Havana/“Bread of life,” says the bag label with six breads that bought this Friday at Luis Manuel’s house, 21, resident in the vicinity of the October Ten Calzada in Havana. A biblical verse in the rear confirms that the package carries more than food to quench hunger. “Everyone in the neighborhood is commenting on the same, as if we see what it brings written,” he tells 14ymedio The young man who devoured at full speed the portion that touched him.
For 300 pesos, the bag, the product comes to supply the void that has left in Luis Manuel’s home the lack of rice or food due to the increase in agricultural products. “Now we are eating more bread because the rice has risen a lot and here in this neighborhood it is in 310 and up to 320 La Libra,” he says. The peculiar package, in which a fragment of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah He talks about the poor and could not be in tune with the narrows that the entire neighborhood, the city and to the entire island lives.
“I don’t care if you have religious phrases, the bakery of my block ration is adorned with a photo of Fidel and a poster on July 26 and nobody complains about that,” the young man reacts. Bags with bread leave the number 610 of San Benigno Street, in Santos Suárez, the modest bakery that produces to supply several areas of the same municipality. The interior full of bags of flour and the kindness of the owner please those who come to buy because they intuit that the supply will continue, unlike the fluctuations suffered by state sale, and also receive a friendlier treatment than in the rationed market.
/ 14ymedio
A few years ago it was unthinkable for a religious phrase to sneak into a merchandise that ended up selling door to door. Much less than a biblical reference accompanied by bread, the food that for decades was a state monopoly until the economic reforms of the 90s allowed the opening of private bakeries. Since then, the private sector has been gaining the land that the ruling fails to maintain in the production of the product. With better quality and variety, the cookies, flutes and loaf that their own workers making or the MSMEs are much tastier than the small, sour and often greenish color ball that is acquired by the notebook.
On the other hand, the word “bread” is mentioned more than 400 times in the Bible and is not unusual. It is the most basic of all food and is a symbol that goes beyond something to get into the stomach. Bread is also a metaphor for the economy of a country or a family, it is a synonym for community, friendship and divinity. The bread is, as the bag says that Luis Manuel’s family emptied in a few minutes: life.
