In a Havana tenement, the day emerges with the sound of the water pump, weaving a community survival network. Voices intertwine in the central courtyard, sharing gossip and daily favors. Solidarity defines life in this space where individual worlds converge.
Dawn in the tenement arrives without clocks, signaled by the metallic screech of the first water pump, summoning residents to their daily routine. At the shared spigot, a line forms with bottles and buckets, where conversations flow: a woman whispers about the girl in number 12, while another shouts from the second floor asking Magdalena to bring bread from the bodega.
Children rule the narrow hallway, turning it into a baseball field with a wooden bat and rag ball, their cries of 'Strikeout!' echoing off peeling walls that recall the building's past as an elegant mansion. Dangling wires replace old chandeliers, and pots of basil and oregano sit on broken columns.
An economy of solidarity prevails: Caridad, on the back balcony, dispenses advice while shaking her rug, her door—as is Lucí's on the first floor—always open. 'Here everything gets handled and shared,' she says with a smile, referring to plates of food, pills, or borrowed electrical cables.
In the afternoon, men pull chairs to the doorway for dominoes, accompanied by rum, laughter, and coffee brewed by the women. Problems linger—the ceiling leak, money that never suffices—but they remain suspended for a moment. At night, under a dim bulb, whispers blend with a bolero seeping through a door crack, quietly watched by the moon peeking between clotheslines.