The Rice Has Arrived, What Better News?
HAVANA TIMES – At last, what we’d been waiting for over the past several days has finally arrived. “They’re already distributing it at other ration stores, so surely it’s our turn tomorrow—and it’s not the bad kind…”
Providence saw to it that this anticipation around the arrival of rice became reality. Because like so many things, it might not have happened. They distributed one kilogram to senior citizens, and one pound as a free gift to those of us who haven’t reached that stage of life yet.
In our household, we are two women over 65 and me—who’s barely made it to 45. There’s also my uncle-in-law, but he no longer lives with us. We all agreed: we’ll eat the rice little by little, to savor it properly. But we couldn’t help laughing when we heard our neighbor say he’d eat it all in one go. We already know that among human beings, the ways of facing the same situation can vary greatly.
And the topic of rice is starting to exasperate us. Because it’s one of our staple foods, the one that must always be on the table. In fact, there are people, like my mother, who say: “If there’s no rice on the table, there’s no meal.” The poor eat it plain with whatever is on hand, or simply by itself. Those who can, and like to cook, make it fried or imperial style. Every now and then, yellow rice is very welcome. Cooked “a la chorrera” (with a creamy texture) That’s great! And who would turn down some congrí (black beans and rice Cuban style) with a pork steak?
The ideal rice comes from China, Brazil, or Vietnam. The worst: the kind grown right here. But when it’s scarce, no one asks where it came from. The only thing that matters is getting it by whatever means possible.
Food has always been a concern on the island, but when we saw that rice had reached 280 pesos at private markets, that’s when we truly felt our hearts pounding in our chests… The situation had gone from bad to worse. And it’s undeniable that everything is tightly linked to the economy. If one could earn those 280 pesos honestly at a job that paid a dignified wage, there wouldn’t be so many tears. (Many retirees receive a montly pension that in its entire amount would only buy 5 or 6 pounds of rice.)
I remember once having lunch at the Evangelical Theological Seminary dining hall in Matanzas. A group of students had spent a month on an exchange program in Switzerland. Two of those students were at the same table as me, and one asked the other, “Hey, at the house where you stayed in Switzerland, did they ever serve the same meal twice? Because at the one I stayed at, they didn’t.”
I’ve been struck by that comment to this day. But immediately I asked myself: did they have rice? Though we know that in Europe, it’s all about potatoes. We eat those here too—with rice.
In any case, we now have that blessed grain at home for a few days, and since we don’t think like our neighbor, I hope it lasts. We’re women who eat little, which in Cuba is a kind of luck, and it seems that in our acquired helplessness, we’ve learned to settle for almost nothing.
When it runs out, we’ll make caldosa stew to get by. My mother hates it, but this is a country besieged from within and without, and the crisis makes us creative—up to a point. And there’s one thing we must be certain of without much effort: to keep living, we must eat. May God grant that we never run out of rice. And if we do, may it not be for long.