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Do you have pets at home?
Right now my wife and I are the proud cat mom and cat dad of three cats. A wicked and terrible female, we nicknamed her the queen of the underworld, and two adorable males. The firstborn is black with long hair, and the youngest is white and yellow. The female is orange, which makes her strange because it is rare for orange cats to belong to the female sex.
All three are rescued.The older black my wife brought from her workplace when he was 3 months old. We rescued the female in the streets of Centro Habana thanks to the advice of her best friend who in fact was the one who really rescued her and took her home. And my wife found the smallest one at 23 and 10, in Vedado, one week old, eyes closed, and we managed to save it.
These are the permanent ones of the house but we have come to have up to 6 in total, which we have later given up for adoption.For a while we fed a colony under the building, and right now we care for two who enjoy the protection of almost all the neighbors, and visit us from time to time. But we try to bring them food down almost every day.
Since when do you live with them?
We have had the older one since 2017, the female since 2018, and the younger one since 2020. We had another rescued baby before, but it died partly due to our inexperience in caring for it, despite the fact that we did our best.
Before I got married, I had a dog since 2006, who passed away in 2015. And she lived with several cats, who came to my family home with the aim of hunting mice but later they began to love each other.
What do your cats eat? How many times a day do you feed them? How do you prepare your food?
Our cats eat twice a day. Breakfast and dinner. Before we fed them three times, but the veterinarians advised us to take away their lunch and reinforce the other two meals. We almost never give them raw food, but boil it, without adding any spices.In the current circumstances, what they eat the most is chicken, which is what can be obtained more easily.We serve them at the rate of two thighs for each meal. Shredded, boneless. We keep those for the community cats.
We have obtained feed, clarias, minced viscera in private businesses in Cuba that take care of that, very good and nutritious, but we almost never manage to get the three cats to consume everything together. Full consensus is only achieved with chicken. So we have often had to make “à la carte” menus. The female, above all, is the one that makes the most "strikes" to eat chicken. He has even turned down trimmings of beef and lamb.
Who is in charge of getting them food?
My wife and I manage the food with the different “contacts”. We almost all bought the chicken for them.
How do you value the exercise of providing for your pets? Has it gotten better or worse in the last two years?
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?
At that time I went from childhood to adolescence. The end of my primary, secondary and pre-university studies were during those years. For the protection of my mother and my grandparents, the Special Period affected me as little as possible, but I did get to know people who raised pigs in their homes, on their rooftops. I learned about the sacrifice of cats to eat. Also dogs. I didn't get to eat them that I know of.
I met people who raised pigs in their houses, on the roofs. I learned about the sacrifice of cats to eat. Also dogs. I didn't get to eat them that I know of.
There were many rumors that were the product of imagination and necessity, which linked stray animals, zoo animals, which one do you know from that time?
I heard stories of private restaurants, then the clandestine “paladares”, that served cats passing them off as other meats.
As the owner of a pet, what do you think is missing in the Cuban market for animal feed?
Well, I think that everything is scarce. Specialized pet food is almost non-existent, feed is available but it is still difficult. The most recent purchase was at 1000.00 CUP per kilogram of imported fish feed. Very good.But it is always hard to get food, and almost always in the market classified as "informal" although it is more formal than the official one.
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