In Camagüey’s Calle Cuba Store, the US Dollar Is King
“If that Cuba is in dollars, then I can’t go in,” complains an elderly Communist Party member.
HAVANA TIMES – Cubans who deal in dollars stand out because of certain outfits and attitudes. Many wear brand-name clothing, gold chains, and use perfumes that linger in the air even after they’ve left. Stores that use US currency also have a distinct signature. Well-lit, with shelves full of products and even baskets for shopping, the Calle Cuba market in the city of Camagüey perfectly fits the new image that the greenback is shaping in state-run businesses.
Outside the store, a security guard explains to clueless customers that “this is no longer in MLC,” the magnetic currency that is in free fall and, on the informal exchange market, is worth barely 195 pesos compared to the 405 that the dollar fetches.
However, the employee’s comment isn’t even necessary. Just a glance inside, at the shelves loaded with candies, grains, sauces, and packaged legumes, is enough to realize that in Calle Cuba, the dollar flows freely and unhindered. Even the customers standing in line this Monday at the butcher’s section are “people with access to foreign currency,” as a curious onlooker joked, saying he only went in “to take a look at the future.”
Managed by the Tiendas Caribe chain, this central market is located right on the street named after the country. A coincidence that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the more critical Communist Party members, who oppose the growing dollarization across the Island—a trend that began with the inauguration last January of the 3rd and 70 supermarket in Havana. “If that Cuba is in dollars, then I don’t know, I can’t go in,” says an elderly party member bitterly, paraphrasing a verse by Martí, and distrusting the official explanations for pushing commerce in US currency.
“I have no dollars, and I don’t want to have them,” the woman stresses. Her image also fits the stereotype of Cubans who only use the national currency: clothing bought in the rationed industrial goods market more than 30 years ago and an expression of frustration. On her shoulder, a cloth bag waits in the hope of finding something to buy with the Cuban pesos she receives as a pension.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.