Long Live the Points!

Long Live the Points!
September 1, 2012
Daisy Valera

HAVANA TIMES — Yesterday I was almost happy, although it may seem that
pleasing me isn't something so easy. The titles of my posts are usually
more like: "My job is going to kill me" or "My pay isn't enough."

I confess that I've given up. I've stopped looking for the cat with the
fifth paw. Writing a happy post is too hard!

If you try to not seem so tiresome and you omit (only for a few minutes)
those gratuities of (which can be read as "free") Cuban health care and
education as reasons for happiness, then what's left for us?

I have no desire to look like I'm exaggerating or saying nothing at all.
I'd rather talk about how I experienced a miracle yesterday.

The Cuban peso and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) simply disappeared.
I said goodbye to that horrifying issue of dual currency. For a few
hours I didn't have to think about money. I focused on "points" –
specifically, on 23 points.

All the workers from my job piled onto a bus and got off at Tarará, a
small seafront community on the eastside of Havana.

We stopped right in front of a store with an impromptu pink paint job
(evidently the pink paint was given to the store because the government
imported too much) there was a sign that read: "Tienda de estímulo de
presencia Tarará" (Tarara Inducement Store).

Such a name for a place, which might have seemed enigmatic to others,
didn't take us by surprise; we're used to this kind of union/government
gibberish.

The translation into a more colloquial language would read "a store with
some clothes, shoes and toiletries."

We were going there as a work incentive, with each of us assigned points
to allow us to make purchases of items that were almost impossible to
acquire through our wages.

This is, of course, in the interest of our company as well though. In
order to work, and work well (meaning to be efficient and productive),
we need to buy clothes for the job – right?

Crowded around there under the sun, restless and worried — but happy —
we all formed a line at the door where we stood for what seemed several
hours.

Once inside the store, we rushed around (we had only 15 minutes) trying
on clothes in the corners, due to the lack of dressing rooms, making
calculations, calculations, calculations… though we were more than happy.

However my 23 points reminded me that my salary isn't nearly enough to
get by, which made me bitter.

I finally decided to get two blouses (9.15 and 8.50 points respectively)
and with the remaining points I got a couple bras (2.60 pts.), a bottle
of shampoo (1.85), two bars of soap (0.90) and four razors (0.60 pts.).

A pair of shoes alone would have cost me more than 25 points, and most
of the fragrances would have gone for over 10 each – nevertheless I
ended my buying satisfied and content.

The reason for my joy was simple: I bought products that could otherwise
only be purchased in stores where they accept CUCs. Plus, doing the
math, I added up the following:



The blouses would have cost 15.50 CUCs and 11.95 CUCs, the bras would
have been at least 4, the shampoo was 1.95, each bar of soap was 0.55,
and each of the four razors would have put me back 0.45 CUC.

If I had purchased all this at the established price, it would have come
to approximately 36.30 CUCs, somewhere around $40 USD.

But since my monthly salary is only 335 pesos (13 CUC, or about $14.50
USD), these purchases would have taken nearly three months of work for
them alone.

I was so ecstatic that I almost started jumping up and down screaming
"Long live the points! Long live the points!

What if my salary was in points? What if stores sold in points?

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=77659