Do the Cuban people still get rations every month?
A. Every Cuban family has a “Libreta de Alimiento”. With this libreta, a family can get from their locally designated “bodega”, at extremely low prices, rice, beans, sugar, coffee, eggs, chicken, oil, milk, etc. every month. Additionally, the family can get one roll of bread per person daily from their locally designated “panaderia”. However, the amounts are barely enough to keep hunger in abeyance, and Cubans have to find ways of buying food from farmers markets where prices are comparatively more expensive: 5 pesos for a lb. of rice; 8 pesos a lb. of beans; 5 pesos for a bunch of onions; 3 pesos a lb. of cucumbers. Currently a U.S. dollar would buy 20 pesos. From time to time, “ferias”, open air street markets, appear where Cubans can buy food and produce at ration book prices. Occasionally, trucks laden with produce from co-operative farms that supply the government with food will appear on a street corner and sell their produce at subsidized prices.
