“We spent days eating cookies salty because there is no rice or root vegetables,” laments an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture. The man is considering leaving his job if “lunch continues to be so bad” in the institution that governs state production in Cuban fields and is located in a 17-story building on the corner of Conill and Rancho Boyeros, in Havana.
“People believe that since this is the Ministry of Agriculture here we should be swimming in abundance, but nothing like that,” warns the worker of the entity who prefers to remain anonymous. “The last few months have been very difficult and the cooks have to be inventing to be able to serve something.” The biggest deficit falls precisely on the products that must arrive from the furrows.
Although as of 2009 the then ruler Raúl Castro promoted a process of eliminating lunch in state centers, a good part of the ministries and the higher-ranking institutions maintained that practice. At a subsidized price, but with little variety and low quality, the employees of these entities receive a daily portion of food to continue their workday.
“Sometimes I thought that meetings were invented, even if they had nothing to say, in order to justify the consumption of bread, coffee and soft drinks for a snack”
Now, the economic crisis, which has deepened in recent months, together with inflation and the low productivity of Cuban fields, have put in check the lunch of these workers who until recently were privileged within the state sector. Guillermo was a cook for many years in a dependency of the Union of Young Communists in Havana and he confirms it.
“When the shortage was already affecting the whole world, in my workplace the UJC cadres still allowed themselves a snack, coffee in the morning and lunch with a protein every day,” he tells this newspaper. “But since the beginning of this year everything started to go downhill.”
“Sometimes I thought that meetings were invented, even if they had nothing to say, in order to justify the consumption of bread, coffee and soft drinks for a snack,” explains Guillermo. “The same day I found out that lunch was no longer going to be given, I asked to leave because what’s the point of being a cook in a place that doesn’t cook?”
In the Ministry of Agriculture, the rigors of the employees’ dining room reached the ears of the head of the branch, Ydael Pérez Brito. “He said that this had to be solved and how was it possible that here there are no yuccas, malangas or some sweet potato to give to the people who go to the dining room,” says an employee of the institution’s security area.
“In this place, food was served that had nothing to envy to that of a restaurant. Food, vegetables and fruits were not lacking. Not to mention pork and chicken”
The dining room, located in a side wing of the building, which faces Santa Ana street, is a huge room that for years has been too big for a Ministry that has seen its workforce decrease to the extent that wages are devalued government and raise the prices of basic products. “This was built at the time when the Soviet Union sent money, a lot of money,” warns the source.
“In this place, food was served that had nothing to envy to that of a restaurant. Food, vegetables and fruits were not lacking. Not to mention pork and chicken.” But those trays with varied food options only remain in the memory of the workers who have been in the institution for more than three decades.
“Most people now bring something from home to last them all day because many times it’s not worth going down to the dining room,” explains the worker. “But with the situation with the bread, you can’t guarantee to bring a snack either, so you have no choice but to go see what they serve.”
In recent weeks, the huge room has been emptier of diners and food. “This looks more like a funeral home than a Ministry of Agriculture, because lunch is dead, dead.”
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