It’s a major event in the Cuba capital
By Juan Diego Rodriguez (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – Potatoes have just arrived at the rationed markets in Havana and Cubans do not need a town crier to alert the population. With bags on their shoulders or carts in hand, the members of the line closed ranks this Thursday in front of the Arango and Lugo grocery store, in the Luyano neighborhood.
“They will give [sell] three pounds a head,” predicts a woman. The comment fuels the excitement of those present, who already see the coveted tuber prepared in all possible ways: fried, but there is no oil; with sauce, but there is no tomato; with meat, but the cows have disappeared; with minced meat, but the Cuban pig is just as elusive.
The eternal dilemma of not having the right ingredients is a realist’s challenge that those waiting in line in Luyano are not willing to accept – at least for now. “The important thing is to get there,” repeats a gray-haired Havana resident. The line, he explains, distracts him from the blackout that has fallen on Luyano since morning and the lack of internet, the umpteenth “collateral damage” of the energy crisis.
“There has always been an obsession with potatoes here,” says a housewife, impassive but without leaving her place in the line. “This doesn’t happen in the countryside: of course, they don’t ’swing’ it so much because they have it at hand, but we…” She is not wrong. This week, several provincial newspapers announced the distribution of potatoes in their markets.
In some provinces, the arrival of the potato – right at the beginning of Lent – took on messianic overtones: The State company Acopio distributed 5,000 tons of the tuber in Ciego de Ávila coinciding with the visit of Gerardo Hernández, the former spy for the regime in the US who ended up becoming president of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, a synchronicity that Invasor celebrated .
The truck that transports the potatoes stands between the line and the object of their desire. Unloading is slow and the message has not yet reached all homes, says one of the customers, for whom the line – which moves from one side of the street to the other, fleeing the sun and dodging cars – is still not very long.
For several months now, there has been “potatoes on the street,” a phrase that describes the availability of the product in the informal market. At 350 pesos per pound (just over US $1.00), a cart driver or street vendor can provide families in Havana with the coveted tuber. “It’s not much, maybe three medium-sized potatoes, or nine small potatoes, but from what you can see on the truck, they’re not very big,” says another woman, already hopeless.
For the majority of workers who receive the equivalent of $7 to $13 USD a month, or a $5 USD pension, the only time they can afford potatoes is when they appear at the ration stores, thus the commotion these days.
“Potatoes! The news of the day!” exclaims one of the ration store’s neighbors from the doorway of his house. Until the last sack is sold, there will be no talk in his neighborhood of anything other than potatoes.
Translated by Translating Cuba.
Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.
