Manuel Vázquez Portal, Grupo Decoro / CubaNet
HAVANA, October - Although no one is talking about it and no news agency has
moved it on the wire, it is evident that the hens are on strike. How else to
explain that there are no eggs even in the dollar stores?
In August, the per-capita ration of eggs was cut in half. People asked, they
became impatient, they cracked jokes, but no one had answers and no one worried.
Cubans are accustomed to every once in a while not seeing one or another product
promised by the ration book. What did get some people's attention was that there
were no eggs in the dollar stores. The "shoppings," as they are called
here, are usually well-stocked. The U. S. embargo, or, as it is called here, the
"blockade," apparently does not apply to them.
The egg shortage in August was finally attributed to vacations. If the
children and a great many workers are on vacation, why not the hens? Don't they
have rights, too?
But matters took a turn for the worse in September. Authorities repeated the
bad joke of selling only half as many eggs as promised in the ration book.
People looked in markets, they asked clandestine sellers, and finally went
to the "shoppings" and didn't find any. Some said there was a problem
with transportation, others speculated there was a shortage of feed or even an
epidemic.
A very old man, trading on the immunity conferred by his many years or
perhaps simply not caring whether he lived many more, said loudly: "The
lack of balls for so many years is the reason we have no eggs now," and
shuffled out of a "shopping" where a crude, hand-lettered sign
announced: No eggs.
Now October has come around and people are beginning to say the chickens are
on strike, but the government doesn't want to give out the news to prevent
panic, because, in this country, nothing is news and nothing is true until the
government says it is.
Versión
original en español
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