Vietnamese cigarettes in Cuba, fights between diplomats to get a little gasoline, and a lot of humor to survive

Lazaro shows up at the house dying of laughter with a pack of menthol cigarettes in his hand. It is a green Tourane brand box, which on its side says: “Produced in Vietnam by Vinataba Da Nang. For exclusive distribution in the Cuban market by Gran G SRL”. The black and white warning to smokers is from the Cuban Ministry of Public Health: “Think before you light it, for your own good and that of your family.” Lazaro, who, given the oppressive circumstances that the country has been going through for a long time, speaks in double meanings, like the old troubadours of Santiago, says: “That’s right, you should have thought better of it before.”

What follows is one of his loud laughs, which scares the neighbors and my daughter, who is taking exams. “Do you know how much this shit costs?” she asks, and he answers himself: “Well, 300 or 400 pesos, depending on the place, and the salary of a university professor is about 4,000 pesos a month. So we’re screwed: in tobacco country, Vietnamese cigarettes.”

I let it go, because it comes on. “You see what, Cuba is also the country of coffee, and we, who taught the Vietnamese to grow it forty years ago, today we produce almost no coffee and they are the second largest coffee exporters in the world.”

“When fuel is lost, public transport buses can take hours, and the few taxis that work charge you whatever they want,” he says, and sets an example for himself. In coming from Centro Habana to Miramar, a stretch in which he normally spends half an hour, it has taken him almost two. “This is scolding me mom,” he jokes.

The severe shortage of fuel is worrisome, affects everything and everyone, and causes tense and sometimes delusional scenes. Since there is so little fuel to distribute, people line up in ghost lines, just in case, and when a tanker truck leaves the refinery, the authorities do not say where it is going, to prevent the hustlers from doing business and creating racketeering and clandestine resale. . The drivers, my friend explains, have made chats where they tell each other where there is oil or where there will be, and in one of them, one of them reported like this, in real time and at dawn: “I am following a pipe [camion cisterna]it’s going down Paseo street, I think it goes to Paseo and Malecon. No, no, no he has turned third, he is going to the Iron Bridge”.

As gasoline and diesel are distributed dropperly, the State has set up some service centers for the exclusive use of diplomats, others for tourist cars, others for foreign companies, and so on. At these gas stations there is less queue, but incidents still occur, such as a famous one that happened last week in a diplomatic queue, where a Russian had “dialed” for all the consulate cars, and there were dozens. Drivers from other embassies began to protest and he had to go to the police, but the Russian kept arguing that he had the right and that “that oil” had also been sent by Moscow.

“The newest thing now,” laughs Lazaro, “is that they are stealing tourist license plates to put them in private cars and refuel, saving the colon of mere mortals.” At this point one does not know what is true or false, or if it is just a twisted imagination of Lazarus. Worst of all, perhaps, is the lack of official information.

On Monday, after Lazaro returned to his winter quarters with a few drinks too many, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O, appeared (finally) on the stellar newscast. He explained that the deficit had occurred due to breaches of the supplying countries and the sick persecution of the North American blockade, and that due to this “the decision was made to release diminished fuel capacities for distribution.” and he added: “A reduced capacity will continue to be taken out during the remaining days of April, which is quite low, which is why the queues we see at the service centers. The situation tends to improve based on decisions and negotiations, suppliers that are already fulfilling their commitments. That is one of the reasons for the information delay”.

De la O did not give too much hope. “Today we have an improvement that does not mean that we are going to have fuel as we had in 2017, 2018 or a few months ago. That will not be the situation in the remaining days of April and May. We are going to continue removing fuel partially, in a reduced way so that the fuel supply does not touch zero and vital services can be guaranteed”.

Not a second has passed since the end of the newscast and the phone rings. “You saw what I told you, Galician: you should have thought better of it”, says the hoarse voice of Lazaro on the other end. And I hear in the background the sound of the ice crashing into his glass of rum, which is expensive on the street, but there is.