Cuba's Dual Currency System Provides a Way to Cheat Shoppers

Photo: Yoani Sanchez

Her son pulled on her skirt asking for candy, while the guard demanded the ticket from the cash register and someone asked, insistently, for the purse-check ticket. In the midst of all this madness, she made the mistake of not checking her change for the purchase, a little over 6 CUC that had to last until the end of the month. When she got home she discovered that hidden among the coins was one with the face of Che Guevara, who, with his majestic gaze, tried to make himself pass for a one convertible peso coin. The lady ran back to confront the vendor, but no one paid any attention. She'd been ripped off by one of the most common tricks of the hard currency stores: giving her a three Cuban peso coin in place of a shiny CUC, with eight times the value. She had the urge to throw that tiny coin through the window, but her husband recommended she sell it to some tourist to recover the lost money.

Life offers these unpredictable somersaults. The face of Guevara, the former Central Bank president (1960), looks at us now from a coin that is used primarily as a souvenir or as an object of deception. That man who had the irreverence -- some will say the disrespect -- to sign the national bank notes with his brief nickname, "Che," is contained within a circle of metal of doubtful value. Trapped in this monetary duality that he never imagined hovering over the chimeric "New Man" of his discourses. All around the hotels, now, one sees the elderly with their poverty-level pensions, showing a foreigner the "merchandise" of these shiny three-peso coins, with a beret and jacket-clad guerilla. Meanwhile, the clever hand of a cashier managed to sneak them into a client's change, taking advantage of the distraction of a confused customer caught between the demands of her son for candy, and of the doorman who checked her bag.

Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.

Translating Cuba is a new compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
Yoani's new book in English, Havana Real, can be ordered here.

 

 

 

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Comments

[sandokan1]

06:03 AM on 08/28/2011

Félix I. Rodriguez, a Cuban ex-agent of the CIA, was head of the team advising the Bolivian army in the capture of Che Guevara. He talked to Che after his capture, and beside other things they talk about the economy: “We talk about Cuba. He admitted to me that the economy was in a shambles, largely because of the economic boycott by the U.S. "But you helped cause that," I told Che. "You-a doctor-were made president of the Cuban National Bank. What does a doctor know about economics?"

"Do you know how I became president of the Cuban National Bank?" he asked me. "No."
"I'll tell you a joke." He laughed. "We were sitting in a meeting one day, and Fidel came in and he asked for a dedicated economista. I misheard him - I thought he was asking for a dedicated comunista, so I raised my hand." He shrugged. "And that's why Fidel selected me as head of the Cuban economy." The sad reality is that the joke has been on the Cuban people.

[sandokan1]

05:38 AM on 08/27/2011

Che arrogance had no limits as shown at the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria, “Che Guevara, who had replaced Felipe Pazos as President of Cuba’s National Bank, during his trip to Algeria in1965 when questioned about the economic failure cynically replied: “We have a country to experiment on; we make mistakes but we will go on experimenting until we learn”. Such learning adventure has resulted in the biggest economic debacle ever experienced in Latin America, as this study clearly illustrate.” - Humberto (Bert) Corzo, COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CUBAS GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT, http://www.lanuevacuba.com/archivo/bert-corzo-1eng.htm. Fidel's experiment with Marxist-Leninist political economy has been a total failure. It took him 50 years to recognize that the system “doesn't even work for us anymore.”

[sandokan1]

03:02 AM on 08/26/2011

Che Guevara contempt for money and property is shown in his letter to Enrique Oltuski in which he justified the assault of banks, “The struggling masses agree to robbing banks because none of them has a penny in them”, and signing, as president of the National Bank of Cuba, banknotes with his nickname "Che." Ernesto Betancourt, deputy of Che at the National Bank, has said that: "He was ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.” And this was the guy the regime appointed as president of it. It is unbelievable. It really boggles the mind.

[pinkibus]

01:10 PM on 08/25/2011

So dastardly. Those Cubans - criminals each and everyone of them. ripping off tourists. That is a new thing for tourists in Cuba to watch ot for. Cuba is getting to be like all other tourist areas.

[mjk0259]

06:15 PM on 08/25/2011

Getting shortchanged happens in the US as well. It's not a very serious crime. It certainly wouldn't stop me from going to a country. Lot's of other places you have to worry about getting murdered, kidnapped or beaten. Large parts of most US cities are more dangerous than Cuba.

[Humberto Capiro]

07:59 PM on 08/25/2011

THIS IS THE BEST SERIES DONE ON THE LIFE OF ORDINARY CUBANS IN THE ISLAND! IN SPANISH ONLY BUT IMAGES SPEAK A THOUSAND WORDS! THIS IS WHY THEY CHEAT THE TOURISTS!

YOUTUBE: Cuba: La triste realidad del cubano de a pie - Parte I (Cuba: The sad reality of the everyday cubans- Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVQ_2TWXikU