India, Aug. 8 -- A 20-minute burst of electricity is a small miracle in Havana nowadays - a miracle that sometimes comes at 3 am. That's when 72-year-old Leidis Rodriguez frantically cooked beans after the lights switched on this week following hours of uninterrupted blackouts. "The power has come back on, everyone go!" Rodriguez shouted. In the wake of sometimes days-long blackouts in Cuba - fuelled by the oil blockade imposed by the Trump administration in January - Cubans are planning their lives around the lights turning back on.

Those small bursts of relief last a few minutes or a few hours. They come at any time, day or night. Increasingly, electricity flicks on when Rodriguez and her 41-year-old daughter, Yaimara Matos, would norm...