The proclamation succumbed to my ears early in the morning: “Coints are sold for the bus!” If Moses Simons had listened to him in his time, I assure you today that he was recognized as the creator of the first reggaeton of history and El Manisero perhaps it did not exist.
Four pesetas in exchange for a peso was in synthesis the essence of that unusual and surprising business that had like main stage a stop any of the capital of all the Cuban and more demand than the traditional peanut cone. How do people invent so much? I wondered as I waited patiently to move to La Cuevita.
In Havana the local buses are priced at 40 cents, but if you pay with a peso, as in Matanzas, you do not get the return. This deficiency of the Transport Company gives life to the popular marketing practitioners, those individuals who study the needs of the people “on foot” and as if they were magicians, get the business from under the sleeve, some as unexpected as selling often for the bus.
Man has always innovated to satisfy his needs and to solve the conflicts of daily life. In this sense we Cubans have the training of the 90’s, the raw years of the special period, a stage in which the imagination, originality and creativity of all on the island was put to the test and we got outstanding.
We have tannin pens, film filters for projectors, Russian mixer joint, spare parts for cassette recorders and Selena brand radios, as well as turntables. Yes, they are not mistaken, I just arrived at La Cuevita, a place where you can find everything you are looking for just ask, a place where the law of supply / demand is fulfilled and, above all, where the price policy connects, almost always, with the average salary we perceive Cubans.
Undoubtedly, and as they say out there in Havana you see everything, anything serves to sell and anything serves to buy, I hope you keep in mind if you are visiting. Oh and I recommend you take it quite often, so that it does not happen like me, that right now I want to return and I will have to give a weight in the bus because there is no “Lord of the coints”.
Original text by on Oct 26th, 2017
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