But she never imagined that prices would soar so much.

Cuba is among the Latin American countries most affected by inflation, which has taken its inhabitants unaccustomed to this phenomenon by surprise in the island's socialist economic system.

On Tuesday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel will participate in a virtual meeting with his counterparts from Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina, countries also affected to varying degrees by inflation and whose left-wing governments want to adopt a common strategy to lower prices.

Cubans line up to buy vegetables from the back of a truck on a Havana street on March 31, 2023 © ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP

In Cuba, it all began with the implementation in January 2021, by the communist government, of a monetary reform aimed at ending the presence in the country of a dual currency, including one equivalent to the dollar, which generated distortions in the economy.

However, the reform, introduced in the midst of the pandemic, has led to a devaluation of the Cuban peso, which has seen the price of the dollar rise from 24 pesos to 120 pesos at the official rate, and has caused it to soar on the black market, where it is traded at 180 pesos.

If the reform has increased wages and pensions by an average of 450%, "prices (...) soar and salaries do not follow," laments Ms. Castellanos, who receives a pension of 1,528 pesos, or $ 13.8 at the official rate.

But to buy a box of 30 eggs in his neighborhood of Vedado in Havana, he now has to pay the equivalent of $ 14.1, against $ 4 in mid-2021.

A fruit and vegetable stall on a street in Havana, on March 31, 2023 in Cuba © ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP

According to official figures, inflation reached 70% in 2021 and 39% in 2022. But according to Pavel Vidal, a Cuban economist at the Department of Economics at the Javeriana University of Cali in Colombia, official statistics "underestimate between 5 and 6 times real inflation."

"Real inflation in 2022 exceeds 200%, one of the highest in the world," he said.

"Strong, very strong"

Faced with soaring prices, Castellanos is content to buy the products in the shops of the "libreta", the supply book introduced by Fidel Castro in 1963 to cope with food shortages and symbol for many food security.

For the equivalent of $1.42, she buys three kilos of rice, half a litre of oil, seven eggs, 1.3 kg of black beans, 2.7 kg of chicken and a packet of coffee every month. But these products, at controlled prices, are less and less numerous in these stores. "I buy what's there," she says, complaining that she "always eats chicken."

A state store on a street in Havana, on March 31, 2023 in Cuba © ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP

In an analysis of the cost of living in Cuba, Cuban economist Omar Everleny Pérez estimates that a couple needs $113 a month to meet their basic food needs, supplementing the expenses of the "libreta" with purchases in state stores in foreign currency where prices are much higher.

But you can't find everything. The kilo of powdered milk, which Xiomara Castellanos has given up, is only available -- at about $14 -- in the small private shops that have been popping up in Havana since 2021 when the government allowed SMEs. The prices of the products offered, often imported, then adapt to the market.

A small private shop on a street in Havana, on March 31, 2023 in Cuba © ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP

On the island of 11.1 million people where the average salary is $33, part of the population would not survive without the money sent from abroad by their emigrant families.

"What worries me is that the world in which Cubans live is increasingly unequal," said economist Omar Everleny Pérez, who observes an increase in poverty on the island.

Inflation, "by how much has it increased? I don't know, but what I do know is that it hits us hard, very hard," said Xiomara Castellanos, unaccustomed to the word.

A tourist photographs the menu and prices of dishes at a restaurant on a street in Havana, on March 31, 2023 in Cuba © ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP

Before 2021, "there was no consumer price index in Cuba," Vidal said. But based on gross domestic product (GDP) figures, "we can say that this is the highest" inflation ever recorded on the island.

© 2023 AFP