Letti Duquesne Palacios, mother of the Cuban influencer Gigi Maduq, arrived in the Cayman Islands and toured a local supermarket with her daughter. The reaction was captured in a viral video on Instagram and became one of the most talked-about clips of the week.
The reunion between mother and daughter took place the day before and was shared on the account @gigimaduq, with the following message: "The best day of my life, no more." The first outing they had together was to the supermarket.
Letti walks through the aisles with an expression of awe. She was amazed by the abundance, the diversity, and the order of the products. She couldn't help but utter the ironic and viral phrase: “How harsh is cruel capitalism!”
What follows is a series of spontaneous reactions that portray, with humor and emotion, the contrast between scarcity in Cuba and abundance abroad.
"Here, price doesn’t matter at all. Oh, what a delight it is to be invited to shop," she says with a laugh as she moves among the shelves filled with products.
Upon reaching the cleaning supplies section, astonishment mixes with nostalgia: “You don’t know what this smell is. It’s the very scent of yuma,” exclaims the mother. This Cuban expression refers to the distinctive aroma of imported products, associated with the outside world and the clothes that Cubans from the diaspora bring to the island.
The woman also makes a direct reference to the situation she left behind, especially when arriving at the meat section in the supermarket: "They're killing our stomachs there in the jungle. The Cubans who left right away, the next day, come to this," she commented in reference to grocery shopping.
The visit left her very impressed, especially by the cleanliness in the presentation of the food, something that is not common in markets in Cuba: "Everything was delicious, well organized, very clean. No, I'm in heaven, I'm in heaven on this trip." The video concludes on a festive and hopeful note: "Starting tomorrow, there will be much more and better."
Gigi Maduq, whose real name is Gina Martínez, is a Cuban communicator and model with an active presence on social media, known for her content about the reality of the island, especially since the protests of July 11, 2021.
The clip fits into a viral trend that shows no signs of waning: Cubans leaving the island and reacting in astonishment to the abundance in supermarkets abroad.
In March of this year, a 62-year-old Cuban cried upon entering a supermarket in Spain. His video surpassed 2.2 million views in less than 48 hours.
In August, a Cuban woman broke down in tears in a supermarket in Cancun upon seeing bread and sweets. Each of these videos, in its own way, documents the impact of decades of shortages on those who grew up in Cuba and are facing a shelf full of food, at an affordable price and without a queue, for the first time.
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