The Cuban repentista Yordan Quintero, known on social media and television as “El Yayito Ranchuelero”, once again made thousands of Cubans laugh —and think— with a new décima published on Facebook about the agricultural fair in his hometown, Ranchuelo, in Villa Clara.
In just 23 seconds, Quintero humorously summarizes what every Cuban knows all too well: shopping on the island today is not a matter of budget, but rather of "baggage."
The piece, titled "A Backpack and a Bag at the Ranchuelo Fair," goes as follows: "At this fair I highlight / that for shopping to take place / you’ll need to bring along / a backpack and a bag. / If Juan and Paco didn’t understand, / I will explain it to you: / the backpack is for putting in / what the ranchuelo buyer gets, / and the bag is for the money / that you have to spend."
The joke has a point. The backpack carries the goods; the bag carries the cash. And in Cuba of 2026, that bag has to be big: a carton of 30 eggs ranges between 3,000 and 4,000 pesos, or even more, a liter of oil can reach 5,000 pesos in some areas and exceed it, and a pound of pork regularly surpasses 850 pesos.
While the minimum monthly pension is only 4,000 pesos, independent estimates calculate that a Cuban family needs around 96,000 pesos per month to cover its basic needs. In this context, the image of the "money bag" is not poetic hyperbole: it is everyday arithmetic.
The reel accumulated over 254,000 views, more than 9,700 likes, and nearly 400 comments, figures that confirm that Yayito Ranchuelero has found in the décima espinela —ten octosyllabic verses with an abbaaccddc rhyme scheme— his best tool to connect with an audience that recognizes itself in every verse.
It is not the first time that Quintero has hit the mark. Last August, one of his décimas about the price of oil in Ranchuelo —which rose to 3,500 pesos per liter, compared to the 50 pesos it used to cost— surpassed one million views shared by the D' Canturía page.
The phenomenon of Yayito is part of a broader movement of repentistas and Cuban poets who, in 2026, have turned the décima into a chronicle of the crisis. Sindy Manuel Torres, from Pinar del Río, went viral in August with a piece where frying an egg was seen as “ostentation,” “sin,” and “crime”: “I won’t ask for forgiveness, / neither verbally nor in writing. / I know well it’s a crime, / whether you’re Christian or atheist, / but today I had the desire / to eat a fried egg.” The comments from her followers were just as lively: “And you have electricity!!! Hahaha and oil!!! And an egg!!!! You are blessed!” one wrote.
In October, Jorge Adrián Betancourt Quintana wept in verse over the disappearance of bread: "The bread is lost and I cry / like a child, my soul laments / knowing that in the Mipyme / there is bread, but at a gold price."
Agricultural fairs, which in theory should facilitate access to food, have also fallen victim to the general decline. The one in Sancti Spíritus quadrupled its entrance fee in October, as if the spectacle of prices required a more expensive ticket.
In the text of the reel, Yayito Ranchuelero asks his audience to share the page "so that these décimas can reach more people and continue to bring joy to hearts." That a décima about the need for a bag to pay for groceries "brings joy to hearts" says a lot about the spirit of the everyday Cuban—and even more about the reality that those verses portray.
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