A Cuban woman identified as Yenia Cubanita Mayea ran off with her last 180 pesos upon hearing that they were selling bread "freely" in her area, and she shared everything in a video posted on Facebook that reflects the daily desperation of millions of Cubans in the face of the scarcity of one of the most basic food items.
"I only heard them say they are going to sell bread freely. So I grabbed the only 180 pesos I had and ran over there," the woman recounts in the 44-second reel, filmed under the midday sun and without a bag to carry her purchase.
With that money, she was able to buy exactly two loaves of bread at 90 pesos each, a price she considers acceptable in the current context: "At least it's cheaper than what the bakers sell them for."
What stands out most about the video is the reason there was bread that day: electricity arrived in the neighborhood, something the protagonist describes as a rarity. "Bread is coming now, taking advantage of the electricity, but that's unusual," she says.
Yenia also reveals that throughout the entire previous month, no bread was sold in her area, except on April 30th, the eve of May 1st, and that bread was "from the cota," which she describes as looking like a slipper.
The scene is not an isolated case. The ration book in Cuba has collapsed to unprecedented levels, with stores offering barely three products and bread rations reduced by half: from 80 grams to 40 grams per unit, with the price rising from five cents to 75 cents.
In Villa Clara, since February, bodega bread has been restricted to those under 13 years old and over 65 due to a lack of fuel, while in Guantánamo, flour was delivered by mules and bread was baked with firewood.
Prices vary by region, but all point in the same direction: in Havana, bags of eight loaves were sold for 500 pesos on the informal market in April; in Cienfuegos, the price reached 150 pesos per 200-gram piece; on the Isle of Youth, the released bread was sold for 110 pesos for the same amount.
The crisis has structural roots: Cuba imports up to 80% of the food it consumes, and during the first half of 2025, the Ministry of Food Industry received only 55% of the expected wheat. Additionally, there are blackouts that halt bakeries and a lack of fuel for ovens and transportation, factors that the regime promised to stabilize without concrete results.
In that context, a government official in Manicaragua, Villa Clara, sparked outrage by celebrating on Facebook the lack of bread and promoting cassava as an alternative, claiming that "this absence of bread has brought multiple benefits" for the health of the population.
While officials celebrate the scarcity, Cubans like Yenia rush out with their last pesos at the first rumor that there's bread available, without a bag, under the midday sun, grateful that for once there is no line, as if that alone is a form of luck.
Just weeks ago, another Cuban reported in a viral video the ordeal of three weeks without bread in the store, an image that recurs in every province of the island and that the regime has been unable to resolve —nor does it seem willing to do so.
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