A video posted on Facebook by Yudith Parra Velázquez has gone viral this week with over 166,000 views, in which the woman proudly films her brother-in-law roasting what she declares to be "a 50-pound pig," while the camera mercilessly reveals a visibly small animal over the coals.
The 47-second clip opens with Yudith shouting excitedly: "Oh my God, when I post this... here, roasting a pig. Look at this kind of pig. This is a 50-pound pig."
The phrase that ends the video says it all: "There, the brother-in-law roasting it. That's what hunger does. Look."
Hundreds of people commented on the reel: one said that what the man was roasting was a fetus; another said it was a hutia, and a third claimed that the piglet died during childbirth.
"He has enough meat for the whole year," mocked a young man.
"That day, the food was taken care of, that's the most important thing," wrote a user.
"I don't think you will have enough firewood to finish roasting it," one of them quipped.
Humor—whether intentional or not—lies in the contradiction between the exuberant celebration and the harsh reality of what smolders beneath the surface. Yet behind the laughter, there is a much darker story.
The pig was historically the king of the Cuban table. Today, it is almost a luxury item. The pork production in Cuba collapsed by 95.2% between 2017 and 2023, which the economist Pedro Monreal bluntly described as a "national disgrace."
In the informal market, the price of a pound of pork exceeds 1,400 Cuban pesos, compared to a state minimum wage of just 2,100 CUP per month. In 2018, that same pound cost 50 pesos, representing an increase of over 2,700% in less than a decade.
The video of Yudith is not an isolated case. In January of this year, another clip showed Cuban farmers roasting a rodent for New Year's Eve dinner. Comments on social media left no doubt: "It hurts to eat that on New Year's Eve because there is nothing else," wrote one user. "It's sad, but that's the reality for many," added another.
The numbers behind these images are devastating. 96.91% of the Cuban population does not have adequate access to food. Only 15% manage to have three meals a day. 25% go to bed without having dinner. Deaths due to malnutrition increased by 74.42% between 2022 and 2023, according to the National Office of Statistics and Information.
Seventy-eight percent of Cubans surveyed believe that the current crisis is worse than the Special Period of the 1990s, and eighty-nine percent of families live in extreme poverty.
Thus, what would be a funny anecdote of a family barbecue in any other country becomes an uncomfortable mirror in Cuba: when any occasion needs to be celebrated, regardless of the circumstances, because - as Yudith says - "it's what hunger gives."
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