A Cuban identified as Yisel Benítez went out to look for oil and returned home with an empty bag after walking several blocks without finding the product. Her complaint, recorded during her walk, ended up becoming a viral phenomenon on Facebook, where it has gathered over 822,000 views, 43,000 likes, and 2,700 comments.
"Are you stupid or do you want to kill us?" Benítez asked in a message directed to the Cuban authorities.
She herself replied seconds later: "I have an answer to the question: you want to kill us."
The trigger for their outrage was a scene that has become increasingly common for many Cuban families: going from store to store in search of a basic food item, only to return empty-handed, whether due to its absence or high prices.
"I have walked for blocks and endless stretches looking for oil. There is no oil anywhere, but that's not the worst part. The worst part is that when it does appear, it will be at five thousand pesos, because that's the current price of oil," he lamented.
During her journey, she also didn't find many affordable alternatives.
"I found a carton of eggs. How much does it cost? Six thousand pesos, two hundred pesos per egg," he reported.
The price mentioned by Benítez is close to those recently recorded in other parts of the country. In Santiago de Cuba, for example, a carton of eggs has been sold for up to 7,500 pesos, an exorbitant figure for workers and retirees whose incomes remain well below the actual cost of food.
"You have to go back to school, my love."
Benítez, who claimed to have studied Economics, devoted a significant part of his remarks to questioning the decisions made by the Cuban government in an attempt to control prices.
"They imposed a price cap that was useless because it led to shortages. And now they are lifting the price cap without having sufficient supply for the demand, which results in a skyrocketing increase in prices," he stated.
Your comment refers to the removal of retail price caps on products such as oil and chicken, established by Resolution 150/2026 of the Ministry of Finance and Prices, effective since June 20. In July, Decree 156 did the same for rice.
For Benítez, removing those limits in a market characterized by scarcity will ultimately affect consumers' wallets directly.
The Cuban even sent a message to those who design the country's economic policy.
"I studied economics and I would like to talk to one of the economists you have up there, because you need to go back to school, my love," she expressed.
He also questioned the recent provisions involving private economic actors, including micro, small, and medium enterprises and local businesses, in the funding of benefits intended for retirees in their areas.
Benítez believes that these new costs will ultimately be incorporated into the prices that consumers pay.
"When those actors take on that expense, they're going to pass it on to the products. And you know what, everyone get ready because oil is going to cost ten thousand and a carton of eggs thirty thousand," he warned.
Beyond the fact that these figures are a projection by the video’s own creator, her fear reflects a widespread concern among Cubans regarding the ongoing rise in food prices and the loss of purchasing power.
"There is no decision you make that benefits us, the poor mortals. All of them harm us, but then we blame others," he reproached.
"Living in Cuba is like playing a video game on hard mode."
The fruitless search for food is not the only problem that Benítez claims to be facing.
In another post made days later, he reported that his area had been without a 220-volt transformer for 12 days, following a failure that occurred on July 30, which, according to his testimony, the Electric Union still had not resolved.
The combination of scarcity, rising prices, and problems with the electrical supply led the Cuban to sum up her daily life with one phrase:
"Living in Cuba is like playing a video game on hard mode and without a tutorial."
But it was the image with which he concluded his journey that best encapsulated his protest. After walking several blocks in search of something as basic as oil, he returned home exactly as he had left.
"By the way, I'm going back home with nothing in the bag. Literally," he concluded.
An empty bag after wandering the streets in search of food thus became the image with which Benítez summarized a crisis that for many Cuban families is no longer measured solely in economic statistics, but in what they can—or cannot—put on the table each day.
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