Cuba: When an Everyday Activity Is No Longer Normal
The emblematic Havana 3rd and 70th supermarket
Photo Feature By Safie M. Gonzalez
HAVANA TIMES – From the outside, the supermarket at 3rd and 70th, located on the ground floor of the Gran Muthu Habana Hotel, still looks like a place designed for major shopping trips. The establishment opened in 2018, the first Havana supermarket to sell exclusively in US Dollars.
Today, one only has to walk through its doors to encounter a very different picture.
The first thing visitors notice is the unpleasant smell. In some areas, a stench lingers from products thawing during power outages. The atmosphere thus reveals a problem that goes beyond appearances and affects the preservation of the merchandise.
The selection also bears little resemblance to what one would normally expect from a supermarket. The shelves may be stocked, but variety is limited: large quantities of the same item are repeated horizontally while others are scarce or simply unavailable. There are goods on the shelves, but few choices.
The produce section highlights this contradiction. The area designated for fruit remains practically empty, without the variety that would normally be expected.
Other signs of neglect add to the picture. Cockroaches can be seen crawling along some of the shelves. Shopping baskets are in short supply, and many are broken. Finding one in usable condition can become yet another minor inconvenience during a shopping trip that already requires patience. Staff members are not always at their posts either. Some cashiers leave their stations, and at times the service lacks the continuity customers would expect.
Taken separately, each of these details might seem minor. Together, they create a very different picture of what an establishment of this kind should be.
Outside, the scene changes. Men linger around the area, approaching customers to offer to carry their purchases or push their shopping carts to their vehicles in exchange for money. The need to transport a few bags becomes an opportunity for them to earn some income. It is an informal activity that takes place just a few yards from the checkout counters and has, in some way, become part of the everyday landscape of the place.
The supermarket, then, is no longer simply a place to buy food and other goods. The images reveal the signs of an operation that leaves much to be desired, as well as the small survival strategies that emerge around it when even an activity as ordinary as grocery shopping begins to require numerous adaptations.
Here are the photographs.
[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”2257″ exclusions=”55103,55108″ sortorder=”55119,55107,55111,55120,55117,55112,55118,55116,55109,55105,55106,55113,55100,55115,55110,55101,55102,55104,55114,55103,55108″ display=”horizontal_filmstrip”]…