Reed GA

Language: English
References: 2
Page: 48
PDF size: 16.55 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Cuba is the only country I know to erect a monument to the egg….and so it should. Located on Havana's Fifth Avenue, the simple sculpture pays homage to the salva vida—literally the life saver of many a Cuban family, particularly in the 1990s. Those were the worst years of what was euphemistically called the "Special Period," when the economy careened ever downward, reeling from the loss of 85% of Cuba's aid and trade in the post-Soviet era.
Eggs became a symbol of the worst and the best of those times: in the 1980s, eggs were available at markets everywhere—"liberated" from the list of subsidized staples rationed after the US embargo was imposed in the 1960s. But by 1991, they began to disappear from the shelves, only to reappear once again on the ration card: first 30 a month per person, then 15, then 8. The worst was the disappearance; the best the fact that scarcity itself was rationed, enhancing the sense that Cubans would make it or not, together.

REFERENCES

1. Mills C. In the Eye of the Cuban Epidemic Neuropathy Storm: Rosaralis Santiesteban MD PhD, Neurology and Neurosurgery Institute. [interview] MEDICC Rev 2013;13(1):10–15.

2. Franco M, Bilal U, Orduñez P, Benet M, Morejón A, Caballero B, et al. Population- wide weight loss and regain in relation to diabetes burden and cardiovascular mortality in Cuba 1980-2010: repeated cross sectional surveys and ecological comparison of secular trends. BMJ [Internet]. 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 26];346:f1515. Available from: http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1515