A Halloween pumpkin that costs more than half of the monthly minimum wage: that's what Chequera —the character played by Cuban actor Mario Sardiñas— brought to his niece this October 31st, in a 21-second reel posted on Facebook that humorously summarizes the economic nightmare faced by the island.
The sketch is as brief as it is sharp. Chequera arrives with the pumpkin he ordered, and his niece tells him, "That pumpkin isn’t scary." The uncle's response is immediate: "Not scary? Let me tell you how much it cost so you can see." When the niece asks for the price, the punchline hits like a blow: "1,700 pesos! I told you it would scare you, I told you!"
The joke works because the fact is real and chilling. The minimum monthly wage in Cuba is 3,210 pesos —increased in July 2026 from the previous 2,100 pesos, a rise that the regime itself acknowledged as insufficient to cover the basic basket— which means that decorative pumpkin takes more than half of what a worker earning the lowest salary in the country makes in a month. And that minimum wage, translated to the informal exchange rate, amounts to less than five dollars.
The context makes it even more terrifying. The official year-on-year inflation in Cuba reached 28.44% in September 2026, while the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages reported an increase of 42.66% compared to the same month the previous year, according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).
The package of chicken, which a few months ago cost between 2,000 and 2,600 pesos, has now reached 7,000 pesos or more following the removal of price caps. A liter of oil has been sold for 6,000 pesos or more. A carton of 30 eggs has surpassed 4,300 pesos in some provinces. In this context, paying 1,700 pesos for a pumpkin that serves only as decoration is not an expense: it is an act of bravery or madness.
This year's Halloween celebration in Havana had its own touch of horror: young people dressed as the Joker, a nun, and a doctor gathered in private cultural spaces like El Proyecto in El Vedado, amidst a blackout lasting around 30 hours. Because in Cuba, the fright of Halloween is not disguised: it shows up in the electricity bill that doesn’t exist, in the market prices, and in the pesos that just don’t stretch far enough.
Sardiñas has been turning Chequera into an accurate —and very amusing— thermometer of the Cuban crisis for months. A few days ago, he posted a reel where he explains that his neighborhood in Arroyo Arenas is "a tribe," a place without electricity, without internet, and cooking with firewood, a video that garnered tens of thousands of views.
In mid-September, he reacted with exaggerated terror to "things from the beyond": a bottle of oil, a small gas cylinder, and a container filled with plenty of water. He also satirized the rise in chicken prices with the phrase "the package of chicken also got a raise. That's what I call equality," in a reel that captured the paradox of salary increases against inflation.
In another reel, it was suggested to turn a food tray into an antenna to search for signal... for food. This surpassed 334,000 views.
In the comments on the pumpkin video, several users acknowledged the fear and even horror that the prices on the island provoke. In the Cuba of 2026, where more than 90% of the population lacks adequate access to food, true dread needs no disguise, no pumpkin, no Halloween.
The pumpkin video accumulated almost 30,000 views and more than 2,000 likes in just a few hours, confirming that Chequera continues to be one of the comedians who best understands —and best conveys— what it means to live in Cuba when even the fright of October 31 comes with a luxury price tag.
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