Norbis Pérez is a 72-year-old retired university professor from Haban, who receives as a pension 2,000 pesos per month ($16.2 dollars). She was interviewed by the independent journalist Luz Escobar, and she narrated: “Yesterday I bought in that Mipyme (a private business in Vedado) a kilogram of chicken breast at 2,000 Cuban pesos, a package of milk powder of one kilogram at 2,000 pesos, a package of soda cookies at 1,000 pesos and a medium-sized mayonnaise knob at 1,300 pesos.

In other words, Norbis spent 6,300 pesos ($51.20) in hours, more than three times what he receives monthly as a pension. How was that possible? The seven-year-old former professor of the bicentennial University of Havana, instead of just enjoying her well-earned retirement, is now a maid in a house.

RETIRED UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR IS TODAY A SERVANT TO BE ABLE TO EAT

“I work at a young woman’s house helping her with her children when they leave school,” he explained, “and I cook, do homework with them, clean a little and that’s it. She pays me well because she is married to a Frenchman who works in a company and they have a much higher standard of living than the average in Cuba. However, I can’t afford any luxury, just pay the basics to eat.”

Norbis doesn’t even want to think about how he is going to manage to feed himself if the generous wife of the French businessman dispenses with his services because he is leaving for France, or for any other reason. In the 60s, when the then young Norbis began to study at the university, she could not imagine, not even in a dark nightmare, that after being a professor at the university, and reaching retirement age she would have to continue working, this time as a maid, so as not to go hungry.

A holguinero who preferred anonymity to give his testimony to “14yMedio,” said: “People are passing Cain’s (…) they eat what they can (…) agricultural products are lacking and expensive: a banana at 30 pesos (…) the malanga at 100 pesos a pound and rice at 200.”

THEY SKIP LUNCH, OR FOOD, THEY DON’T GET ENOUGH FOOD

He stressed that with the malanga at 100 pesos a pound, rice at 200, cassava and sweet potato also through the clouds, and sugar at 250 pesos a pound, the families there no longer make three meals a day. They skip lunch, or food, because the food is not enough.

And this was confirmed by a recent survey by the Cubadata entity, in which 47% of those interviewed said that they had to skip meals and sometimes did not eat anything for a whole day.

Aleyda Díaz, 45, a receptionist of a ministry in Havana, complained that in her most recent departure she found the pound of pork at 700 pesos, the pound of carrot at 300, and the pound of tomato at 400 pesos, and could not buy anything. “The anguish of putting a plate of rice with something on the table doesn’t let me sleep,” she said annoyed.

Scholars of the world economy classify the inflation rate in Cuba as one of the three highest in the world. It currently exceeds 200%, which breaks the national historical record set in 1993, when it reached 183%, according to the Observatory of Coins and Finance of Cuba, an independent entity.

FOOD SHORTAGE IS ALREADY CAUSING MASSIVE MALNUTRITION

And these are just three testimonies among millions that could be published about the dramatic food shortage in Cuba, which is already causing massive malnutrition that will silently have fatal consequences for the Cuban people, with the exception of the mafia caste of livers and abusers who usurp power. What’s more, if this food crisis continues, it goes straight to a famine.

The key to everything is that Castroism-communism is amazingly parasitic and no longer has any “paganini” that finances it for free. That’s why agricultural and industrial production is decreasing. The State is bankrupt and is trapped in a pernicious vicious circle: it does not generate foreign exchange nationally and therefore cannot import inputs, fuel, machinery, raw materials, to produce those foods and consumer goods that it does not produce.

In other words, both deficits feed each other. The result is hunger, extreme poverty, blackouts and mass emigration. How long, Raúl Castro?