My Cuban Summer of Ice Cream
HAVANA TIMES – It might seem strange, given what Cuba is going through, that I titled my article with that name. Let me tell you why.
I don’t know if everyone knows that in this country, a few years ago, the CUC grocery stores were shut down and some were converted to a virtual currency system called MLC, where you deposit dollars that are converted into MLC. At first, these stores were better stocked. Today, they are practically empty.
Well, I had done a craft job for which I was paid in MLC, and I went to my town store ready to spend it all on food. When I walked in, there was nothing in the store, as we Cubans usually say when we can’t find what we need. There were some things: Cuban Serrano coffee, which was very expensive if you calculated it at the street exchange rate; also, some very expensive cans of lentils; a few cans of pineapple in syrup that were rusty and marked down; toilet paper; and many bottles of very expensive alcoholic beverages.
In the refrigerators, the only thing they had were tubs of ice cream in several flavors. That money had been meant for food, but I decided to buy two tubs of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. I thought of my family and how happy my children would be, and besides, it’s something nourishing since it’s made from milk—and with such a hot summer, ice cream really hits the spot.
When I came home with the tubs of ice cream, my kids practically lifted me up in joy. Since there was nothing else to buy in the magnetic MLC stores—I had checked in downtown Havana too, and they hadn’t been stocked in a long time—I decided to save that little bit of money to buy ice cream every week until the end of August.
So, every week I would go down and buy my tub of ice cream. We tried all the flavors they had—soursop, vanilla, orange-pineapple, strawberry—because, luckily, they kept stocking them each week. People came from Alamar and neighboring municipalities, where the stores are always even emptier.
On August 12, I went with my sister to buy my weekly tub. I had enough for two, but when I walked into the store, there were no refrigerators. The place looked like a dance hall. I asked the clerks, practically shouting, about the ice cream. They told me: they took the refrigerators to the “classic card” and cash-dollar stores; there won’t be any more ice cream sold here.Once again, I felt disappointed by the decisions made in this country—always without considering the people.
I let the clerk have it with a string of complaints, and I know it wasn’t her fault, but I just felt like screaming.
The summer of ice cream in MLC was over.
I passed by the store the next day, and there were lots of people. I asked what had arrived, and they said: hair dye, spaghetti, baby diapers, wet wipes, shampoo. People had come from many municipalities, even from Central Havana. They all agreed on one thing: you have to spend whatever is left on your MLC card because they’re going to close all these stores and reopen them in dollars.
I was struck by the way people, desperate to spend every last cent left on their MLC cards, were buying anything that had sat in the store for over a year. I saw some women buy 10 cans of fried tomato sauce.
With the money I had left, I bought until I emptied my card—deodorant and toilet paper for my family—because it was cheaper there than on the street.
But the story of the summer of ice cream didn’t end there. One day, a private seller came by the house offering tubs of ice cream for a thousand pesos. I bought a four-liter tub of dulce de leche flavor for 1,000 Cuban pesos ($2.50 USD). The flavor was delicious and the ice cream creamy, this homemade ice cream has always been my preference. So, the whole family was able to bring the summer of ice cream to a sweet close.