La Cañada Real remains dark. The night engulfs the shanties and the main street where several strings of lights, powered by solar energy and courtesy of the Boa Mistura artistic community, shine on the road. “We are still without electricity,” read those first letters that welcome sector 6 of the largest illegal settlement in the Community of Madrid, 14 kilometers from the heart of the capital and in darkness for almost a year and a half. The other little lights, in addition to these hanging fireflies – which also cry: “We continue fighting” – escape from the precarious constructions made with scraps of cheap materials. In one of them, Tabita, a six-month-old baby, sleeps and, in the next few days, her mother will be able to
cooking, putting on the washing machine and turning on the only light bulb in the house with the sun's rays.
The hooks to the electrical wiring crown the roof of Rebeca Vázquez, a 23-year-old single mother, but they are useless. Since October 2, 2020, sectors 5 and 6 (and part of 3) of the Cañada Real have been lit using candles, generators and gasoline, since UFD, a distributor of the Naturgy group, will cut off the supply due to the constant overloads of the network caused by marijuana plantations. However, Rebeca is one of the beneficiaries of the project that the Luz Humanidad association carried out in the area for a year: the installation of photovoltaic systems with storage to recover the normality that was lost for 17 months surrounded by 4.500 people and 1.800 minors.
"Now I will be able to heat the baby's milk without problems," he thanks Rebeca in his patio, where the conversation runs soberly under the constant hum of the generator and the heat of a wood stove next to the table where the coffee is served. Black and hot coffee, gypsy style. The 52-year-old patriarch and scrap dealer, Constantino Vázquez, and his wife Bárbara have bought his daughter's new solar panels, which they will pay in monthly installments for a year. Rebeca's equipment costs about 5.000 euros and goes down to the range of photovoltaic systems designed for Light Humanity, with batteries between 600 and 6.000 watts per hour, depending on the needs of each home, to maintain the energy generated during the day.
“We pay the righteous for sinners”
“Maybe I would prefer an electricity contract to the solar panel,” Constantino acknowledges, “we pay just for sinners, we have that misfortune that we think we are all drug addicts.” But the return of the supply is not on the table and Rebeca, instead of spending money on gasoline for the generator, in which a 10-euro cylinder lasts three hours at most, she will be able to have a self-sufficient system. The head of Light Humanity in Cañada Real, Arturo Rubio, skipped the usual procedure and granted him the contract just by speaking on the phone with Constantino. “First you have to get to know the family and see the realities, the economic ones,” Rubio explained; In Rebeca's case, her baby has accelerated the process.
In a part of sector 5, the tires and awnings superimposed on the roofs contrast with several rows of solar panels. In one year of work, Light Humanity has broken the barrier to access to these systems in thirty homes, and another five are already embarking on signing the contract. Their fees serve to finance more systems, which are installed by a couple of inhabitants of the Cañada itself formed by the association. “Vamos has a rhythm of two or three families per week. We are not having problems with anyone, they want to pay,” Rubio stated.
one before and one after
Rahma Hitach el Kanar was born in Tangier, lived in Alcobendas and arrived in sector 5 in 2006. She has land where she built her house and planted a cherry tree. She hated a tree on whose long branches she hangs her clothes. After the blackout, his 17-year-old son looked like a “miner,” with a light bulb tied to his forehead so he could study. “Is there light?” Rahma remembers him asking when he returned from school, wishing it were so. "At the level of health, education, mental well-being... Everyone is quite affected, it has left quite a mark," says Rahma, who for a few weeks, "for a little bit a month, has forgotten about that headache," in the words from the person in charge of Light for Humanity. No smell of gasoline, no noise from the generator, no expensive cylinders for everyday chores.
Rahma doesn't stand still or disconnect from her cell phone, which rings several times. Any matter involving her neighbors in Cañada Real goes through her, at the head of the Association of Free Arab Women (AMAL). Everyone asks Rahma everything. She has been in each of the demonstrations that have tried to draw the attention of southern administrations to a humanitarian problem. “She is a fighter,” says Marina Fuentes, general director of United Way Spain, the fund that, in collaboration with Impact Hub Madrid, will promote a solidarity campaign last December to prevent the inhabitants of La Cañada from enduring a second winter without heating.
The initiative aimed to raise 50.000 euros and help 140 families with Light Humanity photovoltaic systems; The figure is stagnant at 6.475 euros, enough to wait for only 18 homes. “If we had more economic resources, we could end this electricity problem overnight,” Rubio asserts. While 4.500 residents try to recover a basic necessity, the regional government and the Madrid City Council are dedicated to relocating a total of 160 families from sector 6. a total of 15 kilometers - including the interested properties in the new neighborhoods that the environment sets up a scenario that is difficult to solve. “We are going to continue fighting,” says Rahma. Like the little lights that still shine there every night.
Put on the washing machine or turn on the oven with electric car batteries
The technical number and photovoltaic systems with storage. "They are not just solar panels, they also have an inverter, a charge regulator and are reused from electric cars, so you save on costs and reduce technological scrap," explained the person responsible for the 'Luz en la Cañada Real' project at Luz Humanidad. , Arturo Rubio. There are different types of installations, simple models to cover electrical needs but basic to those suitable for high consumption. Most of the people installed in the Cañada Real have a capacity of between 2.000 and 4.000 watts per hour and the possibility of burning a heater, an oven or a washing machine. “With this, life becomes closer to normal,” Rubio states.
