. Our street sweepers almost always have to get handmade palm leaf swabs to sweep.


When the city is still asleep, the street sweepers work so that when we go out to do our daily chores, we find the city clean. But we also see them working under the midday sun of summer or exposed to the humidity and cold typical of the first mornings of the Cuban winter. It is undoubtedly a dignified job and full of sacrifices.



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