A Cuban mother posed smiling with a bottle of oil in her hands and used humor to depict how a basic product has become a luxury amid the scarcity and uncontrollable price increases on the island.
The young woman, identified on Facebook as Yenia Cubanita Mayea, shared the photograph this Monday and claimed that the image needed to "go down in history."
"I have gold in my hands," she wrote in the post.
This is for two months or more, he added before asking who else was in the same situation.
His comment reflects the strategies of many Cuban families to maximize a product that is essential for cooking, but whose price has become unaffordable in Cuba.
The increase accelerated after the Cuban regime eliminated retail price caps in June on five imported products, including cooking oils, through Resolution 150/2026. This decision nullified the limit of 990 pesos per liter that had been established in 2024.
The government justified the change after acknowledging that the controls had not succeeded in containing inflation and that, in some cases, they led to the disappearance of products and their shift to the informal market, which was when prices began to rise swiftly.
The liter of oil reached 2,500 pesos in Havana and exceeded 3,000 in other provinces. In Sancti Spíritus, it went from 2,000 to 3,000 pesos in just 24 hours, according to reports shared on social media.
The situation continued to worsen in the following weeks. By early August, oil had already reached 4,000 pesos per liter, while some Cubans claimed it was sold for as much as 5,000 pesos in certain areas.
In light of the increase, municipal administrations resorted once again to the controls that the government itself had questioned weeks earlier.
Moa and Banes, in Holguín, set the price of oil at 2,200 pesos, although they stated that this was not a new cap.
In that context, humor has become a way to express the impact of the crisis. Just as Yenia Cubanita Mayea boasted about her "fortune", another Cuban stored a bottle of oil inside a safe and accompanied the scene with the phrase "Fight for your dreams".
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