14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 17 January 2024 — The merchandise, some 500-gram boxes of tomato sauce, “Are of good quality, each one for 300 pesos and I have five. If you buy them all I will give you a discount,” explains the informal seller, dressed in a cap and backpack, who knocked on 72-year-old Niurka’s door in the Central Havana neighborhood of San Leopoldo. A regular in the area, the merchant has built a clientele through the years, based on trust. “Neither snitches nor people who want to do business on credit” is his motto.
But today, security was more necessary than other times. It indicated on the tetrapaks not only that it was a product from Spain of the Apis brand, but that it was merchandise that had arrived in Cuba through the European Aid Fund for the Most Disadvantaged People (Fead). On the packaging, in capital letters, it warned: “Free food, sale prohibited.” Niurka extended three 100-peso bills, took the box and pretended that she had not read the sign or seen the blue flag with its little stars in a circle.
Where did the merchant get the tomato sauce? Did he steal it from a state warehouse or did the families who benefited from the aid give it to him to g