Of cars and commerce



   Rarely bountiful, Cuba’s food supply has been further squeezed by last year’s parade of crop-damaging hurricanes and the global recession that robs the island of resource revenue.
   Sure, there’s plenty of food in the tourist resorts – they see to that – but elsewhere, the daily hunt for fresh produce and staples can be long and difficult.
   Cubans with transportation and a bit of cash, however, can take advantage of just-picked bananas and other offerings from roadside vendors. Usually super-discreet, the rural entrepreneurs this year seemed less concerned about attracting notice. Perhaps the authorities are gazing in the other direction, as they did in the “Special Period” following the collapse of Soviet aid.
   They’re not looking away in the cities. On the Via Blanca in Havana, we watched a motorcycle cop motion a truck to the curb, probably to check that it wasn’t carrying a black market load from farm country.

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