Rice, Sardines Spaghetti and Sugar to Celebrate July 26th  

 ‘Gift’ bag to be distributed in Sancti Spiritus, seat of the festivities

As usual on this date, the Island receives visitors who often bring donations.

By Mercedes Garcia (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – Spaghetti, sardines, rice and sugar make up the “extra” that the residents of Sancti Spíritus will receive this week. According to the local press, a total of 190,816 food bags will be distributed with these products, a “gift” from the Ministry of Internal Trade for being the host province of the July 26 celebration.

The small parcels distributed to the people consist of two kilograms of rice, one of sugar, another of pasta and two cans of sardines. All the food in the packages comes from donations made by allies of the regime such as China and Venezuela, an official employee who has had access to the modules and who asks for anonymity confirmed to 14ymedio.

“The rice is of Chinese origin, very good quality; they grow a lot of it,” she explains. “The sardines, you know, are the little ones that you have to add a thousand things to in order to get rid of the strong taste,” the woman says about the fish brought from Venezuela.

Even more than the squalid ration of sardines, this worker fears that the cans are expired. It wouldn’t be the first time, she says: “They don’t have an expiration date anywhere. I looked for it. Formerly, in past modules, I found it, and they were old .”

Escambray said that the arrival of a total of 48 containers is expected, and once “all the products are completed” the modules will begin to be distributed, “which will happen this week, as expected.” We are already working on assembling the modules and preparing for the distribution so that it reaches the population as quickly as possible,” the director of the Wholesale Food Company in the territory, Eliosbel Martínez Hernández, told the provincial newspaper.

As usual on this date, the Island receives donations from different pro-Regime organizations around the world. An example is the ton of powdered milk collected in Bolivia for Cuban children as part of the campaign designed by the Solidarity Movement with the Island, under the slogan “your contribution counts,” as published on Saturday by the Prensa Latina agency.

The July 26 celebration also brings visitors, who are taken on tours of the “sacred sites” of the Revolution. This year, for example, the number of Americans who visit Cuba as “friends in solidarity,” like the Venceremos Brigade, reached 103 people, according to figures from the organization itself.

They don’t come empty-handed: they carry donations of all kinds that they have collected for months, ranging from food – such as bags of beans and rice – and medicines, to school supplies like pencils and notebooks.

The Venceremos Brigade arrived in Holguín from Miami this Sunday. Most of them come from California, New York and Florida, where the brigade has more presence, especially in university environments. This year’s group is larger than in 2023, when 71 arrived, or in 2022, when 75 were reported. This type of brigade does not come only from the United States, but also from other parts of the world such as Brazil and Europe.

“They will be conducting exchanges with communities and visiting historic sites to pay tribute to Antonio Maceo and Fidel Castro. They will also be doing community work, which is what characterizes the Venceremos Brigade. Its origins were, precisely, to help the people of Cuba when they needed it most,” Leima Martínez, North American director of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP)*, told the television channel Caribe Alterno.

Following the official script, visitors attribute the Cuban population’s everyday problems – food shortages and blackouts – exclusively to the U.S. blockade**. “I disagree with the blockade and want to witness in my own way how a social system different from the American one works. I hope to meet people from this country and do hard work, to help in what is needed,” Samaiyah Patrick, a young man who makes his first trip to the Island, told the official press.

Translator’s notes: 

*Both the Venceremos Brigade and ICAP are members of the National Network on Cuba, a source of agents of influence for the Regime.

**There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.

Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.

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