Spaghetti

My grandma told me a story the other day of when she was younger. I don’t know how much younger but she said she used to be really good at biking. 

She told me how to used to be illegal to be in possession of American dollars. People would hide wads of it in the legs of furniture or they would wrap it in nylon and put it in the toilet tank. 

I asked her if it was illegal to have then why would people want to have American money? I figured there would be no market to buy anything with it. 

She told me there used to be special markets for foreigners and tourists that Cubans were not allowed to make purchases in. The markets would sell foreign goods, nothing fancy maybe pasta, and would have Cuban police guarding the entryway from other Cubans. People would wait on the street outside these markets and when the guards weren’t aware, they would have tourists make purchases for them with their stashed away American cash. 

One day my grandma and her cousin biked to the market and had a foreigner buy them some goods. A Cuban police officer got suspicious of their presence outside the market place and asked them to move to the corner of the block. Just after they finished a transaction on the corner with a foreigner, the police officer met them and asked them to open their backpacks. My grandma’s cousin had a second hidden zipper she put her goods in but my grandma refused to give over her backpack. She told the officer, sorry you can look at her bag but I will not give you mine (she had spaghetti inside). She then gave the cue to her cousin to get on the bike and go. They biked as fast as they could over the bridge because that was the next town over. My grandma knew if she got held in custody in the next town, her husband, Luis, would have jurisdiction and would be able to help her. Once they got to the bridge, they collapsed on the side of the road from exhaustion. The police officer said he was taking them to the station for suspicious activity and for evasion. My grandmother complied and knew Luis’s work was on the way to the station. As they passed-by his work, my grandma asked if she could let her husband know where she would be. The officer agreed and she yelled Luis’s name until he came outside. Luis pulled out his military ID and said, you’re not taking my wife anywhere.

And that’s how my grandma bought spaghetti with American money.