As if by magic, products have appeared that had been absent from the shelves of Centro Habana for months. The neighbors, as expected, did not take long to gather around the shops in the neighborhood.
Chicken, dogs, shampoo, toothpaste and cologne were on sale this Friday in stores like La Mía, on Belascoain Street. “This is good today, a long time ago they did not take so many things in the same place,” commented a man in line. “That’s because of November 15,” another man replied, “after that day, we go back to chicken one day and, if anything, mincemeat the next.”
The toothpaste, yes, ran out first thing in the morning.
When they had collected 160 cards, it was noon and 100 people were still waiting around the corner for their identity document to be taken
When they had collected 160 cards, it was noon and 100 people were still waiting around the corner for their identity card to be taken. Several members of the “coleros confrontation brigades” at the door of the store organized the flow of customers, who, with the supply book in hand, had overcome the last obstacle before entering the market.
“This is disrespectful, they have passed a few goats of them in front of everyone, I have been playing the game for a while,” lamented a neighbor of about 50 years in line. “Groups of confrontation with coleros for what? If they are the first coleros; then they also all leave with packs full and one of them may not even be able to buy.”
State businesses that offer products in national currency are going through a shortage crisis that is almost commonplace, which began in 2019 with what the authorities called a “conjuncture” and reached its zenith with the covid pandemic. After the protests of July 11 and, in the last month, before the call for a Civic March for Change for November 15, Havanans have seen, not without suspicion, a discreet improvement in the offer of products, on all in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of the capital.
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