Natalia López Moya – Page 4

A New Year’s Eve without Pork, Rice, Beans, Yucca or Tomato — the Five Pillars of the Cuban Family Dinner

Many Cuban households are reducing portion sizes, cutting back on the number of traditional items on the menu or simply working with whatever happens to be available.

Rice for sale at the Young Labor Army market in Havana’s Nuevo Vedado district. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 31 December 2024 — On December 31, the Cuban dinner table will reflect a year marked by higher food prices and shortages of basic products. New Year’s dishes will cost more to prepare than they did twelve months ago. While imported ingredients will play a larger role, the holiday meal will be little different at some homes from the meager rations of any other day.

Pork, rice, beans, yucca and tomato — the inseparable quintet of the Cuban New Year’s Eve meal — are among the ingredients in shortest supply. The situation is such that some households are opting to reduce portion sizes, cut back on the number of traditional items on the menu or simply work with whatever is available and affordable.

Among the items seeing the largest price increases in 2024 is pork, which sold for 1,000 pesos a pound in December. At some markets in Havana, such as the one on 19th and B streets in Havana’s Vedado district, it was going for 1,200 pesos, almost double what it cost at Christmas in 2023. A shortage of animal feed has hampered domestic production, resulting in a proliferation of American pork loins, which now dominate the market. Steak, pork rinds continue reading

and fried pastries have become luxuries in a country where the average monthly income is 4,648 pesos (USD $193.62 at the official exchange rate) according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).

One of the main price increases in 2024 has been for pork / 14ymedio

The tomato is not far behind. The fruit — typically thinly sliced, seasoned and served with lettuce or cabbage — was 400 pesos at the Plaza Boulevard market in Sancti Spíritus in December 2024. The previous January it was going for only 100 pesos at the same market. By July it had completely disappeared due a supply shortage. The market, which is located in a region with a long agricultural tradition and whose prices 14ymedio tracks every week, has become a gauge for measuring a crisis that has burned through wallets and charred household finances.

The fruit has reached 400 pesos in the Plaza Boulevard market in Sancti Spíritus this last month of the year. / 14ymedio

In Cienfuegos province, another agricultural region, black beans closed out the year at 400 pesos a pound, a price in excess of $1.30 USD at the informal exchange rate. In other regions the price exceeded $1.50. The legume is one of the foods most severely impacted by the drop in domestic production. Faced with an avalanche of foreign labels, Cubans now find themselves having to learn the names of this product in other countries, buying packages whose labels read “porotos,” “alubias” or “habichuelas.”

In the province of Cienfuegos, black beans closed the year at 400 pesos per pound. / 14ymedio

However, it is rice that has undoubtedly been the biggest headache for Cuban cooks in 2024. Stores selling rationed goods are only now, in late December, getting around to selling November’s allotment of the popular grain. After seeing prices soar in the last five years, rice is now selling on the open market for close to 200 pesos a pound.

Imported 0ptions, sold mainly in one-kilogram packages, are of higher quality and are more carefully presented but cost more than 400 pesos. This basic ingredient, essential to almost every lunch or dinner, has driven the island’s food costs through the roof. At Holguín’s Los Chinos marketplace, the prized item was going for as much 240 pesos a pound in August. Though it had fallen to 190 pesos by year’s end, this is cold comfort to those households whose only source of income is a state pensions or a government salary.

Rice has undoubtedly been the biggest headache for Cuban kitchens this year. / 14ymedio

The news is not good for yucca either. In December 2023 it cost 50 pesos a pound at Cienfuegos’ Plaza La Calzada market. A year later it is nearly 70 pesos at the same location. The dramatic fall in domestic production threatens to further reduce the number of cassava crops, a food inextricably linked to national identity. The steepest decline can be seen in the state sector as evidenced by this graph prepared by economist Pedro Monreal based on data from ONEI.

The debacle is most evident in the state sector. / Pedro Monrael

Those who decide to forego the usual New Year’s Eve dinner in favor of a popular lifesaver in times of scarcity will not have an easy task either. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz recently recalled Raúl Castro once saying that it would be a shame if we ever had to import sugar. “Well, we are now experiencing that shame because we are now importing sugar,” he admitted. Even without data on the sugar sector for the past year, the average Cuban knows what is going on. There is no sugar and prices are skyrocketing, hovering around 400 to 600 pesos per pound in recent weeks.

The situation is summed up in the November consumer price index. ONEI reports that raw sugar rose by 16.12% while the refined version rose by 10.98%. “Milordo” or “munga” — a recipe in which a couple of spoonfuls of sugar are mixed in a glass of water — has also become unattainable for many Cubans this New Year’s Eve.

The crude product rose by 16.12%, while the refined product rose by 10.98%.

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Chickens on the Balcony and Pigs in the Bathtub: Cubans Go Back to Raising Their Own Food

On Monte Street, the smell of improvised chicken coops spreads through the nearby houses and gives the neighborhood a certain rural touch

Chickens on a balcony on Monte Street, in Havana, this Friday / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 28 December 2024 — Cubans have stopped wondering if this crisis is worse than that of the 1990s. The blackouts, food shortages and lack of fuel for public transport during the Special Period — in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of its subsidies to Cuba — have now been surpassed in duration, severity and limitations. The breeding of animals at home like chickens and pigs for eggs and meat has also returned.

On Monte Street, one of the most populated and poor arteries in Havana, no one is surprised anymore if they see a couple of chickens on a balcony, guarded by a cat ready to meow an alert against any attempted robbery. Separated from the abyss by the rusty irons of a fence, the birds look down at the traffic, peck some grains of rice and are unconscious of the casserole that awaits them. The smell of the improvised chicken coop spreads through the nearby houses and gives the neighborhood a certain rural touch.

“We’re back in that time when they sold chicks so you could raise them for food,” remembered a seller of matchboxes, instant glue and other paraphernalia. From her strategic position in a doorway on the central street, the woman knows everyone’s business in the area. “In that house they were raising a pig in the bathroom,” she explains and points to a tiny room, with just a small window to the street, on the first floor. “You could hear it and smell it.” continue reading

“Even if I’m starving, I won’t do that for anything in the world,” said a potential customer

“Even if I’m starving, I won’t do that for anything in the world,” said a potential customer who looked at some shoelaces for sale, asked the price of some plumbing pieces and checked the flavors of the instant soda packages. “My family and I raised a pig 30 years ago and in the end got attached to the animal and couldn’t kill it,” he explains. “It escaped from the bathroom where we had it locked up and went to sleep in our bed. Finally we had to sell the pig to a cousin because we didn’t have the heart to sacrifice it.”

With their white plumage, blackened by the soot that rises from the street, the two chickens on the balcony continue to peck stubbornly at the floor and in the cracks of the unpainted facade. “In addition, fattening an animal requires food, and if it’s hard now to get food for humans what is left for them? At least in the 90s you could find something to feed them,” said the man, who in the end leaves without buying anything. Comparisons with current times have ended up turning the 1990s Special Period into a longed-for time for Cubans. Better to avoid parallels.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Brazilian Pork, US Turkey and Turkish Rice for Christmas Eve for Cubans with Resources

Sale of meat in the market of 17 and K, in El Vedado, Havana, on December 24, 2024 / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 24 December 2024 — Turkey breasts from Minnesota, pork loins and legs that say “Made in USA” on the label, chickens raised in Brazil and pieces of impeccable beef fed with grass from the Iowa plains. A few hours before the Christmas Eve festivities, the platforms of Havana’s markets are mostly stocked with imported products, in a country where agriculture and livestock have reached rock bottom.

In the market on Tulipán Street in Nuevo Vedado, previously managed by the Youth Labor Army (EJT), of which only the name remains, the sellers announce this Tuesday pieces of pork at 1,000 pesos a pound, “clean, with little fat and without skin,” clarifies a smiling young man behind the counter. To convince the undecided customers, faced with the high prices, he emphasizes that the pieces “are yumas, no cubiches [foreign, not Cuban].” A few feet away, the packages of the Turkey Valley Farms brand display breasts “ready to put in the casserole or in the oven,” according to another employee. Each of the pieces is around 6,000 pesos.

A few feet away, the packages of the Turkey Valley Farms brand display breasts “ready to throw in the casserole or put in the oven,” according to another employee / 14ymedio

Cut into cubes, for those who have fewer resources, in the market on 17th and K streets, once also in the hands of the EJT, minced chicken was also being sold. Despite not having the colorful packaging of the turkey or the appetizing presence of pork legs, the label that accompanies the product says it comes from the United States. Tired of the adulterations and the bad taste of animals raised with remains collected from the garbage or with fishmeal, those Cuban diners who can afford the dinner of this December 24 opt for animals born and slaughtered outside the Island.

To complete the panorama of the foreign, a bag of rice with the label of a Turkish company rests next to others of corn flour from Spain and some packages of sweets that make clear their Mexican or Panamanian origin. The dried spice packets from Goya and Iberia have also displaced the fresh cilantro continue reading

of other years, the wild oregano that was added to the black beans, and, instead of the Creole sour orange to smear on the pork, a mojo of the Badia brand monopolized the looks and longings of those who passed by.

Cut into cubes, for those who have fewer resources, in the market on 17th and K streets, minced chicken was also being sold / 14ymedio

Of course, next to the butcher’s area, the platforms with yucca and lettuce exhibited only national goods. As soon as you saw them, you could tell they were coming from the yard. Some stunted cassava, full of dirt, attracted numerous elderly people who, with their bags hanging from their shoulders, formed a line at full speed. The leaves of the vegetables were beginning to get musty but, most likely, the vast majority will be sold before the sun sets.

Despite the inflation and the hard year that is coming to an end, many try to guarantee tonight’s family meal. As if of a spell to leave hardships behind, people are trying to rescue a certain festive atmosphere and the greeting that is most repeated in the streets says: “Merry Christmas.”

As the hours pass, the sorcery that some habaneros use to prepare their tables for tonight is more like an exorcism to expel the demons from the national debacle. It will also be accomplished with the foreign food that came from outside the country.

Despite the inflation and the hard year that is coming to an end, many try to guarantee tonight’s family meal / 14ymedio

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Colors of Cuban Christmas: Red Like a Tomato, Green Like the Dollar

A pound of the popular food sells for 400 pesos while last January it cost 100

A tomato seller in the Youth Labor Army market on Tulipán Street in the neighborhood of Nuevo Vedado, Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 15 December 2024 — In salad it is delicious; converted into sauce, a delicacy; and thrown towards a stage a real insult. The tomato has the ability to mutate in every circumstance. The many dishes that are made with this fruit are so numerous that there are even recipes for tomato syrups and tomato jams. Its versatility is accompanied, of course, by a brake: the current prices.

This Sunday morning a table in the Youth Labor Army market on Tulipán Street in Nuevo Vedado, Havana, attracted the curious. A pile of tomatoes displayed a price that initially unleashed curiosity. “I approached because I saw that they were at 200 pesos a pound. On the street they reach 300, and a few days ago I bought them at 400,” says Odalis, a frequent customer of the place, previously managed almost entirely by the Armed Forces but with more and more private stalls.

In most markets in the Cuban capital, the tomato disappears during the hottest months and returns when temperatures begin to drop. However, there are shops like the one at 19 and B in El Vedado, mockingly called La Boutique for its high prices, which has the product on sale all year round. In agricultural areas, such as Sancti Spíritus, the Plaza Boulevard also maintains a stable supply.

“The price has also skyrocketed because of the recent measures applied to the MSMEs, and tomato sauce will soon go missing “

Although the tomato maintained its presence from January to December, with the exception of last July, on the shelves in Sancti Spíritus the price has risen or decreased depending on the quality of the fruit and demand. Now, a pound of tomatoes costs 400 pesos, while last January it cost 100. The price continue reading

increase seems to be influenced by the proximity of the end of the year, with festivities that give the tomato a prominent place in a salad to accompany the pork, rice, beans and cassava.

“The price has also skyrocketed because of the recent measures applied to the MSMEs [Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises], and tomato sauce will soon go missing,” adds a resident of Reparto Kilo 12. “People have to make their own sauce because the private markets are closed. Many businesses are in liquidation. They are not going to continue, because they fear [being fined by] the inspectors.”

Although the tomato maintained its presence from January to December, with the exception of last July, on the shelves of Sancti Spíritus, its price has risen or decreased depending on the quality of the fruit and demand / 14ymedio

Meanwhile in Havana, Odalis thought she had come across a great offer in the EJT market, but it was just a mirage. “As soon as I stood in front of the table I realized why the price was only 200 pesos a pound,” she says with frustration. “They smell rotten and are being sold at a discount. Look at the skin: there are bruises, dents and cuts. “Maybe they could still be used to make sauce, but this is not the best variety for that.”

When she talks about a variety of tomatoes, the woman enters a territory unknown to many young Cubans. “People from before do know these things. Cherry tomatoes are perfect for sauce, because they have much more pulp, fewer seeds and also very thin skin,” she explains. “Between December and January, my mother made all the tomato sauce we consumed in our house.”

The preparation of those sauces was a moment of family reunion. “They put us children to work washing the tomatoes, and my father prepared the wood stove on the patio, because at that time we lived in Santiago de las Vegas and had a good space outside with fruit trees.” The mother and grandmother took turns in front of the huge pot, stirring with a wooden pallet “that looked more like an oar than a spoon.”

“They smell rotten. These tomatoes have gone bad and are not good to sell to people”

Then came the method for preparing tomato sauce: “scrub the bottles, boil them and keep the lids ready.” The tomatoes were pounded and strained to separate the seeds and pieces of skin; “a little seasoning and salt were added, and then the sauce was simmered in a pot on the stove until it thickened.” Finally, it was put into the sterilized jars with airtight lids and stored in a dark place “unexposed to the sun. ” All that was left was to “enjoy that sauce in a good stew or with some spaghetti.”

But the fall in agricultural production and the arrival of a wide variety of imported sauces buried that tradition. On digital sites that sell food for emigrants to buy for their relatives on the Island, a 12-oz. can of tomato paste costs $2.50. For those who have foreign currency there are many options. Lighter or thicker sauces, seasoned or low in salt, with pieces of tomato or finely filtered. There is even tomato juice, much appreciated for mixing with certain alcoholic beverages.

On those sites there are containers of cherry tomatoes with or without skin, sofritos [fried onion, garlic and tomato to be used in a sauce] that include peppers and carrots, in addition to some locally produced sauces that are undervalued due to the frequent adulteration suffered by such mixtures- cheaper, but with an unpredictable flavor. For those who prefer the fresh product to use in salads, robust, fleshy tomatoes with shiny skin are offered. All fruits have a bright red tone and are paid for with the green bills of the “enemy’s currency.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Bubble That Was Once the Havana Film Festival Has Burst

With few screening rooms and precarious means, the once prestigious cultural festival is in complete decline

Cine Chaplin, during the day of the Havana festival devoted to Palestinian films / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 14 December 2024 — A journalist takes notes on the terrace of the Hotel Nacional in Havana while interviewing an Argentine film director. At another table, an actress poses for photographers, and, in the beautiful garden, a feature film producer asks a young cameraman to take several shots of the Malecón. The unreal bubble breaks as soon as you leave the imposing building that brings together the main guests of the Havana Film Festival.

“I have come for more than 20 years almost every December, with the exception of the break due to the pandemic,” a Latin American reporter who prefers to remain anonymous tells 14ymedio. “This year I have been very affected by the low quality of the Festival and the number of beggars that are seen around cinemas and hotels. I have not even been able to sit down and enjoy a coffee because immediately someone arrives asking for money or food.”

With a credential hanging around her neck, which opens the doors of all cinemas and parallel events, the freelance journalist has been attentive to every detail. “The first problem I came across is that the press release, which used to have all the information very well organized, is a disaster this year. They don’t even put the time accurately because they don’t know when the electricity will go off and they’ll have to suspend the projection.”

“The Festival has shrunk; now it’s only on 23rd Street”

“The Festival has shrunk; now it’s only on 23rd Street. The screenings used to be in other neighborhoods or in the Glauber Rocha room [municipality of La Lisa], for example, but that no longer exists,” she points out. The event has taken refuge in a few spaces where “a lot of the Cuban audience can’t come because of the fuel problem.”

For independent journalist Luis Cino, a collaborator of Cubanet, the reduction of screening rooms is a serious problem for the Havana cultural scene. “What kind of film festival is this in a city where out of 138 cinemas there are only four left (Yara, Charlie Chaplin, 23 and 12 and Acapulco), all in El Vedado, which is almost impossible to get to due to the lack of buses?” continue reading

To the few venues included in the program must be added the impairment caused by blackouts. “We arrived at the 23 and 12 cinema to see the movie Matar a hombre, by Orlando Mora Cabrera, and everything was in the dark. There was no poster or anything explaining if they were going to show it another day, a total lack of respect for the public,” says Anthony, 23, a student at the Enrique José Varona University of Pedagogical Sciences.

Cinema of 23 and 12, in El Vedado, Havana, in total blackout / 14ymedio

Together with his friends, the young man also spent an afternoon in front of the Chaplin cinema and was surprised by the red, green, white and black colors of the Palestinian flags hanging on the facade. Outside, an employee with a sad face urged passers-by to enter. “There were four cats in the main room. We went in to sit down because we were tired, and the others who were there were people who use the cinema to sleep because they don’t have a house.”

“The only moment of festival enthusiasm was the premiere of the series One Hundred Years of Solitude in the Yara,” says Anthony. “There were a lot of young people and it was nice, but the rest of the venues have been pretty dead. Almost all the theaters I entered were practically empty.” From a generation that consumes audiovisual material mainly on mobile devices, Anthony believes that “with this lack of charm, they will not attract people to the festival.”

This year not only were the places for the screenings limited but the event brought together only 110 films in competition, 89 fewer than last year, from 42 countries. Cuban productions of numerous filmmakers who have emigrated in recent years were missing from the festival. Their works either have been censored or they have decided not to present themselves as an act of protest over the lack of freedoms on the Island.

“I find it shameful that today someone sits down to quietly listen to the false speeches of violent men, liars, proven abusers and verified human rights violators,” said producer Claudia Calviño on her social networks. She and her husband, the independent journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa, have been exiled. “Those who sit there (in the same place from where combat orders are given), to listen without question, without recognizing the suffering of the suppressed, are, in fact, endorsing impunity and oblivion.”

“It gives the impression that no one believes this and that they have put on the Festival so they can say that they did not suspend it”

Her attitude coincides with that maintained by Eliecer Jiménez Almeida, resident in Miami and director of the documentary Veritas (2021), who explains without mincing words his absence on the Billboard of the Festival. “Until Cuba freely exhibits the films of Orlando Jiménez Leal, Néstor Almendros, Jorge Ulla, León Ichaso, Iván Acosta, Miguel Coyula and a long list of directors among which I include myself, I am not interested. Solidarity for me is a matter of principle.”

To cover up the obvious reduction in venues and films suffered by the event, the official organizers placed platforms and sales kiosks along the main avenue of El Vedado and a stage at the intersection of 23rd and 12th streets for musicians and audiovisual materials. Public bathrooms outside the Chaplin Cinema increased the feeling that they were attending a carnival or a street fair.

Playwright and poet Norge Espinosa complained harshly about these additions in a text published in Café Fuerte: “I wonder what Alfredo Guevara would say about his poster plastered everywhere, with closed streets for musical presentations, gastronomy and a street-carnival atmosphere, in search of an image of what is supposedly popular. The festival never needed such things, nor the portable public toilets placed in front of the ICAIC [Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry].

For filmmaker Armando Capó, director of the film Agosto (2019), the diagnosis is very pessimistic. “The film festival has no soul. It has lost it despite the effort of its work team. This has been achieved by speeches that rewrite history. The annulment of Cuban filmmakers. The idiotic carnivalization of the spectacle.” In his opinion, the event “looked like a representation for foreign filmmakers, a staging for the authorities, needing to hear what they want to hear. A parallel reality where the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers does not exist.”

“It gives the impression that no one believes this and that they have only put on the Festival to say that they did not suspend it,” Anthony considers. For the Latin American journalist, the immersion in the event has left a deep and sad impression. “The filmmakers are fed up and very upset. I talked to some who told me that they were not even going to go to the closing because they already knew what it was going to be: official speeches ensuring that everything went very well, when the truth is that the Festival is broken, completely broken.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘Now We Are Supposed to Buy from the State but I Do Not Do Business with the State’

Small and medium-sized private businesses (MSMEs) that are not willing to accept the Cuban government’s new rules are liquidating their inventory and going out of business.

The new measures do not only affect private businesses that sell food, though this is one of the most open types of businesses. / 14ymedio/ Archive

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 11 December 2024 — Cookies, soft drinks and bouillon cubes are some of the items on a list that is making the rounds from cell phone to cell phone in Havana’s Sitios neighborhood. In a WhatsApp group, local residents inform each other of the new clearance prices of these products in a nearby privately owned store. “Buy now. This is the last month the store will be open,” reads the text.

The Official Gazette recently announced a resolution that prohibits micro, small and medium-sized enterprises(MSMEs) from selling wholesale merchandise without state involvement. It also prohibits self-employed workers from doing any wholesale transactions, a move that has caused many small privately owned shops to either liquidate their entire stock to comply with the new law or to shut down permanently. “We don’t import but we do buy from a couple of private companies that do — always through a state intermediary — which saves us from all the paperwork of bringing the products in from overseas,” says Pablo, who owns a small store near Carlos III Avenue.

Pablo, an alias this businessman uses to avoid retaliation, began selling off his merchandise in early November after learning that new measures would soon take effect. “I only have a few items left so we are doing an end-of-year sale and offering discounts to clear everything out before December 20. We will not be open at Christmas and by 2025 we won’t even be in business anymore,” he explains. continue reading

“I only have a few items left so we are doing end-of-year sales and offering discounts to clear everything out before December 20

Pablo says that he has two main suppliers, “an MSME that imports frozen foods such as chicken, ground beef and pork from the United States and another that imports detergent and soap as well as shelf-stable foods from Mexico.” Going forward, both companies will not be able to sell this merchandise wholesale to small private retailers. “Now we are supposed to buy from the state but I do not do business with the state, he says.”

Pablo’s distrust comes from having worked for more than two decades at an affiliate of Cubacontrol, a state-0wned company that oversees many of the island’s commercial transactions. “I was an insider and I know how things work at those places. What will happen is that everything will become slower, more difficult, more bureaucratic and that’s really not for me. My wife and I started this business because we wanted to improve our lives, not give ourselves heart attacks.”

A well-stocked store on Central Havana’s Reina Street that used to sell soft drinks, beer and wide variety of knick-knacks has also been closed for a week. Local residents tell would-be customers looking for the place that it has gone out of business. “They closed and sold off what they had left,” says a retiree who is disappointed by the owners’ decision. “The lady who rented them the living room in her house loses that income. And now when you want a smoke or a cold drink, you have to walk further to get it.”

Private businesses that sell food are not the only ones affected by the new measures. “Buy the whole lot. We are having a clearance sale,” explains an ad from a small company that sells wholesale ceramic tiles. “Spanish ceramics. Big discounts if you buy the whole lot, which includes all documentation from [the port of] Mariel. Everything above board. We are not making a profit. We want to clear out our stock before the end of the year.” Several rows of boxes with tiles in different sizes, textures and colors can be seen in the accompanying photos.

“Spanish ceramics. Big discounts if you buy the whole lot, which includes all documentation from [the port of] Mariel

Other construction material suppliers are also selling off their inventory in order to comply with the new regulations. Henceforth, they will be required to buy wholesale from state-owned companies acting as middlemen. “We didn’t have much left in stock because these past few months have been challenging. Almost no new merchandise came in. We’ll see how things go under this new law before closing down for good and then get a different business license to deal with the new conditions,” said the owner of a business that sells cement and tools as well as kitchen and bath plumbing fixtures.

For someone named Raúl Rojas Leiva, having the state act as middleman is a recipe for disaster: “If Cuban distribution companies have so much transportation, infrastructure and commercial experience, why don’t orders arrive on time? Why do these distribution companies sell almost nothing? And I mean nothing,” he asks on the local government’s official Facebook page, which officials in Havana launched in hopes of convincing businesspeople of the new resolution’s benefits.

“Big clearance sale on footwear for men, women and children. Don’t miss out. Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” reads an ad from another MSME, this time in Havana’s Tenth of October district. “It’s all quality merchandise, imported from Panama and currently worn round the world. No old models,” the vendor states. Unlike other store owners who are hoping to stay open under the new legislation, she is taking a more drastic approach. “We are going out of business because our supplier says that he will no longer be able to sell to us wholesale.”

In the case of this shoe store, the closeout also includes the house where the merchandise is displayed. “If you want to buy a two-story house near Santa Catalina, this is your best option. The ground floor is configured to accommodate a business, which is currently a shoe store but can be renovated to house a hair salon, spa or a small grocery,” writes the seller, who adds, “Stay tuned on our WhatsApp channel because we will be getting rid of everything, including the mirrors.”

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With No Ammonia to Freeze Its Ice Cream, Havana’s Coppelia Has Been Closed for Two Months

The gas is essential for production because, without it,” you cannot make ice cream at all,” explains an employee.

On Friday the ice cream parlor on 23rd and L streets was closed. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 6 December 2024 — There is less hustle and bustle than usual around the white and blue facade on Rancho Boyeros Avenue these days. Coppelia’s main ice cream production plant in Havana has been shut down for more than two months due to a shortage of ammonia, a gas essential for freezing the product. The company’s ice cream is sold at cafes and food service establishments, including the iconic ice cream cathedral on 23rd and L streets in the city’s Vedado district.

Niurka, a company employee whose name has been changed to protect her identity, has been laid off since late September. Though she still collects part of her salary, her income has been significantly reduced. “Everyone knows that no one at Coppelia lives off their salary,” she admits. In Lawton, the neighborhood where she lives, Niurka has at least twenty customers who buy boxes of ice cream from her, “direct from the factory.”

“They ask me when I’ll be getting more but nobody is giving us a date. Every week I call to ask and they tell me that the ammonia still hasn’t arrived,” she explains. Niurka’s dilemma, like that of many other Coppelia employees, is whether to wait until the raw materials arrive so she can return to her job, or look for work somewhere else in order to support her family.

“In recent years we’ve had several shutdowns, some due to supply shortages. We’ve also run out of containers and some flavors but, this time, it is a complete shutdown. They cannot make ice cream at all because there is no way to chill anything,” she says. “It’s no longer a question of making vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate because there is no ammonia for continue reading

either one.”

A limited run of higher-quality Coppelia ice cream was produced for the the G77 Summit in Havana

Another employee recalls that in September 2023, when production had fallen due to a shortage of ingredients, a limited run of higher-quality Coppelia ice cream was produced for guests attending an official event at the G77 Summit in Havana. “They virtually militarized the factory to prevent employees from stealing some of the ice cream,” he says. On the day they moved it out of the plant, they allowed the workers to sample “a small cup of it.”

By November of last year, the ups and downs at the plant were having a severe impact at the giant Coppelia ice cream parlor, which was forced to close its doors because the factory was not producing enough ice cream to serve its sit-down customers. On that occasion, the problem was a shortage of milk and sugar, which halted production of a product in high demand on the island, especially in months when temperatures rise above 25 degrees Celsius.

Though thermometers began dropping early this month with the onset of winter, not even Havana’s mild seasonal climate was enough to prevent would-be customers at the country’s premier ice cream parlor on Friday from becoming visibly frustrated. The outlet has been closed for several days. “After Hurricane Raphael we were only open for a few hours on two days because there was no ice cream,”a groundskeeper explained. He reported, however, that Coppelia was selling four-liter boxes of ice cream despite the shutdown. “But they did not come from the Boyeros factory because it is closed. We have not received anything from there for more than a month and a half.” As for when things might be up and running again, “There’s no reopening date. We just don’t know,” he said.

Coppelia’s closure coincides with the opening of the Havana Film Festival on Thursday, leaving a bad taste in customers’ mouths. “In the old days, when you left the cinema, you would head straight over to Coppelia. It was like a ritual,” recalled a young man outside the Yara theater, who ultimately decided to go instead to a privately owned café that serves ice cream. Though its prices are not subsidized like at its state-owned counterpart, there is no interruption in service. “They don’t seem to experience hurricanes or breakdowns,” he noted ironically.

“Ice cream production is one of Cuban industry’s most energy-intensive manufacturing processes”

A retired engineer who worked in the dairy sector for more than two decades explained the complex situation the factory is facing. “Today, it’s a shortage of ammonia but you have to remember that ice cream production is one of Cuban industry’s most energy-intensive manufacturing processes, he said.” Coppelia uses a two-step refrigeration process that involves vapor compression, which relies on ammonia.”

The engineer details the complexities of operation. “They need temperature extremes. One at the high end to process the milk and other raw materials, and another at the low end to allow the product to cool and harden,” he explains. “The whole process consumes a lot of electricity and cannot be interrupted at any point. A power outage that affects the sequence can ruin the ice cream.” His explanation, coming in the midst of the third disruption to the nation’s energy grid in less than two months, underlines the vulnerability of industry.

“The plant has its own generators but there is still the problem of fuel supply. The industry is not seen as a strategic or vital sector so it does not get high priority,” he added. “As things stand now, even if it survives the ammonia crisis, it will be very difficult to continue producing a reliable, high-quality product.”

Coppelia’s Havana factory is located on the same site on Rancho Boyeros Avenue as the former San Bernardo Lácteos S.A factory, whose original owners lost it to nationalization after Fidel Castro came to power in January 1959.

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Enveloped in the Surrounding Darkness, the First Christmas Decorations Shine in Havana

Santa’s red costume reigns in the private shops, but the regime’s olive green reigns in places under state management

The figure of an elf, with beard and pointed hat, stood out against the poor lighting in the shop.

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 7 December 2024 – The Christmas decorations have begun timidly to appear in Havana. The private sector, with its cafeterias, its bars and its shops, is at the forefront of the decorations, with lights and garlands that set officialdom’s teeth on edge. This December, however, there haven’t yet been any published diatribes from officials or party ideologues criticising all the little Christmas trees and Santas’ sleighs. Perhaps it’s because at this particular year’s end the principal enemy of any festivities is the crisis, and especially the power cuts, that leave the nativity scenes in semi-darkness.

Inside an independent outlet in the National Bus Terminal in Rancho Boyeros Avenue on Thursday night, the figure of an elf with beard and pointed hat stood out against the poor lighting in the shop. Having a certain visual mixture of garden gnome and Santa Claus, the inflatable doll reigned over the dimly lit display counters with their packets of sweet biscuits (cookies) and crisps (chips), all of them imported.

“Better not to even look at the prices, otherwise you’ll be shocked”, advised a young girl who’d arrived at the station carrying only a small backpack. “I’m going to need more than a wizard in a hood to see if I can manage to get on a bus”, she said. In front of her, on a counter full of goodies, piles of polystyrene snow surrounded a number of decorations in the form of Christmas presents. continue reading

Two men in the armed forces uniform of the Prevention Troops patrolled with their dogs

A string of tiny blinking lights attempted to bring some kind of festive atmosphere to the scene, but most people just hurried by and didn’t even glance at the Christmas display. Close by the business, two men in the armed forces uniform of the Prevention Troops, known as the Red Berets, patrolled the terminal with their dogs.

Santa’s red in the private shops, and the regime’s olive green in the places under state management. A reindeer transporting presents on one side, and on the other side a German shepherd dog seeking out drugs, cheese, meat or seafood in passengers’ luggage, and, all about them, the semi-darkness of a station which had as little illumination as the buses that departed from it had.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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The Tree of a Thousand Voices Arrives at The Country with only one Growl

Loaded with words, the 15-meter-high consortium is a hymn to freedom and the power of literature.

‘Those who cross the Plaza de Armas in Havana these days will come across an enormous installation by the French artist Daniel Hourdé. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia Lopez Moya, Havana, 18 November 2024 — El árbol de las Mil Voces extends its branches in the centrally located space and, instead of leaves, displays an endless number of book pages. The collection, loaded with words and measuring 15 meters high, is a hymn to freedom and the power of literature. But its foliage, with fragments of Lorca, Proust or Goethe, takes on another meaning in Cuba, a country marked by censorship and editorial dogma.

The writings, on pages that hang like fruits of human knowledge and creativity, include a wide catalog of Poetry, Narrative, Art History and Philosophy. The wind can stir the structure, shake the steel pages that creak and rattle, creating a unique symphony on each occasion, but it cannot bring down the thick trunk that supports human creation. The gusts can barely batter the flowers, just as intolerance can barely hit literature but never uproot it.

‘The Tree of a Thousand Voices’ arrives amid an artistic wasteland where much of the diversity that Cuban culture once displayed has been lost

Standing near the base, it is sufficient to glance up to read names that Cuban editorial policy in recent decades has looked down on, such as Octavio Paz and Milan Kundera. But there are also many other works that readers on the Island have missed because the economic crisis has reduced continue reading

the publication of international authors, while resources continue to be allocated to supporting propaganda. More than a thousand voices, Hourdé’s tree seems like a chorus of cries that remember the unpublished titles, the stories not disseminated and the gaps left in so many bookstores and libraries.

The piece has also landed at a very complicated time for freedom of expression in Cuba. The 15^th edition of the Havana Biennial could not take place in a worse context, with hundreds of political prisoners and artists, such as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, having been sentenced to prison for pushing the limits of the narrow cultural policy. The intensification of repression, the tightening of censorship and the lack of opportunities for creators have also contributed to the especially dramatic exodus among painters, sculptors, actors and writers.

The Tree of a Thousand Voices arrives in the middle of an artistic wasteland where much of the diversity that Cuban culture once displayed has been lost. If the piece symbolizes freedom of expression, as its author has stressed on numerous occasions, it only remains to read it as a wake-up call in Cuba. Its branches and leaves, full of words, grow and expand in a restored square for tourists, in the framework of an event that functions as a showcase for a plurality that does not exist, and surrounded by people who have been deprived of the right to decide what they can read and what voices they can listen to.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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The Lack of Milk and the Import of Gouda Are Burying Cuba’s Own Creole Cheese

At the La Plaza Boulevard market in the city of Sancti Spíritus, a pound of Creole cheese costs 450 pesos this week / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 1 December 2024 –Inseparable companion of the wedge of guava and constant presence in the hands of the sellers who display their merchandise on the sides of the road, white or Creole cheese was so common in our lives that we only knew how to value it when it began to become more expensive and scarcer every day. Now, a wave of synthetic and tasteless products is giving the coup de grace to the cheese of farmers.

“I was born in Sancti Spíritus, a very rural province where we are proud to make one of the best cheeses in Cuba,” recalls Pascual, 81, a resident of Havana for six decades. This week, the old man’s sister visited him from her native Jatibonico. “She managed to bring two pounds of cheese made by our cousin, but she told me to eat it slowly because it is the last production: he is selling the farm.”

Pascual cut a thin slice, sat down in the armchair on the terrace and took the first bite. Suddenly, he remembered his mother’s scream from the courtyard of his childhood telling him not to climb so high in the mango tree. The smell of the mountain flooded everything, and he saw the milkman placing bottles at the doors of the houses with the first rays of the sun. He heard the neighbor’s rooster and the noise that his father made, machete in hand, when he cut the grass that grew at the entrance to their home, made of planks and palm trees.

“I was born in Sancti Spíritus, a very rural province where we are proud to make one of the best cheeses in Cuba”

The second bite took Pascual to the Military Service where that white cheese had killed his hunger many times. “The bread arrived still warm; they gave me a large piece and put a slice inside; if there was a little bit of guava nearby, even better.” When the Rafter Crisis happened in the summer of 1994, his eldest son took to the sea with several friends. They were finally continue reading

intercepted and taken to the Guantánamo Naval Base. He now lives in Tampa.

“The only thing he could carry was some water and a piece of white cheese; eating that for the week they were adrift was how he was saved,” he recalls now. “In Tampa, you can buy all the cheese you want, cheddar and mozzarella mainly, but he tells me that it doesn’t have any taste, nothing like that farmers’ cheese bathed in seawater; there’s nothing like it.” The sour smell spreads over the terrace; an almost blind dog approaches and Pascual gives him a piece. The animal swallows it quickly and begs for more.

The journey to the past, over a piece of cheese, is over. “I’m going to save what I have left for some spaghetti that I want to make on the weekend,” he explains. Inside the refrigerator, wrapped in a cloth that was once a baby’s diaper, is kept the treasure that has arrived from a farm in Sancti Spíritus, where the arms of his cousin have beaten the milk, sweat has been mixed with the whey, and an improvised press with two boards and a tourniquet has given it form.

A few kilometers from the farm for sale, in the La Plaza Boulevard market in the city of Sancti Spíritus, a pound of Creole cheese costs 450 pesos this week, 100 more than in these days in December last year. But this is not its highest price; it reached 550 last June. However, even with plenty of money in your pocket, it is not so easy to buy a product that has been disappearing from Cuban markets and homes to the same extent that livestock production is sinking, hit by the lack of animal feed, the wave of illegal slaughter that keeps cattle owners without support and the State controls that force farmers to comply with the deliveries of milk agreed with Acopio.

“Making cheese takes time and a lot of work; this is not sewing and singing,” a merchant from La Plaza Boulevard defends himself when a customer complains about the price of the product. Nearby, a private mipyme, full of imported products, offers a pound of Gouda cheese at 2,100 pesos. This cheese has a high demand,” clarifies the smiling employee. “You can buy the entire block that is three and a half kilograms or we can sell it to you by the pound,” he says. The label has the name of the Spanish firm Vima.

Some of the imported cheeses that arrive on the Island are synthetic. These are dairy preparations made from fats, fragments of other cheeses, starches, salts and dyes. These ingredients are ground, mixed and melted. As a general rule they contain a lot of salt. They don’t have the typical holes that fermentation leaves, and they are very caloric, but among Cubans they are surrounded by a halo of healthy and tasty foods.

If you don’t have a lot of money, you will have to settle for a small pizza, about 17 centimeters in diameter, made with farmers’ cheese for 200 pesos

Thankfully it melts; it can stretch and is quite photogenic, but the Gouda cheese that arrives in Cuba absolutely lacks personality. It comes in rectangular bars and without those holes inside that create the action of bacteria during the maturation of the product. With artificial color, wrapped in plastic and odorless, the imported cheese has captivated Cubans and intimidated the local rancher.

That unequal fight is seen everywhere. In a cafeteria located on Zanja Street in Central Havana, the bulletin board shows the superiority that customers give to foreign cheese. If you don’t have a lot of money, you will have to settle for a small pizza, about 17 centimeters in diameter, made with farmers’ cheese for 200 pesos. But if you can spend more and, in addition, want to give an image of solvency, then you will have to pay 350 for a similar product but with Gouda. Almost everyone who arrives asks for this last combination.

However, Pascual has positioned himself in his own way in that encounter between Creole and industrial cheese, with colorful labels in which a chubby cow smiles. Wrapped in a thin fabric, his cheese remans the last piece of a food in the refrigerator that has the ability to transfer him back to his childhood, to the patio with the orange and tamarind trees where he grew up. He chews it calmly and hears the scream of his mother who tells him to get out of there, that the snack is already on the table. A sandwich with a white slice, full of holes, that protrudes on each side of the bread, awaits him.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Cuba, a Pound of Pork Reaches 1,000 Pesos a Few Weeks Before the Christmas Holidays

The price of meat has always worked as a thermometer to measure the state of the domestic economy.

The rise in the price of pork comes to a large extent from the fall in national production / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 24 November 2024 — It became so common on Cuban tables that someone proposed to remove from the national shield the Cuban tocororo, that bird that few have seen, to replace it with a good chubby pig. Pork was our Thanksgiving turkey, our Mother’s Day delicacy, our Christmas dish and our December 31 dinner. Nobody questioned the crown ingredient of festivities, the protein of family meals and the protagonist of the boxes that were sold in street stalls.

But Don Cochino has changed and is no longer seen on solemn occasions. This week, in the 19 and B market of El Vedado, Havana, the price of a pound of pork reached 1,000 pesos, twice as much as a year ago. For their part, the offers with skin, fat and bone are up to 900 and for ribs with little to bite you must pay 850. That increase, a few weeks before the New Year’s Eve celebrations, augurs a Christmas without chicharrones or masitas fritas [fried pork chunks] in many homes.

“Here I have 5,000 pesos, and this is not enough for two meals for the four people in my house,” lamented a woman in front of the butcher counter. Shortly before, she had managed to discreetly get 20 dollars from an informal money changer at the entrance. “With what’s left of my money, which is not even 2,000 pesos, I am going to buy some tomatoes and a cabbage,” she sighed.

If in November 2023 a pound of pork reached 500 pesos, which made many Cubans raise their eyebrows and clutch their wallets, the beginning of this year behaved like a launch pad that boosted the price, which in April exceeded 1,200 pesos. By May, it seemed that the rise was beginning to slow down, but in the last quarter of the year it gained height again. continue reading

This week, in the 19 and B market, the price of a pound of pork reached 1,000 pesos, twice as much as a year ago / 14ymedio

The price of pork has always functioned as a thermometer to measure the state of the Cuban domestic economy. While a few decades ago the calculation separated families according to the part of the animal they managed to eat, now it has only two categories: those who cannot afford to sink their tooth into a piece of pork and those who still manage to pay for the meat of what was called “the national mammal.”

“When I was a child my family was poor, my mother worked in the gas company and my father was a driver on Route 22, but in my house they bought steaks, legs, liver and even heart,” recalls Alejandro, a resident in Old Havana who this Thursday tried to buy a pork shoulder in a market on Monte Street. “I couldn’t. When the butcher weighed the piece, it was above 10,000 pesos, crazy.”

“My dad, in the 80s, guaranteed with his salary that we would not miss the year-end pork,” he recalls. Alejandro’s family, without having a high income, was among those who could afford to roast a medium-sized leg for New Year’s Eve. “There were some neighbors who had very few resources and bought fat, necks or even ears, but no one was left without their little piece of pork.”

Now, Alejandro, his wife and their three children have been on the other side of the measurement. The line that divides those who can afford a piece of pig, whatever part of the animal, has thrown them into the area of those who must be content with savoring the memories. “The smell of pork can’t be hidden. When you fry chicharrones it’s like when you cook shrimp, lobster or squid: everyone in the neighborhood knows what you’re doing,” says this 51-year-old from Havana.

“When that smell comes from a house on my block, everyone draws their own conclusions: that family has money and lots of it, because pork is very expensive.” Alejandro does not rule out that some even open the windows and leave the door of the living room open so that the aroma floods the neighborhood and exhibits their purchasing power.

“A plate of pork now says more about your pocketbook than a gold chain,” he jokes. “Look, if you go out on the street with a piece of fried pork hanging around your neck it will cause more of a stir than if you wore an 18-carat gold chain.” In his opinion, the rise in the price of pork is largely due to the fall in national production and the arrival on the market of a product imported mainly from the United States.

“The breeding cycle was broken a few years ago when many females were slaughtered due to a lack of feed”

In the area of Alquízar, current province of Artemisa and former land of pig-breeding to nourish the voracious appetite of the habaneros, “the guajiros no longer want to dedicate themselves to this business,” confirms Mildred, who together with her husband supplied pork loins, with or without skin, with or without bone, to numerous residents of Nuevo Vedado, in the Cuban capital. “There is no feed for the animals,” she says.

“The breeding cycle was broken a few year ago when many females were slaughtered due to a lack of feed. Now people raise pigs for their own consumption and to sell a few animals. The Cuban pig that is currently bred cannot compete with the one that comes from the U.S., neither in size nor quality of meat, and much less in presentation.”

An American pork loin, from the Smithfield brand, is sold in private shops at a price of 1,100 pesos per pound, but “it is clean, very well packaged and with very little fat,” says Mildred. The lean pieces, the sanitary check stamps and the “Made in USA” sign attract more than “the legs full of flies hanging from the hooks of the agromarkets.”

“Most farmers have to slaughter the animal early in the morning to sell it the same day because there is no way to transport refrigerated pieces,” she points out. “In addition, here the pigs are stunted because they hardly let them grow. The lack of food accelerates the slaughter and does not allow them to be fattened. Before you could fatten up three pigs; now you can’t even bring one to a decent size.”

Mildred’s family, however, has saved their leg for the end of the year. “My brother bought it for me. He left a couple of months ago and is now in Tapachula, waiting for the appointment to enter the United States and working as a welder.” The piece that will delight the family on December 31 comes from Brazil. “We are crossing our fingers that there is no other big blackout because we have it frozen.”

If the national electrical system collapses again and the pork for December spoils, no one can predict how much a pound of pork will cost. The animal has already earned a place on the national coat of arms of the dreamed-about Cuba. In that coat of arms, the chubby animal frolics in an idyllic field with a lonely palm. On its head a key in the middle of two pieces of land is the symbol of an Island, in a strategic commercial and political position, that no one inhabits.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Eggplant, a Food That Evokes Memories and Completes the Dish

In just one year, eggplant, little liked on the Island, has doubled in price

Eggplant for sale at a vegetable stand in Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 17 November 2024 — A few years ago, eggplant was one of the few crops that did not have to be protected from thieves. While the farmers, with machetes hanging from their belts, guarded the garlic crops, the bananas and the furrows loaded with bean pods, the eggplant, with its smooth purple skin, was not in the sights of the vandals who devastated the plantations on the Island. But that has changed.

A large fruit, with a firm and soft whitish interior with numerous edible seeds, eggplant can be consumed in many ways. Among Cubans it is mainly roasted, sliced and fried, baked, sautéed or added to a broth. Less known on home tables but increasingly present in the kitchens of private restaurants, when made with cream it serves as an accompaniment in numerous combinations.

“I have a special affection for eggplant but in my house no one eats it, only me,” Damaris, a 48-year-old resident of Marianao, tells 14ymedio. “I spent the hardest years of the Special Period as a pre-university scholarship student in Güira de Melena. Among the local crops was eggplant, and we worked in the fields weeding and harvesting it.”

In the women’s dorm, the students tried to relieve the roar of hunger that came out of their stomachs

In the women’s dorm, the students tried to relieve the roar of hunger that came out of their stomachs. “We made all kinds of preparations with corn, continue reading

condensed milk and anything that appeared, but as we ran out of ingredients we began to take what we found in the fields so as not to go to bed with empty stomachs.”

Thus was born a dish that Damaris adores: grilled eggplant. “We had one of those old clothes irons that weighs a lot. We cut the eggplant into slices, put them on the top of a locker and ironed them, pressing hard so that they were very golden.” A preparation of “lemon, cilantro and salt” pressed on top with the hot iron made a dish “that tasted like glory.”

Culinary preferences are greatly influenced by memories: the smell of the red bean stew in the corridor of the quarters when returning from school, the funny tentacles of the squid that peeked out on the children’s plate, and that malanga cream that grandmother made by crushing the food with a fork and adding some milk. Memory shapes the palate and defines the dishes that make us salivate.

But millions of Cubans do not share Damaris’s appetizing memory of the eggplant. “My children can’t even look at it and my husband doesn’t like it, so I hardly buy any because they are big, and for one person it’s not worth it. I cut a piece, cook it, and the rest almost always spoils because I’m the only one eating it.” The family of the once-scholarship holder belongs to that majority of Cubans who see this food as “something that tastes like nothing and absorbs a lot of oil, a real food for fools.”

In September of last year, a pound of eggplant cost 200 Cuban pesos in the 19th and B market / 14ymedio

However, not even that generalized impression of the fruit, which has a high percentage of water and a great versatility for combining with other foods, has put the eggplant on the sidelines of inflation. If in September of last year a pound of the product cost 200 Cuban pesos in El Vedado’s 19th and B market, by this November it had already doubled in price.

“It serves to complete a dish, and if it is prepared with enough garlic, onion and lemon it replaces meat, which is so expensive,” said Catalina, an elderly woman who approached the platform of a cart driver in the Cerro neighborhood. “I dip it in a good Creole mojo, bread it and cool it, and my grandchildren ask me where I got the steaks,” the woman says in a mischievous tone. “I also put it on rice, and that’s how I make it stretch.

“A few days ago, a friend taught me how to make eggplant lasagna. It tastes delicious; the problem is that cheese is very expensive. Not to mention that tomato and now eggplant are both more expensive, so it’s not a cheap recipe either.” At least, she says, she has a good oven with the so-called “street” gas, one of the few services that still has some stability in the Cuban capital. Catalina will not have to use an iron to brown each spongy slice of tiny seeds.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Havana Loses Its ‘Abbey Road’ With the Fall of the Traffic Light in Front of Coppelia

Without the traffic light, passers-by lose the ability to cross 23rd Street at that point

The traffic light at 23rd Street in Havana the day after the passage of Hurricane Rafael / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 7 November 2024 — First the traffic light that regulated the passage of pedestrians in front of Coppelia, the city’s iconic ice cream parlor, stopped working, and now Hurricane Rafael has given the final machete chop to the crossing that connects the most famous ice cream shop in Cuba with Tower K, by knocking down the traffic light intended for vehicles that pass through 23rd. Without the light, passers-by lose the possibility of crossing the central avenue at that point, and Havana loses its umpteenth crosswalk.

Among the first photos of the recovery work in Havana published this Thursday are some that show young recruits of the Military Service collecting debris, fallen fences and tree branches in the vicinity of the building known as Torre López-Calleja (from the name of the late leader of the military conglomerate Gaesa, responsible for its construction). The tallest building on the Island stands out with its immaculate glass facade in the midst of the chaos left by the hurricane. The damage included the fall of the perimeter fence that surrounds the building, where construction work is still being carried out.

Hurricane Rafael has deepened the damage that laziness, lack of investments and the crisis have caused in what was once the cultural and economic heart of Havana

In the surroundings of the luxurious complex, which will house a hotel, shops and offices, Rafael has deepened the damage that laziness, lack of investments and the crisis have caused in what was once the cultural and economic heart of Havana. The broken sidewalks, the shortages at Coppelia, the closure of numerous restaurants and the decrease in the number of people who travel the area daily, due to the mass exodus and transport problems, now make up the landscape that extends along an avenue that runs from the sea to the Almendares River. continue reading

The broken traffic light in front of Coppelia will hardly be noticed in the midst of so much deterioration. Not much will be missed either: the shortage of fuel has significantly decreased the number of cars that travel 23rd, and the “island of flight” that Cuba has become has also depressed the number of pedestrians interested in crossing from one side of the street to the other.

But the places that memory treasures are lost. The kisses given before walking across that pedestrian passage; the braking saved in the memory of that day when an almendrón* was about to go through the red light; the trova** music coming from a guitar, while the green signaled the pedestrians; the taste of a scoop of chocolate ice cream on a fragile wafer, licked while planning to step on the crosswalk’s stripes.*** The setting that evokes these memories is missing more and more pieces.

Translator’s notes:
* A 1950s American car used as a shared taxi with a fixed route.
** Trova is a popular Cuban style of music, created by itinerant musicians in the 19th century who traveled around Oriente province singing original songs accompanied by guitar.
*** A crosswalk is called a “cebra” (zebra).

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Academics, Engineers and Retirees Sell Their Goods in a Second-Hand Market in Havana

“Everyone is doing it, selling the belongings of family members who have emigrated”

This Saturday, the improvised market was full of vendors and stalls / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 3 November 2024 — They arrive early; some spread a blanket but others simply used the stairs of a building to spread their goods. The flea market on the corner of Loma and Tulipán, in Nuevo Vedado, brings together dozens of residents every weekend. They are eager to make some money from the sale of used clothes and other belongings, mostly left behind by those who emigrated.

“I have baby and women’s shoes, plates, cutlery and some ornaments for the house,” offers Mirta, 75, a former radio worker currently retired with a pension of 1,600 pesos per month. “They are things that belonged to my daughter and my grandson who left in June,” she explains to 14ymedio. “But I haven’t sold much in the three Saturdays I’ve been coming,” she acknowledges

After ten in the morning, you can barely take a step on the access stairs to the park in front of two concrete blocks, 20 floors each. The buildings were built at a time when the Soviet subsidy allowed the rise of the microbrigade movement that left a permanent mark in Nuevo Vedado. But from those times only the huge buildings that are increasingly deteriorated remain.

I live right here, so I just have to walk a little, and as I arrive early, I choose a place where my products have more visibility from the sidewalk,” says Mirta. “What sells the most right now are suitcases, backpacks, coats and well-made sneakers. Everything that can be used to travel the route of the volcanoes (between Nicaragua and Mexico, to get to the United States) or go somewhere else is in demand, but the other things do not sell very much.”

The merchants start arriving at half past eight in the morning, every Saturday. “There are those who have more patience and stay until two or three in the afternoon, but others lose hope, and if they don’t sell much they leave at noon,” the woman explains. “It also depends on whether rain is coming or if there is a blackout, because on days when there is no electricity many people come down from the buildings because of the heat, and that increases the clientele.” continue reading

“At first you had to ask for a credential to sell, but now everything is more flexible. Anyone who comes can ask a neighbor, a school teacher, who is responsible for organizing this, to get assigned a space to put things down. There are even people who arrive and simply look for an empty space and put their goods down right there. No one objects,” adds Mirta.

The credential, a piece of handwritten cardboard, only has the name of the merchant, and in the time that Mirta has been bringing her products to the park “no one has come to check it,”or to see if she has it. “It’s a pure formality because everyone knows that those of us who sell here are not going to get rich; this is for daily survival, to eat.”

Near Mirta’s improvised point of sale, Manuel, 77 years old, has unfolded a colorful carpet from the time when, through his work in a cultural entity, he visited Peru with an official delegation. The carpet, in which diamonds, triangles and lines of different tones alternate, “is also for sale,” he says, but he retains his state employment. “From Monday to Friday I go to work and on weekends I’m here.”

Manuel’s goods are very diverse. Some wooden hookahs from when he still smoked, before a prostate cancer put him almost on the verge of death and convinced him to quit “certain bad habits,” he tells this newspaper. He also has many books of the boom period in Latin American literature that he has accumulated for more than half a century. “There are some first editions. If you buy more than one we can come to an arrangement,” he explains to a young man who approaches.

Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Alejo Carpentier and Juan Gelman are some of the names on the volumes. Right next to them, a sequence of used office supplies underlines the fact that Manuel’s is the sale of an intellectual. “The university degree, the academic publications and the official events have been of little use to me because here I am,” he says.

The flea market is full, without room for one more piece of merchandise / 14ymedio

Manuel has a daughter in Mexico but prefers not to ask her for “even a penny.” The young woman, newly married and with a small child, “already has her own problems. She can’t blame herself for not being able to support, in addition, an old man in Cuba.” So he is selling everything that once had some professional or personal value in his life: “That lighter was a gift from Nicolás Guillén; he used this frame with glass for his university diploma, and that bookmark was given to me in the National Library for a Day of the Librarian.”

Every little thing on Manuel’s carpet has a story, but he prefers to think about what he could buy if he manages to sell them. “I almost have enough for a carton of eggs, which is now more than 3,000 pesos, so if I manage to sell these boots, some rings of my wife that are quite beautiful and this frying pan, that’s enough for me.” But after two hours, he has barely managed to sell some kitchen handles and a doorbell button.

Now it’s almost noon, and on the steps and walls there’s no room for one more piece of merchandise on display. In the crowded flea market there are dresses, jeans, baby shoes, flip-flops, women’s bags, radios, hair dryers, headphones, casserole dishes, ornaments and trinkets. “Everything is washed and clean,” says an old woman who sees a couple showing interest in some children’s pants.

“They were from my grandson who took great care of things,” adds the woman who hurries to say that “he now lives in Seville, with his parents. Everything they left me here is of very good quality, imported clothing, well-made.” Most people who approach just look. “Today sales are bad because word of this place has now spread, and there are more and more people selling. It’s already saturated with products,” she sighs.

In the past, the neighborhood was the residential area of officials, military personnel and highly-positioned professionals. / 14ymedio

To pass the time, two nearby vendors share a little coffee they have brought in a thermos, another tells a woman selling children’s toys and sewing accessories to look after her wares because she has to go to the bathroom. Tied between two trees, a newly hung rope serves as a hanger for another vendor who has men’s shirts and some girls’ robes. “Come on, I’m already clearing up because I’m leaving, take two for the price of one,” she shouts, without much success.

In the neighborhood, which was once the residence area of officials, military personnel and highly-positioned professionals, a few years ago such a scandal was unthinkable . “If the people of Nuevo Vedado are like this, asking for water by signs and selling off even their underwear, what is left for those of La Timba or Pogolotti,” says the woman who finally manages to sell a couple of soccer jerseys “used but almost new.”

Others have not had any luck and by almost two in the afternoon they start to pack up. Mirta puts everything in a shopping cart that her daughter sent her. “I’m coming back next Saturday but I’m going to have to lower the prices a little because I see that everyone is doing the same thing, selling the things of those who left.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cabbage, Veteran Protagonist of the School Dinner, Now Too Expensive for Cubans

It is one of those products which, along with the cooking banana, is inextricably linked, in the collective imagination of this island, with times of the most extreme penury

Cabbage on sale at the market on Calle 19/B, Vedado, Havana / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 27 October 2024 – In the 1995 film Madagascar, directed by Fernando Pérez, around a dinner table, a family of “vegetable eaters” creates, out of the act of chewing, a physical and aural embodiment of the difficult years of Cuba’s ’Special Period’. The sound of crunch, crunch, crunch dominates the scene in which the characters seem trapped inside a hunger which forces them to eat only leaf vegetables every day, with nothing else as accompaniment. It would cost much more to reshoot that scene now, in these times of inflation and shortage.

Cabbage is one of those products which, along with the cooking banana, is inextricably linked, in the collective imagination of this island, with times of the most extreme penury. Resistant to the damaging effects of transport, easy to store and capable of filling several plates from one single item, it has as many admirers as it has critics. The majority of those who keep it away from their table tend to be people who are marked by the trauma of an infancy or adolescence in which Mrs Cabbage was all too often present.

“I was a pre-university student for three years in Güira de Melena and they gave us cabbage for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day”, jokes Lázaro, who, at 51 administrates a small fruit and veg stall near Calle Carlos III in central Havana. “I don’t eat it anymore, I can’t even bear the smell, but thanks to cabbage I can at least feed my family”, he says, pointing to some cabbages still enveloped in their dark green outer leaves. continue reading

“I was a pre-university student for three years in Güira de Melena and they gave us cabbage for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day”

“I sell them individually and on some days they’re the best quality but on others they arrive a little bit bruised because, although they’re a hardy product it’s best to transport them in boxes so they don’t get as knocked about or damaged”, he says. Most of the ones he sells are from the San Antonio de los Baños municipality, in Artemisa, where he has contacts “with a peasant farmer who harvests a little bit of everything”.

When a customer leaves Lázaro’s stall with a cabbage in his shopping bag, it is then that begins the new life of the vegetable which is later transformed according to who is to cook with it and the ingredients which are to be added. It may end up being just some rough dry strips on a prisoner’s tray, or, some thin strands spiced up and sprinkled with olive oil on a plate in a luxury restaurant. One’s expertise with a kitchen knife and the spices one has to hand can elevate it from the mediocre.

“The trick with cabbage is to peel off the leaves one by one”, says Julia, 81, who worked for years in a canteen based on the now defunct Cuban Fishing Fleet. “On the days when it was my turn to cook nobody left any cabbage on their plate, they ate it all up because I knew how to cut it, unlike my colleagues who just hacked away at it, producing only thick, hard pieces, which no one wanted to eat”.

Julia explains her technique like the surgeon describes to his students an incision to be made in a delicate area of bone, veins and tendons. “Once you’ve removed the leaves one by one, you wash them thoroughly and then you need to remove the central part which is difficult to chew and has a rather pungent taste”. On the table rests a very sharp knife, with which, after rolling up each leaf into a long tube, she cuts them into thin rings. When they unfurl and reveal their multiple layers, they look like slender noodles. “To season them I prepare separately a mixture of oil, salt and vinegar, although if I have some lemon juice that’s even better”.

Served immediately after seasoning, “this recipe for cabbage is irresistible”, says Julia. She also likes to sauté it, put it in preserves and make it into soups, but her speciality is “the cabbage salad for people who say they don’t like cabbage”. Given her level of skill, the only problem now is that her principal raw material is no longer that cheap product which used to fill the market counters and made Cubans chew unenthusiastically several decades ago.

Starting with an average-size cabbage, and using my technique of taking off one leaf at a time, and of using a very sharp knife to cut them into very thin strips, my husband and I can have salad for a whole week

Inflation has also had an effect on this vegetable, which has seen an increase in price in recent years. If one cabbage cost 80 pesos at the Plaza La Calzada (Cienfuegos) market a year ago, by the end of October this year the price had gone up to 100 pesos. Nevertheless, the price in this agricultural region par excellence is still massively lower than the 500 pesos needed to buy one at the Calle 19/B market in El Vedado, Havana.

“Starting with an average-size cabbage, and using my technique of taking off one leaf at a time, and of using a very sharp knife to cut them into very thin strips, my husband and I can have salad for a whole week”, Julia explains, but then adds, immediately: “That’s if my pension allows, because what I get per month isn’t really enough for even three cabbages, and with what my husband earns we can barely afford to prepare the dressing”.

Scattered across the world, some of those fishermen who, in the 80s and 90s sat down in front of a food tray in a state canteen where Julia was working, must remember those thin strands that she cut with such care and which they chewed with delight, tasting every mouthful.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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