Until a couple of years ago, a Cuban thousand peso bill was a rare sight.
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 24 February 2026 — Until a couple of years ago, a thousand Cuban peso bill was a rare sight. We saw them only a few times, and vendors would shake their heads if they had to give change for such a large sum. But on the island of inflation, handing over the face of Julio Antonio Mella now to buy something no longer surprises, impresses, or much less is synonymous with high purchasing power. Paper is just paper.
This Monday I’m venturing into Calzada del Cerro. I’ve been told that a shop selling ornamental plants also has fertilizer that I can use for the garden I’m preparing on my terrace in anticipation of the “zero option.” It is a row of still-tiny plants that could add some flavor to our food if garlic and onions stop arriving at the market, if life is paralyzed in Havana to the point where a bit of cilantro becomes an unattainable dream, or if people start fighting over a head of lettuce.
I will have what I can grow. Which is very little, given that apart from the schools-in-the-countryside I attended and the pre-university course I took in a dilapidated building in the middle of the fields of Alquízar, now in the province of Artemisa, my agricultural knowledge is very limited. I know how to weed and pull up the plants when they’re ready to be harvested. All that training to become the “New Man,” who could be self-sufficient, was nothing more than a caricature of education. We pretended we could survive on our own two feet, and we couldn’t even survive without the Soviet Union.
On the corner of Rancho Boyeros and Calzada del Cerro, there is a broken electric tricycle. Just because these vehicles don’t need gasoline doesn’t mean they’re immune to the constant potholes and uneven surfaces of Havana’s streets. The man tells me his name is Roly, and that he delivers packages for one of those agencies that brings goods from Miami. He says that due to a lack of fuel, they’ve lost almost their entire fleet of cars for deliveries. While some have seen their livelihoods disappear, others can’t keep up with the number of customers who call them to move a box or a suitcase. Roly was one of the latter, until a pothole brought his business to a halt.
There was a time when taking a Calixto García (50 peso) out of your wallet was a sign of financial ease
“This repair won’t cost less than 8,000 or 10,000,” he estimates as he tries to pull the vehicle up to the curb, waiting for a friend who’s coming to help him get home. Life is measured in thousands of pesos. That pound of pork costs 1,000, this pack of adult diapers is 3,000, and that dozen painkillers costs 5,000. We add things up in a big way, with zeros growing to the right and bills passing so quickly from our pockets to other hands that we barely have time to make out the faces printed on them.
There was a time when pulling a Calixto García (50 peso) bill out of your wallet was a sign of financial ease. Then, very quickly, the turn came when paying with a Frank País (200 peso) bill marked a difference in social status. It quickly jumped to an Ignacio Agramonte (500 peso) bill making it clear that its owner was no ordinary Cuban, leading to this moment when we measure our existence by the number of bills bearing the image of the founder of the Popular Socialist Party. One Mella, two Mellas, three Mellas… life measured by the speed with which we hand over a bill that has the face of a communist leader on it.
I approach the small shop where they sell seedlings, but it’s closed. I scan the area to see if they have any bags of the fertilizer I need to feed the small plants that have started to grow on my terrace. A man rides by on a bicycle and calls out to me that the nursery won’t be open today, that the elderly woman who runs it is still suffering from the aftereffects of one of those viruses that have become part of our daily lives. I take a deep breath and step back into the street.
The tenement buildings line the street, a polyclinic plunged into darkness by the power outage has patients and medical staff strewn about at the entrance, and at the nearby fire station, the truck has just left, sirens blaring. Rescuers have no life these days in Havana. They’re called when the elevators in high-rise buildings get stuck after the power goes out. They’re called when someone sets fire to a mountain of garbage on a street corner. They’re called when floodwaters can’t drain through sewers clogged with plastic bags and other debris.
Almost all my neighbors are thinner. Some people’s clothes and teeth are so loose they’re practically falling off.
The firefighters have stepped in to replace municipal services, the medical staff who are missing, the electric company technicians, and the police who never show up when they’re most needed. Just recently, one of them went up to the 13th floor of our building to rescue a neighbor trapped in the elevator. He was small and slight. He’d probably only had a piece of catfish with rice for lunch that day, at best. His uniform was too big for him.
Almost all my neighbors are thinner. Some people’s clothes and teeth are loose. An elderly woman has lost so much weight that she wears her blouse tied in a knot at the waist so it doesn’t blow up in the wind. Some people are even thinner than they were during the Special Period. Back then, hunger was different. It hurt, but everyone in the neighborhood was starving. Now there are empty plates and small businesses selling imported ham. In this crisis, some apartments are completely dark at night, while others have generators to cope with the power outages. I have neighbors without soap to bathe with, and others who use expensive perfumes that cling to the elevator walls.
I’m near the old Maravillas movie theater. Smoke hangs in the air, burning my eyes and throat. A pile of trash is burning under a nearby tree. Several vendors are hawking their wares nearby. One is selling a pack of 50 masks for 1,000 pesos. If they keep burning garbage everywhere, we Havana residents are going to have to go back to wearing face masks. But this time it won’t be because of COVID-19, but because of the toxic fumes. I reach into my pocket and pull out a Mella. I walk the rest of the way along Calzada del Cerro with a piece of cloth over my nose, protecting myself from this city that’s attacking us from all sides.
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