The Bread Corner

23^rd and 12^th is known for many things, including bread sold in pesos, CUCs, and on the ration book.  Saturday morning the Bread Odyssey unraveled;  the ration store didn’t have enough bread to satisfy the per person allotment, nothing was for sale in the “liberated” bakery where bread is sold in Cuban pesos, and the hard currency confectioners was empty, they didn’t even have candy.

The popular version: there is no flour; the official version: …?  The curious thing is that in the convertible peso stores the usual shortage of castile flour is no worse, at its “reasonable” price of 5 CUCs for 5kg (roughly 40¢ U.S. a pound).

Meanwhile, the temperature drops and the line grows, mixing with the line at the bus stop.  In parallel, in the convertible peso stores, the only place where you can buy the majority of the products in the basic market basket, the windows display their shelves empty of goods.

No one knows what is going on.  The newspaper keeps on talking about Chavez, Columbia and increasing domestic agricultural production, the TV illuminates super productive factories that exceed their annual plans, and the radio repeats, like a parrot, Fidel’s Reflections.  My neighbors in the bread line theorize about a new wave of need.

On the sidewalk in front I look at the long line of those who wait and am reminded that once, in a far off country, the grain of sand that was the last straw for a people and ended up dethroning a king was, precisely, the shortage of bread.