In my case, I am always prepared to stand in line, because there is what there is, but it is not enough for everyone.
In Cuba we are all vulnerable, especially pregnant women
Amalia is 36 years old. He lives in the Artemisa province.
Can you describe your state of health?
Amalia is 5 months pregnant. She is convalescing from COVID-19, she is grade 3 asthmatic and this added complications during her condition, putting her life at risk. It was declared negative a week before the time of the interview. As a result of COVID-19, Amalia has been left with very low defenses and a severe kidney infection.
He also has decay, this results in him not being able to work (as a shop assistant in a cafeteria). In this way, she depends only on her husband's salary.
How long have you been presenting this status?
Asthmatic from birth. One week convalescent from COVID-19 at the time of the interview. 5 months pregnant.
Has your condition been enhanced or aggravated by eating conditions? Can you describe to us in what way or way?
Amalia has achieved economic stability through family remittances from abroad, which allow her to feed herself in precise periods of crisis, such as the one she is going through at the time of the interview.Because she lives in a coastal area that also has cultivated areas, Amalia manages to access some foods with less complication than in other municipalities.
Regardless of the above, Amalia and her husband seek to guarantee a minimum of regular and quality food, reaching the point of abandoning their condition as housewife to increase income and be able to face the food crisis in Cuba, with a special nuance due to their pregnant condition. Despite her efforts, Amalia does not feel that her diet is effective, "I can only eat mincemeat and chicken, sometimes I find fish and milk, but they are very expensive and I also have to feed my son." Although asthma is not conditioned by food, Amalia recognizes herself in a special state of vulnerability just because she is pregnant.“The food conditions that a standard salary allows are not enough for a person to eat correctly and in a state like mine one needs more attention. In Cuba we are all vulnerable, we are all malnourished, but especially pregnant women because even if you are willing to pay black market prices, you cannot find how to feed yourself properly. I feel weak for 5 months.”
Do you need any specific food for your condition? Which?
Yes. Fruits, vegetables, dairy products, vegetable and animal proteins, red meat.
Does this food represent an additional cost in your food expenses? What alternative ways or channels do you use to “solve” it?
Amalia is unable to regularly acquire the specific diet that allows her to carry her pregnancy in a stable manner and avoid complications. Fundamentally due to shortages and poor management policies for the few foods that reach their municipality. Second, for depending on her husband's salary, now that he has lost his job due to admission due to COVID-19. In this way, their income is not enough to access black market prices, where only many of the foods they need can be found.
Does this diet need additional exercises in its preparation that you could describe?
Nope.
What regulated foods (from the notebook) do you receive to cover the needs of your condition?
Pregnant women receive additional products in the food regulation established by the Libera de Abastecimiento. This includes a monthly chicken diet, beef when production permits, and a liter of fluid milk every other day. But the current economic and food crisis in Cuba has resulted in many of the special diets being affected to the point of being suspended in some cases. In the case of
tomato, mayonnaise, snack paste. They make you believe that you have a choice, but you don't. In the end you sacrifice yourself to minimize yourself with what there is and not with and not with what you want, that's where half of my expenses go because you buy minced beef, some cans of pressed meat, all of that with prices that are extremely expensive, I say they are punishing prices. Finally, I do not receive work incentives because I am, as I told you, a self-employed worker.
The black market before COVID-19 was the main way to acquire everything, now it is avoided to the point of hunger and need because it is extremely expensive
Due to the shortage during COVID, there are some stores that were formerly establishments in CUC, which today have become in national currency (MN), there the State assigns you some essential products that could be used if they were not restricted, I'm talking about chicken, sausages and normado mincemeat. They give it in a very controlled way using the supply book and in insufficient quantities. Now you can visit those stores to purchase them once a month. They started weekly, they continued fortnightly and now it is once a month, the sacrifice to access the products due to the queues is sub-real, but with the purchases in those stores the majority subsists, in my case it is 15% of my expenses .
How many hours do you spend searching for and buying these foods?
The search and purchase of food is the main task of any Cuban, from those who have the least to those who have the most. In my case, I am always prepared to stand in line, because there is what there is, but it is not enough for everyone. Almost every day I do something related to the search for food, I am not always successful, when I go to the stores in national currency it is almost all day, just like those in freely convertible currency (MLC). In the agro-markets you invest less time, but you still spend a couple of hours in them.
Do you use social networks to find out about supplies and prices in your area, for example, via Facebook or Telegram or WhatsApp groups?
No, I do not use networks for this purpose.
If you had to divide your diet, how would you describe your intake of animal protein, vegetable protein, carbohydrates? For example, how many times a week do you eat fish, red meat, white meat, dairy products, eggs, vegetables?
Almost always chicken from regulated stores, you stretch it and it's like a rubber band, you eat it almost every day. I eat so little fish that I can almost say never. Red meat almost the same, last month I bought two tubes of ground beef, very good quality, in MLC, very expensive, two meals for three people per tube. That is the beef I have eaten in the last two or three months. I have access to eggs because 10 per person come to the cellar monthly. About milk, milk is not sold here, only medical diets, which have already been removed until further notice, and pregnant women and children under seven years of age have a milk allowance. I drink milk when I can buy it outside and it is very, very expensive. The vegetables, you find them in the particular agritos [small private agro-market stalls] and they are priceless. Onion, garlic and tomato are only available to big pockets. Perhaps what I buy the most is cucumber, avocado… there are no other types of vegetables.
Do you consider that your family has enough intake of healthy food for its normal development?
No, not at all, we are eating what we can, when we can, carbohydrates and sugar are what keep us going.
Do you consider that in your family there are diseases related to the lack of nutrients or an unhealthy diet?
We are a very strong race, even bread with rubble nourishes us, so if we are sick with a shortage of nutrients, which is almost total, we don't even notice it.
Do you consider that, when shopping, you must decide between one basic food or another? Do you think you are buying food at a fair price?
The problem is not that you decide between one and the other, the problem is that you buy the one that exists. I have never been in that dilemma because there is no variety. It depends on what is meant by justice, I would say that food is far above purchasing power, that could be said to be unfair
Have your food preferences changed in the last two years? How?
I love to eat, it's the greatest of pleasures from my point of view, a pork escalope, a kidney, roast pork and chicken in sauce with potatoes, tuna, a good steak, mixed salads, that I must not have forgotten to make… the ice cream, the malt soda, the sweets. But I am a man who has adapted since I was a child, I remember when I was on scholarship that I made a drink with water and some candies inside the container. Now I am not telling you not to drink an imported beer, a Kermato [non-alcoholic drink based on tomato juice, clams and spices], a carbonated soft drink, not to eat a delicious barbecue one day, but it is sacrificed [he pronounces it high and lengthening the syllables]. I love sugar water, which sucks, but it helps to stave off hunger sometimes. Sometimes I eat chicken mince, which I don't like, sometimes I eat a little more bread, which isn't bad for sustaining, which I don't like, but I have no other choice.
What commodities do you find only or most often through the black market?
Read all interviews on Food Monitor Program HERE