14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 22 January 2024 — At this point in January, when it is not long before the end of the month, the two pounds of rice per person that remain to be delivered to the ration stores have not yet arrived. “Only a few peas, cooking oil and kitchen detergent.”
“People are desperately asking about the rice, and the storekeeper says that it should arrive today or tomorrow,” Sandra tells 14ymedio. “They gave us a pound when the year began and then four, but I wouldn’t be surprised if what was missing doesn’t arrive.”
The coffee has not appeared either, nor the new ration book, delayed due to lack of paper, which the authorities have promised before March 30. “The chicken that arrived a few days ago is the one they owed from last year,” says a friend of Sandra’s, who reiterates: “No rice; you know, it’s at the North Pole.”
“Neither rice nor oil has arrived yet; even the cat is waiting,” a customer says sarcastically, nine days before the end of the month.
In the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, the scene is similar: “At the beginning of the month they gave us a pound of rice and two pounds of sugar per person, and two days ago they sold us the rest of those products but nothing else,” a resident tells this newspaper.
The customers of the ration store located at Hospital and Jesús Peregrino, in Central Havana, are luckier, since their rice allocation is complete, but that is not the case in other nearby establishments, such as the one on Reina Street. “Neither rice nor oil has arrived yet; even the cat is waiting,” a customer says sarcastically, nine days before the end of the month.
In Nue
