Another Face of Cuba: The Sellers of Used Objects
HAVANA TIMES – The street vendors of used items arrive at one of the most crowded spaces in the Marianao municipality, in front of the old Lido bus terminal, and spread out on a cloth the essence of their poverty.
These Cuban nomads go out onto the streets every day with the hope of selling something and returning home with some money to buy food for the day.
The permanence of these sales exposes not only the shameful situation of the seller. Sadly, this way of life becomes the salvation for many Cuban families, who, like them, have no financial support. Families who overlook the fact that sometimes these reused objects are taken from the trash.
Digging through the trash to find something to sell and alleviate hunger is the reason for these merchants with faces weathered by the sun, faces that take over the landscape, leaving a bitter taste, in the people who stop to buy or look, and in those who walk by. It’s inevitable to think that these merchants of hardship worked their entire useful life for the State and now survive in the rawest form of indigence, though more dignified.
To see these men sitting on the ground, displaying their poverty, with no other pretense than to provide for themselves, is a face of Cuba that stays with you, one that some do not want to see but exists.
