{"id":229177,"date":"2020-10-18T07:32:09","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T11:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=229177"},"modified":"2020-10-18T07:32:09","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T11:32:09","slug":"superheroes-in-exchange-for-milk-bartering-that-alleviate-shortages-in-cuba-using-a-cell-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/economy-business\/superheroes-in-exchange-for-milk-bartering-that-alleviate-shortages-in-cuba-using-a-cell-phone\/","title":{"rendered":"Superheroes in exchange for milk: bartering that alleviate shortages in Cuba using a cell phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI give a new Captain America toy. I need chicken, milk, wheat flour, or detergent. Open to proposals,\u201d reads a bartering channel on social networks created by the Cuban ingenuity to try to alleviate a chronic shortage that the COVID-19 has exacerbated.<\/span><\/p>\n

With 1,500 users on Telegram, \u201cDando y Dando\u201d is one of the many collaborative groups where clothing, toys and other products are exchanged for food, toiletries and medicines that have disappeared from state stores and are very difficult to find on the black market.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like going back to the stone age, but it\u2019s what there is,\u201d Silvia, a 42-year-old state worker who has been at home since the beginning of April, when Cuba was almost completely paralyzed due to the coronavirus, laments to EFE.<\/span><\/p>\n

The procedure is simple, says Silvia: \u201cI look for someone in the group who offers what I need, I contact him privately and we arrange to meet for the exchange.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I have had to meet the other person at a midpoint because neither of us had a car when Havana was without buses. I have resolved a package of milk here and another of coffee there, bartering them, first for clothes and then for other necessary things such as detergent,\u201d she explains.<\/span><\/p>\n

Special period 2.0<\/b><\/p>\n

The pandemic has affected economies and aggravated the already existing crises, as in the case of Cuba, where the cyclical shortage in state stores keeps its inhabitants constantly on the hunt for essential items.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many compare the island in pandemic with the Special Period, as the economic crisis of the early 1990s is known in the country, the worst in its recent history and a feared ghost revived with <\/span>COVID-19<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her\u00e1ldica del Per\u00edodo Especial<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n