Snipped

Snipped / Regina Coyula
Posted on March 8, 2014

Like anyplace else, a successful business has many ingredients. Here
many have failed because they engaged in activities they knew nothing
about. But others prosper, become very visible, and then fall under the
evil gaze of those who would give up an eye if they could see a neighbor
get screwed over.

A quiet street of Nuevo Vedado had frequently become jammed with people,
all wanting to buy at La Fontanella, a bakery that began modestly but
then put up an eye-catching lighted sign. What began as a business in
part of a house became exclusively a factory and sales outlet, with
rotating shifts, open to the public from nine in the morning until nine
at night.

Such prosperity drew attention and/or aggravation, and Monday dawned
this week to find the business closed. The commentaries are various:
stolen flour; workers walking off; problems with the ownership of the
old family home, now converted into a bakery. The truth is that La
Fontanella had become a troublesome twig on that bonsai which Minister
Murillo, and the updating of the economic model, had designed to be kept
well pruned.

Translated by Tomás A.

7 March 2014

Source: Snipped / Regina Coyula | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/snipped-regina-coyula/