What Cubans talk about.

It is said that the mouth speaks of the abundance of the heart and the heart of Cubans is full of difficulties. These problems may seem trivial to citizens of other countries, just as those that concern them are alien to us, because we have them solved.

I was in a state institution to carry out a personal transaction; there was a group of people there for the same purpose, although with different procedures. The group was heterogeneous, both in cultural level and life projection, as it is normal in these cases.

Where several people are concentrated, a conversation that involves those present always comes to light. From the initial topic a second, a third and so the colloquium was formed.

By trade or curiosity, I began to be interested in the conversation. Without revealing myself to those present, I began to record the conversations. When I got home I transcribed and this is the result of this «productive» waste of time.

The first topics addressed were related to the bad work of the institution where we were, the delay in solving problems, as well as other internal difficulties.

This first topic led to well-worn paths such as deceit, social indiscipline, corruption, high prices and other similar topics. They talked about the phantom prices, that is, those that appear on the slates and those that they actually charge. The ones on the slates are for the inspectors, they said, and the real one for the buyer.

They discussed the inspectors, most of whom are women, who cannot stand up to the push of aggressive salesmen who confront them. They said that when this type of operation is done there should be a law enforcement officer nearby, as support for the inspectors, because the people really do nothing.

One lady said that the carters remove the products in order to create chaos and foment unrest among the people and thus blame the government that the measures applied are the cause of the shortages.

In the collective dissertation, Acopio, which was accused of being an intermediary and other more aggressive appellatives, was no stranger; they referred to the fact that they do not pay the producers on time and that the prices are not lowered in the small markets, even when the product has lost its quality.

I had to leave my entertaining wait, it was my turn and I left the auditorium in the middle of my exposition.

Written by Enrique Tirse.