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Cuba Goes from the Mariel Egg Attacks to the Luxury Egg

The energy crisis and inflation have turned a food that for decades was plentiful on Cuban tables into an almost exclusive commodity.

By Yoani Sanchez (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – “You folks definitely had electricity last night,” a woman selling plastic shopping bags scolds me outside the Tulipán market. She lives on the other side of Rancho Boyeros Avenue and could see from her neighborhood that our apartment building remained lit while her block was engulfed in darkness. The newest source of tension among Cubans is no longer politics, or even food—it is the number of hours some enjoy electricity while others are learning to live in the shadows.

Just a few months ago, the Facebook pages of Cuba’s Electric Union were flooded with comments demanding that those of us in Havana endure the same endless blackouts suffered by the rest of the country. That wish was granted—but only halfway. Now the capital also experiences power outages lasting more than 24 consecutive hours, yet nothing has improved in the provinces. The hours we spend without electricity have not lit a single additional light bulb in Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, or Pinar del Río. They have merely distributed the darkness more evenly.

Dividing us and turning us against one another seems to have been an all-too-effective strategy. While we argue over who suffered more from the heat the previous night, who lost the contents of their........

© Havana Times