Sandro Castro, the grandson of the dictator Fidel Castro, has once again turned the daily misery of Cubans into a source of laughter.
In a reel posted on Instagram, the self-proclaimed "content creator" appeared characterized as his character Vampirach, hanging the supply booklet around his neck as if it were an amulet or an absurd piece of jewelry, sarcastically naming it “the diary of a vampire.”
To complete the grotesque scene, the provocative bitongo showed off a red underwear patterned with a Santa Claus dog, which he calls "Barbatruco", one of the many popular nicknames of his grandfather, the man who imposed rationing in Cuba over six decades ago.
The image is striking: while millions of Cubans continue to rely on that grimy notebook to receive half a kilo of rice, a pound of sugar or a stale loaf of bread, the grandson of the "inventor" of the ration book turns it into a humor accessory.
The document that symbolizes endless lines, discussions at the grocery store, and anguish over food shortages for families, is nothing more than a “prop” in his digital vampire parody.
Since 1962, the ration card has become a collective burden. Every month, Cubans resign themselves to waiting in line at state stores, where they face the ritual of scarcity: rice infested with weevils, poorly fermented bread, adulterated oil, sugar that is never enough, beans that arrive late, and the almost mythical coffee delivery, along with chicken and fish, which many cannot remember having received in years.
For most people, this system does not guarantee "equality," as Castro preached, but rather misery that is poorly distributed and even worse managed. This is why it is so infuriating that his grandson, shielded by the privileges of his last name, feels free to mock him with complete impunity.
Sandro doesn't wait in lines under the blazing sun, doesn't argue with storekeepers who distribute fewer grams than assigned, nor does he keep notes in his notebook about months without receiving a product. For him, the notebook is an exotic item, a museum relic that he can joke about in front of his Instagram camera.
The contrast is cruel: while a Cuban mother calculates how to stretch the two pounds of rice she was given to feed her three children, Sandro Castro records himself laughing and displaying the document that symbolizes that torment.
And he does it with a pair of underwear called “Barbatruco,” in an explicit mockery of his grandfather, but above all, of the people who still suffer the legacy of that dictator.
Sandro's social media has turned into a gallery of triviality and provocations: ostentatious parties, luxury cars, mediocre songs, and grotesque antics. But this video with the notebook surpasses triviality and borders on political obscenity.
It is the exhibition of absolute disdain from a family that has never waited in line to buy bread, which does not know what it means to wait hours for a liter of oil, nor what it is to give a child an improvised breakfast with watered-down coffee because there is no milk.
The notebook, with its worn pages and crossed-out lines, remains the only document that guarantees Cubans a handful of food each month. Turning it into a joke is, in itself, an affront.
And for the grandson of the man who enforced it to be the one ridiculing it, transforming it into a "vampire diary" and hanging it up as an accessory, is a cruel irony that can only exist in real Cuba: a country where hunger is an everyday reality and the heirs of power can laugh heartily about it.
The reel by Sandro Castro is not just a grotesque gesture; it is the confirmation of an abyss. On one side, the majority of Cubans condemned to live with the ration book as their monthly burden. On the other, the descendants of the elite, who can afford to wear it as a disguise and laugh at the hunger of others, without fear of consequences or official criticism.
In today's Cuba, misery continues to be a state policy, and the sarcasm of the privileged is part of the spectacle.
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