14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, January 6, 2024 — “I didn’t suddenly wake up this morning flush with cash so my children are only getting cookies and soft drinks this year.” This is how one woman summed up her financial situation on Saturday. She and a friend were at the open-air market on Central Havana’s Galiano Street, looking for something to give her children on Three Kings Day. Surrounded by dolls, tiny fire trucks and stuffed animals with Minnie Mouse faces, the two friends perused the items for sale.
“Everywhere you look it’s 3,000, 4,000 or 7,000,” lamented the woman after inquiring about the price of several products. “That Barbie over there costs 6,000 pesos. That’s two months’ pay for me,” she added after asking about a box that also included a couple of changes of clothes and shoes for the lanky plastic body crowned with platinum blonde hair. “For that amount of money she ought to be able talk.”
The vendors brush off the criticisms and refuse to lower their prices. “Expensive?
