14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, 19 August 2024 — A candle with the number seven is all that Jean Carlos’ family has for the cake they need to celebrate his birthday this Tuesday. The shortage of eggs has caused a crisis in the private sweet shops that prepare the traditional cakes, made with brown sugar and meringue. On the black market in Havana, a carton of 30 eggs is close to 3,600 pesos, and “they don’t have them anywhere,” complains the child’s mother.
This Saturday, Jean Carlos’ grandmother paused all household chores after receiving a call: “They brought out eggs in La Época and people are taking them in quantities because they are 5.95 MLC (freely convertible currency) a carton,” a friend residing near the corner of Galiano and Neptuno streets in Central Havana alerted her. “Run and see if you can get any!”
Traditionally, when the product reaches the foreign exchange markets, a carton is sold above 10 MLC (equivalent to 2,750 pesos, according to the parallel exchange rate); hence the astonishment of the 69-year-old habanera. Between doubt and despair, she took her wallet and ran to Rancho Boyeros Avenue where, after waiting half an hour, she managed to find an almendrón. After paying 200 pesos, she arrived at the market, which was already surrounded by a crowd of people.
“By the time I arrived they had run out because people were buying cartons and cartons”
However, she had no luck. “By the time I arrived they had run out because people were buying cartons and cartons,” she says. Through the door of the foreign exchange store, customers loaded down with dozens of cartons were leaving, while the line to get in stretched along Neptuno Street, as verified by this newspaper. The frenzy of grabbing the product was such that, a couple of hours after the market opened, there weren’t any eggs left.
With a small red and yellow Endy label that revealed their origin in the Dominican Republic, the cartons looked somewhat dirty on the outside, as if they had been stored in a place with little hygiene. “They are very cheap; each egg comes out at les
