A young Cuban identified on TikTok as @bia_bhpp posted a video on Tuesday that moved thousands of people as she recounted how an elderly woman stopped her on the street to ask for help to buy some soap and what happened after she handed her 1000 Cuban pesos.
In the video posted on TikTok, the young woman recounts that she went shopping with her mother when an elderly woman approached them. "An older lady came up to us and asked if we could please help her buy some soap," she recalls. Rather than giving her a small amount, she decided to hand over 1000 pesos, an amount she acknowledged as unusual: "I had never done that before, I had never given 1000 pesos. 1000 pesos is a lot because, imagine, a salary in Cuba is 7000 pesos, 6000 pesos."
The elderly woman's reaction left her speechless. When she received the money, the lady initially rejected it: “The lady looks at me and says, ‘No, no, no.’” When the young woman insisted, the elderly woman asked for something different: “She gestures and looks at me and says, ‘Oh, please, let me give you a hug.’” The hug came accompanied by repeated blessings —“God bless you, my girl”— and left the young woman's mother with teary eyes.
“The soap is something very, very, very necessary and not everyone has the money to buy a bar of soap, which is quite expensive,” the narrator explained, describing a reality that has become commonplace in Cuba. In the informal market, a bar of soap can cost between 150 and 400 Cuban pesos, while the official minimum pension for retirees is just 4000 pesos a month, less than ten dollars at the informal exchange rate.
The scene described by @bia_bhpp is not an isolated case. According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, 79% of people over 70 in Cuba cannot afford three meals a day. A survey conducted with 506 retirees across five provinces found that 99% stated that their pension does not cover food, housing, or medication. Economists estimate that meeting basic needs on the island requires around 96,000 pesos per month, a figure that is more than twenty times the minimum pension.
In recent weeks, similar gestures have been circulating on social media. Activist Noly Blak traveled around Holguín distributing over 600,000 pesos to those in need, and a 91-year-old man with Parkinson's was seen begging in Santiago de Cuba because his pension of 3,000 pesos wasn’t enough to eat. Previously, a Cuban helped an elderly woman who was begging for money in Bayamo and made a public plea about the country’s social situation.
These videos serve as testimony to the profound social and economic crisis affecting Cuba, which the State has been unable to resolve. At the same time, they showcase spontaneous acts of solidarity among citizens who help each other in the face of inadequate state protection.
"If you ever find yourselves in a similar situation, please help, because we never know how much it can mean to someone what we can give without it costing us much," the young woman concluded in her video.
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