By Irina Pino
HAVANA TIMES – In the early 1990s, when my friend Pepe and I returned to Havana from a camping trip, we used to pass by Quinta de los Molinos. At that time, entry was easy. We would spend a few hours, sit down to talk, walk under the foliage, in total harmony with nature. The place transformed us if we happened to be burdened with negative energy.
The time of crisis had not yet arrived, when “inventing” became fashionable and those foods that seemed to come out of Science Fiction movies emerged. All the barely edible junk to alleviate the fierce, chronic hunger that all Cubans on the island suffer. I don’t know if you remember the disgusting “meat mass” and the stinky goose paste. Both non-food items were sold by the butcher at the bodega ration stores.
What I want to talk about today is the absurd normality with which prices suddenly increase overnight in state-run establishments, emulating private businesses. For example, the other day I arranged to meet a friend and colleague here, at Quinta.
They didn’t let him in. The caretakers told him it was closed for an event being prepared for the night.
I spoke up, ex