A couple of months ago, I took some Cubans to a dollar store in Fredericton. They were friends of a co-worker, and I had promised to help them around town a bit while they were visiting for an agricultural exchange.
I was remembering this because their was a story on the news that Ex-Honduran president Zelaya has made a surprise appearance in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. The coup that ousted him happened when these Cubans were in town, and they wanted all of the latest news, as the coup brought back bad memories of the decades of fascism in Latin America.
But the dollar store was the real highlight of the day, counter intuitively. They had never seen such a thing. The prices were cheaper than in the hard currency stores in Cuba, AND the quality was better.
This was a fair bit different than the reaction Canadians have in stores like that. They walked up and down the aisles in joyous wonder, looking like kids on Christmas morning. They could find a use for everything, either for themselves, or friends and neighbours.
I think there are some interesting lessons here, but they’re hard to articulate. It certainly shows how much we take for granted.
Also, I would note that while Cuba does not deserve most of the negative propaganda used against it, this illustrates it’s not the paradise that some people imagine either. Since coming back I’ve found opinion on that country very polarized between thinking that it’s all bad or all good, but the reality is very nuanced.
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