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HAVANA (Reuters) – Ever since the novel coronavirus reached Cuba, a tall cardboard box with arms and legs can be seen tottering around a Havana suburb, popping into the bakery or butchers, or browsing the newspaper stand.
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This is Feridia Rojas, 82, who decided to build and wear mobile housing to shield herself from the virus that is particularly deadly to seniors in a country where personal protective equipment is not sold at stores.
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“I am at home, what about you?” reads a message on her box, in a witty nod to Cuba\\\’s coronavirus slogan “Stay at home.”
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The widower, whose daughters both live in the United States, said that with no one to run her errands she had to find a way to do so safely by herself, illustrating the resourcefulness and humor for which Cubans are renowned.
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“I was worried about the asymptomatic cases who could cough just as I passed,” she said. “So I thought: I\\\’ll do a little house with a cardboard box and wear it.”
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The retired Cuban nurse salvaged the box from the pharmacy in her Palatino neighborhood and cut arm holes and a window for her face that she covered in clear plastic.
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On top, she glued cake boxes to make it look more like a house with a roof than a flat-topped apartment building.
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“She\\\’s very creative,” chuckled her neighbor Zayda Echemendia, adding that Rojas still helped locals with injections at home and the like.
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While her mobile home may be less necessary as Cuba\\\’s outbreak appears to have come under control, Rojas said it still provided necessary comic relief.
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“In the midst of this pandemic, this stress and anxiety all the time, my little home makes people laugh,” she said.
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(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Richard Chang)
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