In my case, I am always prepared to stand in line, because there is what there is, but it is not enough for everyone.
I work in a field of beans to get nutrients for my pregnancy
Lysis is 26 years old. He lives in Artemisa province. He moved to this place just two months ago, coming from Granma province. She lives with her husband, her seven-year-old daughter, and her mother-in-law.
She had to sell her house in Granma and quit her job to be able to come to Havana and accompany her 31-year-old husband who suffers from generalized arthritis and can only be seen in the capital.She currently has no job and lives off her husband's pension, 1,500 pesos a month. They expect financial aid from the State, promised to her husband.
Can you describe your state of health?
Lysis is six months pregnant. At the time of this interview, she is admitted to a Maternity Home for suffering from cervicitis and irregular blood pressure. While there, they detected the beginning of anemia and a strong kidney infection.
How long have you been presenting this status?
Six months pregnant. Cervicitis since the age of 15. The kidney infection and anemia were detected two days ago, at the time of this interview.
Has your condition been enhanced or aggravated by eating conditions? Can you describe to us in what way or way?
Lisis and her family are fed mainly through the Supply Book, in this way she does not have a regular or sufficient intake of food. In this way, he is assigned a special diet of milk and chicken, but he has not received milk since January, due to a deficiency in production, and since he resides in Bauta he has not received chicken. This is how their diet has been reduced to rice, beans and some meats.
Lisis arrived at the Maternity Home due to a rise in blood pressure that put her pregnancy at risk. Days before his arrival at the health point, he had suffered several drops in sugar and had several fainting spells. Upon arriving at the Maternity Home, he discovers his beginning of anemia and his kidney infection.
Do you need any specific food for your condition? Which?
Fruits, vegetables, dairy products, vegetable and animal proteins, red meat, eggs and fish.
Does this food represent an additional expense in your food costs? What alternative ways or channels do you use to “solve” it?
Lysis is unable to 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 of the few
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?
economy and food in Cuba has resulted in many of the special diets being affected to the point of being suspended in some cases. In their municipality they have not received milk since January and they have not received chicken for three months. In this way, the products regulated by the Supply Book do not represent any type of special coverage in the Lysis diet.
The products regulated by the Supply Book do not represent any type of special coverage in the feeding of Lysis.
Do you consider that you have access to what is necessary to cover a balanced diet according to the needs of your condition? Failing that, what products do you consider essential for your diet and are difficult for you to acquire?
Lysis is recognized in a critical food situation. She doesn't think she's eating well, as she tells us, she doesn't know what else she's going to invent to be able to carry her pregnancy in a better way. On some occasions, he works in a bean field to receive payment of two pounds of beans for five hours of work, with this he seeks to fill the lack of vitamins and proteins in his diet.
Do you suffer from anxiety or concern about the food supply necessary for your health?
Lisis has reached the point of depression due to her family situation and in particular because she finds herself incapable of "caring for her belly".
Have you limited the quality or quantity of food for the benefit of another family member, in your opinion, more vulnerable?
Nope.
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Lisis is a young girl, with a good presence, although very humble. She is shy and when she talks about the topics that the questions bring up, an expression of sadness and “guilt” is noticeable on her face. She says that she agreed to enter the Maternity Home because she knows that it is the only way to eat better.
We had a fluent conversation, although on several occasions it became more complex when making comments about the poverty conditions in which he lives, we were unable to distinguish if it was for fear of making a political criticism of his situation or out of shame at the point of "neglect". to which she has arrived and the extreme conditions in which she is carrying her pregnancy. We held the conversation at the health center, which allowed him to transmit confidence to delve into complex issues.
Certainly, Lisis does not suffer from any chronic illness, but she is an illustrative case of social vulnerability in the sector of pregnant women in rural areas, not only because of her illnesses but also because of the nutritional conditions in which she carries her pregnancy.
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