By Osmel Ramirez Alvarez
HAVANA TIMES – I’m currently visiting Havana, the capital of every Cuban. A few unexpected things have taken place, such as the premature birth of a step-nephew, I also saw a house in flames with my own eyes after two scooters exploded, one of them hypothetically caused the fire.
It happened in the Reparto El Electrico, in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality of the capital, very close to where I’m staying at a relative’s home. The house caught fire after the scooter exploded inside and it was shocking to see the magnitude of the fire and how sudden and fast it burned. There wasn’t time for anything, it was like a bomb.
A couple was in the house with their young daughter, and they only had time to run for their lives out of the house. They weren’t physically harmed but they lost all of their belongings consumed by the fire, including the scooter. The firefighters took an hour to show up and approximately 20 minutes to put the fire out. But the damage was already huge.
Neighbors who had gathered around and were watching the whole scene said that the man in the house is a scooter mechanic and one of the two that had burned was his own, while the other was a customer’s. They guessed that the one he was repairing was the one that started the fire, and they speculated that “he was surely making an adjustment and something went wrong.” But the survivor was bewildered and lost for words, he just held his young daughter, in shock, while they watched all their belongings be engulfed by the flames.
It was a horrific scene and I’ve been panicking ever since because I have a scooter that I keep inside the house at night. Leaving it outside is unthinkable because it’s in danger of being stolen by thieves that even enter homes at night, so outside just imagine. Like a cake outside the school gates. But I have to find a solution because scooters are a blessing in Cuba because of transport problems, but they also put your life and belongings in danger. A great paradox.
Read more from the diary of Osmel Ramirez here.
