If some time ago I feared that the bad programming on the TV was actually a sneaky strategy to stimulate or encourage reading or increase of births, now I think a program against hypertension could be behind the disappearance of salt in certain parts of the Havana municipality of Vedado, and a little farther …
The possibility of Havana “without salt” disturbed me, and I went out to see how real the deficit was.
Several grocery stores’ clerks denied the rumor, assuring that quarterly installments, one kilogram for every two consumers-were sold in a timely manner, and they were already expecting the allocation for the final months of the year.
One even told me that the in the out-of-ration book outlets, where the pound goes for five pesos, they had more than enough salt, although other sources assured me that was not like that, that in Parraga and Los Pinos didn’t lack only salt but matches too.
This confirms what that one thing says the drunk and the bartender another. For clerks, the guilt is on the consumer that doesn’t rationalize, or waits till he runs out of salt to go out and get some. And that may be true. But there are some that wait to get their rations because they still have some left and when he needs it, it is gone …
Sure, these disappearances involve fewer mysteries, and are not exclusive to salt. “At least in the stores in hard currency there is some, right?,” I asked with the innocence of those who still believe there should not be any shortages where they charge in CUC. But in some hard currency markets they had iodized salt, and not in others.
What it is said about it? Officials say nothing, and the press good things, what else?
Television Guantanamo, feud salt in Cuba, recently praised the triumphant advance of installing a scrubber-stacker capable of preserving outdoor 100 thousand tons of salt in 2013 they expect to collect in the Caimanera and Cerro Guayaba saltworks. Such an amount is enough to supply for more than a year the Frank País plant, where all the salt consumed in Cuba is refined and packaged.
Furthermore, in Caimanera they set up a packing plant to process up to one ton per shift of eight hours, in portions of 100 grains of high quality fine salt, packed in polyethylene bags.
However, almost all the salt we eat in Havana is brought in by sea in boats, and a friend who sailed for the responsible company (Caribbean Cargo) told me that many times the bags are filtered and the product gets wet. Same with coffee.
Maybe that’s why sometimes salt is so thin it seems bicarbonate, and other comes in boulders able to scratch a pan or a tooth. With such dimensions, the spoonfuls become handfuls, and the ration evaporates, especially by shaking hands after adding salt to …
They say the salt cannot be thrown or given away, but obviously it disappears occasionally. As lost as the floor wipes, detergent, toothpaste, the sanitary pads and any other essential item, then reappear, but more expensive …
