Before kids are allowed to leave school, the Cuban dictatorship is forcing them to take a bite of the measly government bread roll they are given to make sure they don’t sell it outside. With food, medicine, and basic necessities in short supply or impossible to find, children selling or trading their bread rolls for other goods.
Via Diario de Cuba (my translation):
To leave their classrooms, middle school students in the province of Santiago de Cuba must obligatorily bite into their school snack bread. This is the “solution” imposed by authorities to counter the student practice of selling that food.
The situation highlights food insecurity and how the loss of purchasing power among families affects students on the island.
The new measure also challenges parents’ understanding, not only because they find it unusual for correcting adolescent behavior but also because they believe it distorts the mission of schools.
Teachers supervise the biting of the bread as students leave school or pressure students to break the bread into pieces in the classrooms in an attempt to stop the trading of food for money.
Selling school snack bread in Santiago de Cuba is as unhygienic as it is widespread and has become an option for students to cope with scarcity, solve transportation issues, buy hygiene products, have fun, and even help their families face hunger, inflation, and shortages.
This is what the socialist revolution has brought to Cuba. This is socialism in action.