Swapping Makes a Comeback to Mitigate Shortages in Cuba

By Aurelio Pedroso  (Progreso Semanal)

HAVANA TIMES – Presumably. Just as in the late 1990s a group of rural women began to appear in the capital city to barter food for clothes, shoes and a few other things, already on social networks, in groups such as “Where Is there food?”, those who warn that they do not sell anything, but instead exchange, for example, butter or tomato puree for flour.

From those years, the question remains as to makes the value of ??a chicken the equivalent to a pair of shoes or two long-sleeved shirts for twelve eggs. It was like a trip to the remote past when money had not yet appeared.

Today’s “swappers” claim that because of having certain surpluses and lacking others, they are in the best position to negotiate such unique barter, perhaps under more conventional rules based on the market price.

In any case, it is still a true surprise, where powdered milk pairs with popular imagery in an acceptable circumstantial harmony.