Ernestina Rosell, Cuba Press
HAVANA, January - In Cuba we had a milk cow. It wasn't just any cow. It produced so many liters of milk a day that it earned a place for itself in the Guinness Book of World Records. Check it out. It was the most productive cow in the world.
Ubre Blanca (White Udder) also earned for itself a place in the front pages of Cuban newspapers on many occasions. It was the subject of many news stories and articles in newspapers, radio and television. It is well known that all the media here publish the same. No one interviewed her for
obvious reasons.
She was widely praised in speeches at the highest levels and the lowest. It was the national pride and the hope that some day all Cubans would drink milk.
At least in the production of this one item, the promise of plenty might come true, according to all indications.
Of course, only one cow could not guarantee the promised future. But thousands of cows like Ubre Blanca could.
To achieve that they airconditioned the stables, piped in music and laced the feed with honey. To tell the truth, the cows lived better than the average Cuban. But it was worth it, to see our dream turn into a reality: to drink milk.
One day we got the sad news of the death of Ubre Blanca, maybe as a result of wear and tear with so much milking. The powers that be gratefully had a monument erected in her memory. That was all that was left of her. After a number of years, the promised future became the present, but without
the fulfilled promise. Now, the present is like the past: milk?, not even for breakfast.
Milk is only sold, rationed and at a reasonable price, to children up to the age of seven. After that age, one must have three dollars (63 Cuban pesos) to buy a package of a pound ten ounces in the dollar stores or to buy in the black market, a risky proposition, three pounds of powdered milk.
Sixty-three pesos is the pension of many retirees and more than one quarter of the average salary in the country.
No cow ever equaled Ubre Blanca. And so? All the genetic experiments, the stables and the sophisticated feed did not amount to anything. That's why Cubans don't want any more super cows like Ubre Blanca, or even like Tolón Tolón, with its meringue-like milk. We prefer to continue
the old fashioned way, like Pijirigua the cow. We need, simply, cows that produce milk like any cow.
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