Tienes...No hay!
Tienes... No Hay!
‘No hay’ sometimes I joke that these words are the slogan of Cuban grocery stores, although it’s really not a joking matter at all. Cuba has a hard, and sometimes downright impossible, time stocking things that we back home take for granted. Flour, for one thing. Back home we think of flour as a basic household staple. In Cuba, it’s a luxury. For weeks, sometimes months, at a time Havana will be completely out of flour to the point where only restaurants have access to it. Another example is eggs. After Hurricane Irma, Havana was out of eggs for about 4-5 months. I almost sent an SOS to my friends back in Canada as eggs are a staple of my diet. Once I had a hard time even finding spaghetti! Then there are the things we take for granted in Canada as just always being there if we decide we want them. They do come to Cuba but they are few and far between. Such foods for me include; tortilla shells, salsa, sweet and sour sauce and jams. Things you never really think about until you need them.
It’s not just food, sometimes it can be hard to find toiletries, and clothing and once even toilet paper was scarce. That was a hard time for me, many a roll was taken from my friend Leo. After living here for the last year I don’t take any commercial goods for granted when I return to Canada. And it was something that I never really thought about until I actually had to deal with it.
Sometimes I have people tell me that they want to move to Cuba and I have to tell them that visiting Cuba for a month or even two or three at a time is very different from actually living here. When you visit you often go out for dinner every night. Or even when you do decide to cook you tend to look at one market and if they don’t have what you need you get annoyed and go eat out. When you move here you have to actively search. Try looking at four different food stores and two different vegetable markets to find the ingredients for a vegetable lasagna. Something that takes a ten minute stop at Sobeys back home takes half a day or longer here.
To be honest, I enjoy searching for food sometimes. Sometimes it can become an adventure to see what kind of new things you can find. It can be an interesting experience. Any time I find Heinz here I throw up my hands in triumph and all of the Cubans turn to look at the crazy Yuma. Also, the vegetables are fresh and wonderful, you just have to wait until they are in season.
Dealing with ‘No Hay’ is one of the things I didn’t really think about until I had to and it’s something that could’ve made me turn around and pack it in. Instead I turned it into an adventure. In Cuba things are very DIY- use what you have. In Canada sometimes things are almost two easy; we lose our creativity because everything is available and at our fingertips. Cuba makes you use your creative mind and hopefully that’s something that I’ll carry with me into the future.
Besos, Leah
‘No hay’ sometimes I joke that these words are the slogan of Cuban grocery stores, although it’s really not a joking matter at all. Cuba has a hard, and sometimes downright impossible, time stocking things that we back home take for granted. Flour, for one thing. Back home we think of flour as a basic household staple. In Cuba, it’s a luxury. For weeks, sometimes months, at a time Havana will be completely out of flour to the point where only restaurants have access to it. Another example is eggs. After Hurricane Irma, Havana was out of eggs for about 4-5 months. I almost sent an SOS to my friends back in Canada as eggs are a staple of my diet. Once I had a hard time even finding spaghetti! Then there are the things we take for granted in Canada as just always being there if we decide we want them. They do come to Cuba but they are few and far between. Such foods for me include; tortilla shells, salsa, sweet and sour sauce and jams. Things you never really think about until you need them.
It’s not just food, sometimes it can be hard to find toiletries, and clothing and once even toilet paper was scarce. That was a hard time for me, many a roll was taken from my friend Leo. After living here for the last year I don’t take any commercial goods for granted when I return to Canada. And it was something that I never really thought about until I actually had to deal with it.
Sometimes I have people tell me that they want to move to Cuba and I have to tell them that visiting Cuba for a month or even two or three at a time is very different from actually living here. When you visit you often go out for dinner every night. Or even when you do decide to cook you tend to look at one market and if they don’t have what you need you get annoyed and go eat out. When you move here you have to actively search. Try looking at four different food stores and two different vegetable markets to find the ingredients for a vegetable lasagna. Something that takes a ten minute stop at Sobeys back home takes half a day or longer here.
To be honest, I enjoy searching for food sometimes. Sometimes it can become an adventure to see what kind of new things you can find. It can be an interesting experience. Any time I find Heinz here I throw up my hands in triumph and all of the Cubans turn to look at the crazy Yuma. Also, the vegetables are fresh and wonderful, you just have to wait until they are in season.
Dealing with ‘No Hay’ is one of the things I didn’t really think about until I had to and it’s something that could’ve made me turn around and pack it in. Instead I turned it into an adventure. In Cuba things are very DIY- use what you have. In Canada sometimes things are almost two easy; we lose our creativity because everything is available and at our fingertips. Cuba makes you use your creative mind and hopefully that’s something that I’ll carry with me into the future.
Besos, Leah
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