He runs his finger across the blackboard. “This is my bodega,” she whispers as she fingers over the sales schedule posted outside a store on Calle Galiano in Havana. Then she slides her hand until she finds the date on which she should buy and follows the path with her eyes until she discovers that she only gets two packages of hash. After unraveling the complex business formula, Nancy has once again ended up frustrated and hopeless.
“You need a degree to understand these stores in Cuban pesos,” the woman complained this Wednesday morning after deciphering the convoluted process to access basic products such as frozen chicken, detergent, or sausages. With the passing of the months, the mechanism to buy goods in national currency has become more and more convoluted. “If a foreigner approaches and reads all this, he will think that we have all gone crazy, very crazy,” the lady grumbles.
“If a foreigner approaches and reads all this, he will think that we have all gone crazy, very crazy.”
If five years ago it was the convertible pesos that opened the doors to the best-stocked markets, today, in addition to money, it is necessary to pay with high levels of stress and time to acquire any ingredient for the dish. In the inexact science of the state market, logic is often lacking and corrupt employees, resellers and “there are no” phrases abound. The rationing algorithm concludes more times in hunger than in satisfaction.
Doctorates in commercial absurdities and graduates in hardship, Cubans have attended the university of misery countless times. The title obtained is more embarrassing than proud. There are days when, after hours of waiting and a hard mental exercise to elucidate the bureaucratic language, he limits himself to reaching for a few feminine sanitary pads or a liter of vegetable oil.
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