By Irina Pino
HAVANA TIMES – Every now and again, a friend of mine sends me prophesies about Cuba’s fate on WhatsApp. People making prophesies perhaps have no real gift but are rather great liars who want people to believe in the big changes that are coming our way.
Of course, I tend to delete those messages and I don’t even read them. Why bother if everything is looking bleaker as the days pass by? Cubans’ hope went down the drain a long time ago. Those of us still living on the island, remain afloat in an existential limbo, waiting for I don’t know what.
We don’t eat so bad in my house because my family abroad helps us out, buying us food packages. We have to manage these properly, so they last us.
The other day, a neighbor who goes for walks with me, told me about a store selling Italian products that will open up on Galiano Street; and another store with Russian products. Prices will be set in MLC (the magnetic dollars); that is to say, we’ll have to spend the dollars, euros and foreign currency the family puts on our card.
Although everyone knows that part of the population will be forced to buy an MLC transfer at the exchange rate on the street to be able to buy what they really need.
Today, I went to the Agua y Jabon store, and they didn’t even have shower gel. The shelves were full of disposable baby diapers.
I’d walked from 42nd Street, all the way down 3rd, because I didn’t want to take a taxi. Along the way, I saw that most of the restaurants and cafes were empty. While employees were chatting doorways or looking at their cellphones.
I’m sure that this lack of clientele will mean that these places go bankrupt and close down in the near future, because they won’t be profitable anymore. You can see that people are going out less to eat, just imagine a meal of fish costs 1,250 pesos. National currency has no value, it’s rubbish.
I also stared at the Karl Marx Theater, which hasn’t been working now for four years. I imagine dust and damp are the only ones living inside.
There aren’t even canteens for low-income pensioners. They’ve all shut down.
The other day, an old man who lives around the corner was talking about this. He told somebody that his pension of 1,500 CUP (around 6 USD) didn’t get him anything. He has a method: he splits his lunch portion into two; so he can eat the other part in the evening. But there are times he wakes up late at night with his stomach rumbling, because he’s hungry. So, he takes a spoon of sugar, so he can sleep.
The results of state centralism is all around us, it’s growing like a plague that will engulf everything. Garbage is everywhere, the city is slowly collapsing. There are very few options to entertain yourself, movie theaters, theaters, and museums only open three days a week.
Luckily, we still have the sea and forest, spaces we can breathe that are free. Similarly, books and movies allow us to escape reality for a few hours.
The world is sick, the ruling elite are crushing what doesn’t suit them more and more. They are filling their pockets with other people’s pain, they are profiting off other people’s pain. I think about Palestinian children, the orphans, that land turned into rubble.
If only I could raise one of those children, it would be a great joy to do something to help their suffering and abandonment.
Despite everything, my friend, the one that sends me prophesies, believes that significant change will come soon, because the crisis and misfortune in Cuba can’t go on forever.
Read more from the diary of Irina Pino here on Havana Times.
