Desayuno y Posibilidad/Reflexión

Breakfast and Possibility/Reflection

This is a can of condensed milk. In Cuban private businesses, it costs 500 pesos in local currency, and 500 pesos is approximately $1 USD and a few cents, in this economy that isn't really an economy, but rather a kind of mismanaged disaster.

This can of condensed milk is enough for about seven breakfasts for two people. I like condensed milk with coffee. I dip a piece of toast in it and enjoy it the way I learned to in my childhood.

On the riverbank, back in my childhood, my mother would boil my father's dirty laundry, and she always put a couple of cans of condensed milk next to it.

Through the ration book, since there were six of us siblings, the state sold us 48 cans like this one for a ridiculously low price.

Back then, Cuba had a super advantageous agreement with a group of communist countries, and food practically flowed into the country through pipes. Or so people said.

Today, I don't know where Cuba is headed. I know that the can of milk my wife and I usually have for breakfast costs more than $1, and we can't always afford it.

Sometimes there's no coffee. No sugar. No water. After Hurricane Melissa, there's hardly any food left. My small plot of land was destroyed by the winds.

That morning, I went out wearing a straw hat, rubber boots, and carrying a machete, like a Mambí soldier.

I cut down all the yucca I'd planted in April, hoping for new shoots and some harvest.

At least enough for some breakfasts. There you go.

Surely, some private businessman bought a container of canned milk in some country and then sells it for a pittance. $1 and a few cents per can.

Today, for various reasons, the government doesn't have enough milk to guarantee even one of these cans for the children.

To buy a can of milk, I have to read a novel, watch a movie, study, write some kind of essay, submit some unpublished work, or write more than 500 words, use up my internet data finding an image, think about the right tags, and post it on Hive.

But that's only half the battle. I still need to be lucky enough for my post to get generous votes from a group of friends, and if luck is on my side, maybe even get a little help from a big project.

Perhaps some project will notice my post and like literature or film and be generous. Or maybe not, who knows?

Even if my post manages to raise the dollar I need for the can of condensed milk, I have to wait seven days to receive that money back.

But there's satisfaction in writing, in sharing, in telling the world about the things that happen to us, the things we think, the things we love, the things we hate, what we've lived through, our dreams...

And well, here we are, because before arriving at #hive it was absolutely impossible to enjoy breakfast with a can of milk like this.

I came to make friends and to grow. To test ideas. To review. To help. To learn. To leave a mark. To contribute something of value.

And every now and then to treat myself to something like this can of milk, which, by the way, I hadn't had on my table for over thirty or forty years.

It's been a splendid year. For the first time, consistently, my work is being recognized. And although I know that curation trails are curative, of course, it's possible that from time to time I'll gain a reader or two.

That is, thankfully, more than perfect. For a writer, there's no greater joy than being read.

Speaking of reading, I invite you to my post tomorrow, December 31, 2025, where I reflect on the end of the year.

Thanks for reading this far.

My native language is Spanish. (Translation done by Google)