Waiting on Zapote Street by Betty Viamontes

Author:Betty Viamontes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: love, cuba, inspirational, family, mother, true story, havana cuba, travel in cuba, castro and communism, cuba fiction
Publisher: Betty Viamontes

CHAPTER 19

RATIONS

After all three of my children were of school age, I returned to work. By then, five years had passed since Rio’s departure. I had learned to be on my own. Sometimes I wondered if it was worth it to continue to wait for a miracle. The wait and the longing for my husband weighed heavily on me. I aged prematurely. Silver strands adorned my long, black hair. The detergent soaps I used to wash our clothes by hand had ruined my nails and dried my skin, but my appearance no longer concerned me.

Eventually, we had the opportunity to buy a washing machine. In Cuba, people could not just go to the store and buy appliances. They had to earn the right to buy them through their jobs. We bought a Russian model (the only model available). It never worked well, but it was better than washing by hand—which was a good thing, as my father was getting sicker each day. Unable to make it to the bathroom on time, he would urinate on the bed or all over his clothes frequently.

My education allowed me to obtain a job right away. I collected and deposited money from several bodegas—tasks that involved walking four to five miles each day. I was prepared educationally to do a far more challenging job, but in the current political and economic environment, working at a grocery store had advantages. They offered split hours, from 8 a.m. to noon, and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. This schedule allowed me to teach adult students Spanish Grammar and Math in a small wooden shack three doors down from my house. On weekends, I continued to sell eye pencils, but in the last couple of months, business had slowed down significantly. One day the man who sold me the pencils stopped coming. I never heard from him again.

The low wages and the elimination of private ownership resulted in rampant theft, especially in grocery stores. I felt uncomfortable about the amount of pilfering that went on in the locations assigned to me, but the rationing system provided insufficient food for the intended period. The monthly quota for one person included five pounds of rice, twenty ounces of beans, half a pound of beef, half a pound of chicken, half a pound of fish, two pounds of potatoes, five pounds of sugar, two ounces of coffee (per week), one pound of lard, half a pound of vegetable oil, one lettuce, two tomatoes, four eggs (per week), one bath soap, and one detergent soap, among other restrictions. Cow’s milk was restricted to children under seven. After age seven, each person was entitled to three cans of condensed milk each month. On a daily basis, a family of four could purchase a loaf of bread. The bread was made early in the day and turned hard quickly. To make it last, I taught the children to place the leftovers behind the refrigerator, between the bars of its metal grille. The back of the refrigerator was always hot and made the bread toasty.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.