Cuba Shopping Online? No, Thanks

By Safie M. Gonzalez

HAVANA TIMES – Our country has been fighting the invisible monster that is COVID-19, for some months now. Every Cuban’s life has changed in this time. Every one of us has had to learn how to adapt to a new everyday routine to try and stop the damned virus from spreading further.

Today, the www.tuenvio.cu website is supposedly the fastest way to do your shopping, and to avoid large crowds in the street. Congratulations, we’ve taken one more step in becoming more cyber-progressive.

However, you tell me, my dear citizen who works and pretty much definitely has an online bank card: Have you managed to buy milk, cooking oil, chicken, soap and detergent? All in one go?

If you have, please tell me immediately, because I can’t remember how many tragic attempts I’ve had, always running into different obstacles, such as shortages of these products or them being missing, or because stores are having to shut down so the logistics can be reorganized, or because these items just aren’t available for longer than two minutes, even late at night.

I can try to understand the last reason, as a large percentage of the population is at home without work and can “surf” the web at these hours in the early morning; but why do these items run out so fast, anyhow?

Why have these online stores opened up if they can’t satisfy the working population’s needs in reality? Why dazzle us with a possibility that is little more than a ghost? In the meantime, Cuban TV continues to repeat that we can access the tuenvio.cu website to resolve our needs.

A few lucky people have managed to do a shop online, although their order doesn’t always come in its entirety. Nobody knows what happens exactly. It really might just be a logistical problem, or maybe the government has decided to shut down some of these online stores to prevent further disappointment among the population, thereby avoiding more of these negative comments.

In any case, if you have some megabytes and an online bank card, try it out, in the day or late at night, and you might have more luck than me on this adventure.