IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 57

workers in France were demanding
raises and a right to dignified work.
Didn’t workers in Cuba have demands,
too? A people who spend more than 8
hours a day wondering what they are
going to cook, not because of all the
options they have, but quite the contrary.
Food items are expensive while salaries
are low, for the most part. I am talking
about millions of people, about working
people that you see talking on the street,
on buses, on lines, all over the place. It is
impossible to live under such
disadvantageous
conditions,
with
depressed salaries and a cost of living
that is rising each and every day. Those
food items one gets through the ration
booklet cover one daily meal for only 10
days in a month. Where are breakfast,
lunch and dinner? If you have lunch,
then you don’t dinner. I am referring to
the family food allotment, the food our
government guarantees workers. Its
intention is to cover each person’s
nutritional needs with 7 pounds of white
rice, 10 ounces of beans (black, red or
chick peas), 3 pounds of refined sugar, 1
pound of raw sugar, 1 pound of frozen
chicken, 11 ounces of frozen chicken
instead of fish, half a pound of jamonada
[processed ham] or ground soy protein
(which is really soy mixed with the skin
and other parts of other meats), 5 eggs,
500 grams of salt (for three months), 24
ounces of coffee mixed with chick pea
(or chick pea with coffee), and 400
grams of spaghetti every two or three
months. They call these subsidies
because their cost per person does not
exceed 15 pesos a month, but only cover

10 days at the rate of one meal a day [1
Cuban Peso = @ $ 0. 38]. Well, what
about the other 20 days? One has to buy
products at a much higher price. For
someone to have lunch and dinner the
rest of those days—consuming only rice,
black beans, eggs and cooking oil—it
costs 428 pesos (@$16) a month. Let’s
not even talk about fruits and vegetable,
or dairy products, or much less cereals.
They are all out of reach for Cuban
workers. Here is a sample list of prices:
1lb guavas, 5 pesos; 1lb papaya, 3 pesos;
1 bunch of kale, 5 pesos; 1 head of
lettuce, 5 pesos; 1lb green peppers, 10
pesos, 1lb of carrots, between 5-10
pesos; 1 head of cabbage, 10 pesos. How
many times a month might one be able
to have these essential, nutritious items,
so important for one’s health and that of
one’s family, on the table? So, I don’t
understand. Why don’t we have
demands? Cuban workers don’t demand
that the pr