View of pallets at the Cuatro Caminos green market this Friday. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 16 September 2022 — The fruit and vegetable market at the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos, the largest in the capital, looked bleak this Friday. Old manioc and green plantains were the only things that were being sold in the stands, among empty pallets and counters.
“That manioc is so ugly that it looks like it has monkeypox,” a woman joked to the vendors, who laughed heartily. The memory of this green market, which before and after its major 2019 remodeling was the best supplied in Havana, with adequate prices for the always precarious economy of Cubans was left in the past. “This is empty,” another young man said out loud, one of the few people who could be seen in the place, along with elderly figures, beset by hunger.
In contrast with the scarcity in this part of the square, which is accessed through Matadero Street, the store selling in freely convertible currency (MLC) stands out, with its full shelves and its well-dressed and better-fed customers.
That manioc is so ugly that it looks like it has monkey pox”, a woman joked before the vendors, who laughed heartily. (14ymedio)
Barely grazing that abundance, an invalid woman sells plastic bags for 50 pesos, taking advantage of the blasts of air conditioning that escape outside every time the doors open.
This store has its entrance on Atarés Street, and those who cannot access this establishment due to their lack of foreign currency, can go to the store selling in pesos, which overlooks Monte Street. However, one cannot shop there unless it corresponds to your place of residence, as indicated by the rationing regulations established by the Havana authorities last April.
The area to buy in freely convertible currency in the Cuatro Caminos Market seemed to have full shelves. (14ymedio)
Halfway there, a line suddenly formed to buy a pair of yogurt cups at 16 pesos each and a small plate of ham at 55 pesos at the stand El Rápido. Several worlds in one, in short, with different social classes, something that the Revolution fought so hard against.
In November, 2019, when Cuatro Caminos reopened after four years closed for renovations, the influx of customers was such that the first day became a pitched battle to reach any product. People were stepping on each other to access the interior of the building, shoes were lost in the race. That restart was marked by those strongest or smartest people taking boxes and boxes of the same food.
Buying freely cannot be done in the sales area in pesos unless it corresponds to you by your ration book and place of residence, as indicated by the rationing regulations established by the Havana authorities. (14ymedio)
Nestled at the crossroads of several municipalities, the 1920’s market has always been, more than a sales outlet, the center of economic activity in the area. For decades, its function as a square with pallets for private peasants, private merchants and all kinds of informal vendors that hung around the place contributed to its neighbors’ survival.
The times when residents in the vicinity made a living by renting parts of their homes to store fruits, food and religious accessories, which were later sold in Cuatro Caminos, are long gone. After its last deep reform, the place gained in innovation, but lost the popular and boisterous character that characterized it since its beginnings.
Offer of two glasses of yogurt at 16 pesos each and a plate with diced ham at 55 pesos at El Rápido. (14ymedio)
Without being able to earn a living from the market, residents are now trying to get some income from the proximity of that imposing building that has two cornucopias on its main façade, prosperous cornucopias not reflected inside. The only advantage they seem to have is getting in line earlier than residents of other neighborhoods.
The new way of survival is now reduced to acting as coleros, selling turns in lines, to buy a product or acquire certain merchandise that’s offered for sale for just a few hours, in order to resell them in the informal market. Some of those who were waiting today for the yogurt and ham combo were probably included in that case: taking advantage of a market that is increasingly inaccessible to their pockets.
Located at a crossroads of municipalities, Cuatro Caminos was built in 1920 and has always been, more than a sales outlet, the center of economic activity in the area. (14ymedio)
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“I haven’t seen this street so full of people and with so much emotion since July 11,” said a young man who claimed to have participated in the protests on that day last year. (14ymedio)
Some with candles, with very few sunflowers, that is how the devotees entered the church of the Virgen de la Caridad de El Cobre on the corner of Manrique and Salud Streets, in Centro Habana. This Thursday, the day on which the Patron Saint of Cuba is celebrated, inflation has also been noted in the price of sunflowers, the flower that is offered to Cachita (the Virgin’s nickname) because its yellow color recalls the golden mantle worn by her image.
From Galiano Avenue, metal fences and several policemen controlled foot traffic to the church in Havana, where thousands of people attend every September 8 to pay tribute to “the mother of all Cubans.” This year, the date has coincided with a deep economic crisis, which has cut the offerings that are left on the altar at the entrance of the church.
“I only bought one candle and it practically melted in my hand, because it seems that they mixed the wax with tallow. It cost me 50 pesos, but at least I was able to bring something, because the smallest bouquet of sunflowers cost 300,” lamented a young woman who, dressed in yellow clothes, approached the place this morning. “I’m going to have lunch and come back in the afternoon for the procession”. She said goodbye to her friends a while later.
At four in the afternoon, in a crowded church, a mass was presided by Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of San Cristóbal de La Habana. (14ymedio)
At four in the afternoon, in a very crowded church, a mass was presided over by Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of San Cristóbal de La Habana, together with the newly appointed auxiliary bishop of the capital’s Archdiocese, Eloy Domínguez. It was attended by the Spanish ambassador in Cuba, Ángel Martín Peccis.
The prelate said that the Church is the house “of all Cubans, the house of the Mother of God, in this house there is room for us all.” And he added that Cachita “wants peace and harmony for all Cubans.” “With God, everything and without God, nothing,” declared the archbishop during his sermon.
After five in the afternoon, the image of the Virgin appeared at the door of the church and was received with applause, tears and hundreds of raised arms trying to capture the moment with their mobile phones. On the church’s facade, a huge Cuban flag fluttered in the gentle breeze this Thursday. In the crowd, people dressed in alternating yellow and white clothes, some with masks and others with their faces uncovered. continue reading
The procession initially walked down Manrique Street, until it reached Zanja and then turned onto Galiano to join the stately Reina Street, where residents leaned out from the rooftops and balconies to follow the cortege. Some flower petals also fell from the heights as the Virgin passed by, although in a smaller volume than in previous years, when it was less difficult for Cubans’ pockets.
Applause, shouts of vivas a la Virgen and popular tunes like: “And if you go to El Cobre, I want you to bring me a Virgencita de la Caridad” were heard during the tour through one of the poorest and most populated areas of the Cuban capital. Megaphone in hand, on Zanja Street, the Cardinal asked Cachita to pray for “those who have died from Covid, in the Saratoga Hotel accident, and in the Matanzas fire.” The crowd received his words in silence, and then burst into shouts and applause when Juan de la Caridad García added “and those who have died traveling through jungles, rivers and seas, in search of other horizons.”
In Sancti Spíritus hundreds of people gathered and many others joined the procession that began after mass. (14ymedio)
“I hadn’t seen this street so full of people and so full of emotion since July 11,” said a young man who claimed to have participated in that day’s protests last year. The vicinity of the Havana Capitol, especially Galiano, Zanja and Reina streets, were several of the more frequented routes for the protesters, who later gathered around the Cuban Parliament building.
The crowd’s passage was guarded by a strong police operation and the obvious presence of State Security agents dressed in civilian clothes. The first procession after the suspension of public activities forced by the pandemic has also been marked by official edginess after the popular protests of July 11 last year and the demonstrations this summer in various locations in Cuba.
Among the Government’s fears has been that the procession would turn into the scene of some demand for the release of political prisoners, as independent organizations and relatives of those convicted have done in the past.
High prices also affected the devotees of the city of Sancti Spíritus, who had to pay 20 pesos each for roses and candles to be offered at the Church of our Lady of Charity in that city. Hundreds of people gathered at the Church, and many others joined the procession that began after mass. Mobile data network congestion frustrated many who wanted to stream the moment live on social media.
Initially, the procession walked down Calle Manrique until it reached Zanja and then turned onto Galiano to join the stately Reina Street, where residents leaned out from the rooftops and balconies to follow the procession. (14ymedio)
Similar processions were held in other parishes in the country, especially the one that left this Wednesday from the Sanctuary of El Cobre in Santiago de Cuba, where dozens of people participated to celebrate the 410th anniversary of the discovery of the image of the Virgin. This Thursday, a procession was also held in Santiago, from the Archbishop’s headquarters to the Cathedral.
For the remainder, the day has been influenced from the beginning by the calls for harmony and the desire for freedom for Cuba. The nun in charge of the Association “Daughters of Charity in Cuba,” Nadieska Almeida, published an article on Facebook in which she questioned what was going to happen in Cuba after the day of remembrance of the Virgen de la Caridad de El Cobre. “When it’s all over, what will be left?” she asked.
The nun described the current situation in the country with harsh words: “I see nothing but the same misery, the same repression, the same sadness on the faces of so many, tears like those of the family of the little girl who died in Guantánamo in a school disaster, or those of the relatives of the ones who are dying due to lack of medication, especially dengue fever… and so many more”.
Almeida summed up her plea to Cachita directly, and also by alluding to the ecclesiastical authorities in Cuba: “Give wisdom to the rulers and courage to the Church so that it does not stop proclaiming what is right. And there will continue to be a deep desire for a free, hoping and hopeful Cuba, and that we will continue to believe that it will be possible, and why not?
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José Conrado Rodríguez, born in 1951 in Santiago de Cuba, is one of the most recognizable critical voices against the government in the Cuban ecclesial panorama. (Facebook/José Conrado Rodríguez)
During the celebration there will also be a prayer for “peace, justice, national reconciliation and freedom for all Cubans.”
Conrado, born in 1951 in Santiago de Cuba, is one of the most recognizable critical voices against the government in the Cuban ecclesial scene. Accustomed to harassment by State Security, he was the author of two open letters to Cuban leaders and several books that address the issue of faith and civil society within totalitarianism.
In 2021 and after several months without being able to leave Trinidad, the city where he works as a priest, Conrado gave an interview to 14ymedio about the “rise in social temperature” in Cuba. In his words, he attributed to the Cuban government a “very high share of responsibility” for the country’s misery, and pointed out that the authorities “are in no mood to listen, but that they will have to listen.” continue reading
This Saturday a “presidential decree” was issued to posthumously award six members of the Matanzas Fire Department who died in the fire
While representatives of various religious factions and civil society pay their respects to the deceased, the government has made their deaths a political cause.
This Saturday a “presidential decree” was issued to posthumously award six members of the Matanzas Fire Department who died in the fire, who received the June 6 Order, Second Degree.
The decoration was collected by relatives of the firefighters Dios del Nazco, Luis Ángel Álvarez and Pablo Ángel López, as well as the young recruits Leo Alejandro Doval, Adriano Rodríguez and Fabián Naranjo, who were completing their Compulsory Military Service at the time of the accident.
Since several relatives of the deceased, members of civil society and independent media denounced that young Military Service recruits had been sent to the front line of the fire, the Cuban government has done everything possible to rid itself of that responsibility.
The authorities have launched a national campaign to present the death of firefighters, who fell “in the line of duty,” as a “heroic epic.”. With medals, acts and speeches they have tried to cover up the negligence in the management of the fire and the death of several adolescents who did not have the training or the necessary equipment to face a disaster of this magnitude.
With 16 dead and 146 injured, according to official figures, the explosion at the Matanzas Supertanker Base has been described as the worst industrial disaster in Cuba’s history.
Although groups of skeletal remains were located after the fire was extinguished, the Cuban authorities admitted that it was impossible to identify them.
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The film collects the vision of 28 ‘witnesses’ about the writer. (Ivan Canas)
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 21 August 2022 — In order to “stir up the anthill,” on the 45th anniversary of the death of Cuban writer José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), last Sunday the filmmaker Ernesto Fundora, at the Rosario Castellanos Bookstore of the Fund for Economic Culture, in Mexico City, screened his documentary “Lezama Lima: Soltar la Lengua” [Lezama Lima: Loosen the Tongue].
The film assembles fragments of interviews with friends and disciples of Lezama, collected by Fundora between 2009 and 2015, and finally edited in 2018. Despite the fact that the post-production of the documentary is modest and that there are excessive and almost primitive visual effects, his mind does a wonderful job in remembering the formidable author of Paradiso.
Except for images of his participation in a couple of congresses and around hundreds of photographs, very little visual material on Lezama is preserved. Hence the difficulty that we get the sense that Lezama is being offered to us as something more than a voice and a presence among books. However, Fundora succeeds in having those who knew the author evoke a Lezama who is vital, convincing, and nearby.
Just when he had published one of the essential novels of the Spanish language and was getting recognition outside Cuba, death came to him
Some of the testimonies, such as those of Cintio Vitier, Fina García Marruz, César López and Antón Arrufat, shared the friendship of the Cuban teacher since the beginning and middle of the century; in others, such as those of Manuel Pereira, José Prats Sariol, Enrico Mario Santí, Froilán Escobar and Félix Guerra, his influence and teaching during his youth was essential.
For the devotees of the “Lezama Cult,” the writer is still awaiting continue reading
recognition. The 1959 cultural bureaucracy kept him in the crosshairs as “republican junk” until, after the so-called 1971 Padilla Case, he was banished from editorial and public spaces.
Just when he had published one of the essential novels of the Spanish language and was getting recognition outside Cuba, death came to him without the expected “restoration” and in almost absolute solitude.
Several young writers who accompanied him in his last days, such as Prats Sariol and Reinaldo González, recall their sadness at the empty house and the abandonment of his friends, whom State Security “recommended” not to frequent 162 Trocadero Street. He died on August 9, 1976.
During the Special Period, the movies Fresa y Chocolate and Lista de Espera recovered the Lezamian cultural imprint and were, in a way, promoters of the “liberation” of the taboo. Young people avidly sought dramas that were not only disturbing and difficult, but also marked by exclusion, such as the books by Severo Sarduy, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Lydia Cabrera.
The truth however, is that bureaucrats have done everything possible to bury the ‘Lezamian’ work, cancel its study and constantly define it as “hermetically sealed”
The regime and its cultural machinery then began a meticulous work of biographical rewriting, in which old colleagues such as Vitier took part, presenting Lezama as an author “of the Revolution,” an admirer of Castro and Guevara as “messiahs” of a new “imaginary era,” Latin American, according to the paradigm of Casa de las Américas, and a writer who “some officials” did not “correctly” understand.
The truth is, however, that the bureaucrats have done everything possible to bury Lezama’s work, cancel its study and constantly define it as “hermetic,” “intricate,” “incomprehensible” and “elitist.” The celebration of his centenary was mediocre and there is still no center of study named after him. His scattered and poorly organized library is inaccessible to scholars, and no Cuban publishing house has issued critical or annotated editions of Paradiso, La Cantidad Hechizada, or any of his major books.
Hence, Lezama Lima: Soltar la Lengua acquires an exceptional value as rescue and recollection. Exceptional are the last frames, which offer information and clarity about the ostracism, the false promises of rehabilitation with which the Communist Party deceived him, and the unusual conditions in which he agonized and died.
As Fundora himself states, almost half of the 28 individuals who rendered testimonies of him have died, so the film, enriched by photographs and fragments of poems, recollects the final vision of many of them about the writer.
In addition, the documentary works as an excellent initiation for those who have not read the work of José Lezama Lima and deny, through authorized voices, each of the myths with which the regime has tried to appropriate one of the greats of Cuban culture.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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14ymedio, Frank Calzón, Miami, 13 August 2022 — In the midst of the tragedy of the oil tank accident in Matanzas, Cuban President Díaz-Canel made some triumphalist statements modeled on the speeches of the former Maximum Leader. The declarations almost coincide with a birthday of Fidel Castro, a man whose regime is still in power on the basis of repression, propaganda and the iron control of information.
Unfortunately, many important events in Fidel Castro’s life are not known by millions of Cubans and have never been published in the pages of the State newspaper Granma.
For example, that he never entered the Moncada Barracks. He was in a car that was taking him to the scene to assume command of the attack. He was accompanied by several revolutionaries, including Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, who, upon arriving at the barracks, where the shooting could already be heard, hurried to join the combat, where he was wounded. Years later, Arcos became Ambassador of the Revolutionary Government in Belgium and was later sent to political prison for dissenting from Fidel’s new course.
He swam away, leaving his companions behind who were captured by the Cuban Navy.
That Sunday, July 26, 1953, inexplicably, the future Comandante en Jefe did not get out of the car and did not enter the barracks.
Many of those men died there, obeying his orders, while he fled to hide under the cassock of the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Enrique Pérez Serantes, who saved his life.
It was not the only time that Castro staged a “tactical retreat” by abandoning others.
Two weeks after his 21st birthday, at the end of August 1947, during the expedition to Cayo Confites, where he was training to overthrow the Dominican dictator Leónidas Trujillo, Fidel Castro took to his heels. In other words, he fled by swimming, continue reading
leaving his companions behind, who were captured by the Cuban Navy.
Many years later, in Washington, I had dinner with the former Cuban ambassador to Colombia, Dr. Guillermo Belt Ramírez, and his wife, Cuquita. Belt told me about the events of the Bogotazo in April 1948, the insurrection in Colombia following the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. According to Belt, Fidel, with his high-sounding speeches, encouraged young
Colombians to assault several police stations, but faced with the offensive by the Colombian Armed Forces and fearful for his life, he took refuge in the Cuban Embassy.
In the midst of the crisis there were no commercial flights from Bogotá to Cuba, but Fidel insisted that they would kill him if he left the diplomatic headquarters. In the end, the ambassador was able to get him on the only available flight: a cattle cargo plane. There, among the mooing cows, the future Maximum Leader departed for Cuba. Perhaps that trauma explains the comandante’s peculiar attachment to Ubre Blanca, his favorite cow.
According to official propaganda, the commander-in-chief’s bravery was legendary. But not enough for him to get close to Batista’s troops.
According to official propaganda, the commander-in-chief’s bravery was legendary. But not enough for him to get close to Batista’s troops. Hidden in his lair in the Sierra Maestra, between 1957 and 1958, he killed the “casquitos,” young peasants enlisted in the Batista army from far away, with a rifle with a telescopic sight. There are the photos, in the Museum of the Revolution, if anyone doubts it.
As for the unfortunate Argentine Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, when he was surrounded by members of a Bolivian army in 1967, at that time advised by the CIA, and without the support of the peasants or the Bolivian communists, Fidel let him die, without doing anything to save him.
In the fall of 1958, Fidel sent commanders Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos hundreds of miles to capture the city of Santa Clara, while he awaited the outcome of the battle in the Sierra Maestra, where he was caught sleeping by Batista’s flight on January 1, 1959.
Castro lingered a week on a victorious march, much like Benito Mussolini’s march to Rome. Acclaimed by crowds, including nuns, he arrived in Havana on January 8, accompanied by Commander Huber Matos, whom he would later sentence to 20 years in prison for daring to resign due to communist infiltration of the Rebel Army.
In the case of Grenada in 1983, Fidel ordered the Cuban forces not to surrender, to fight to the death. Castro´s press published how those Cubans, following Fidel´s orders, died holding their weapons, embracing the lone star Cuban flag.
In Angola and Ethiopia, it never occurred to Fidel to visit his troops in war zones, as did American presidents who went to fraternize with their soldiers in Vietnam.
It was not until after it became known that the head of the Cuban forces, Colonel Pedro Tortoló Comas, faced with the overwhelming push of the US forces that invaded that Caribbean Island where they, the Cuban forces, intended to replicate the Cuban revolution, decided to save Cuban lives and ordered their surrender. Due to his common sense, Colonel Tortoló, upon being repatriated, was reprimanded by Fidel and, after being demoted to the rank of common soldier, was sent to Africa to fight for having ignored the whims of the revolutionary leader. Never again did his name appear in the pages of Granma.
I am thinking of the case of other characters, such as Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler or Francisco Franco, who are also objects of propaganda deification. As in those cases, the story of Fidel Castro will one day also be known by the new generations in Cuba.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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In the absence of government transparency, relatives have uploaded the information on social networks. (Collage)
14ymedio, Havana | 10 August 2022 — If there is something surprising about the majority of those who disappeared putting out the fire at the Matanzas Super Tanker Base, it is their youth. The Cuban government counts 14 – after having given the initial number of 16 – and affirms that they are firefighters, but the desperate calls of family members on social networks show that, for the most part, they were adolescents between 17 and 19 years old who were undergoing Military Service, sent to fight the flames without any experience.
One of them, Leo Alejandro Doval del Prado, 19, was presumed dead by his aunt Yunia Doval and other relatives. “It is impossible to find survivors. There is not even hope of finding his body,” Doval told Radio-TV Martí.
On Tuesday, the woman published a heartfelt letter addressed to her nephew, wherever he is, in which she describes him as “cute, affectionate and principled.” A student at the Secondary Vocational Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE) Carlos Marx, from Matanzas, he was doing his Military Service in a fire department and his dream was to become a neurosurgeon.
“I always admired your values and your family knows that you are not one of those who run, without imagining that today I would prefer that you had fled”
“I don’t want you as a hero, my boy, I prefer you to be a coward!” Doval writes. “I always admired your values and your family knows that you are continue reading
not one of those who run, without imagining that today I would prefer that you had fled. I would feel the same pride if you arrived now saying that you suddenly became cowardly, rebellious, defiant and got off the fire truck, because ultimately, you are not one of them.”
Burnt truck at the scene of the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base. (Yumuri TV)
In the absence of government transparency, and as on other occasions, such as after the explosion of the Saratoga Hotel on May 6, the relatives have unloaded the information on social networks, through which their names can be traced.
Official journalists reported the death of Michel Rodríguez Román, 20, but later deleted the information. A resident of the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque, he was doing military service in the Fire Department number 3 of the Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport in Varadero.
“Who ordered them to place themselves in the red zone, where they would be hit by the flames if the fire increased in strength, as it did? Whoever he was, he didn’t think about how he was endangering the lives of children.”
Osley Marrante Guerra, 28 years old, has also been declared deceased, according to his cousin Iván Guerra in statements to Radio Televisión Martí: “At around 4:20 AM, the GPS signal was lost, apparently it was the time of the second explosion and that was when he died. A co-worker of his and his boss died too”.
The family of Fabián Naranjo Núñez is not only “heartbroken,” but outraged. “I hold every person, anyone in authority who allowed inexperienced boys to fight a fire of such magnitude, fully responsible,” his cousin Yarleny Horta wrote on Facebook, something that was reiterated by another cousin, Yanelys Naranjo González: “Whoever ordered them to be placed in the red zone, where they could be reached by the flames if the fire’s strength increased, as it happened. Whoever he was, did not think how he was endangering the lives of children, that their parents at home believed to be safe and sound. And today they don’t have an answer to give us. We can only wait.”
“Around 4:20 in the morning the GPS signal was lost, apparently it was the time of the second explosion and that was when he died”
Sources close to Luis Raúl Aguilar Zamora confirmed to 14ymedio his death during the fire and pointed out that he was not a firefighter, but worked as a civilian for the Armed Forces. “In my opinion, he became one more victim of the regime who left his wife with their two minor children. Everything is very sad,” said a relative of Aguilar who preferred to remain anonymous.
Luis Ángel Álvarez Leyva, originally from Holguín, served in the same airport’s fire department. “Matanzas authorities told us that we have to wait until the last moment, that if after 72 hours he hasn’t appeared, that the heat is so intense that my brother may already be dead. But in real life, they didn’t tell us that he is dead, formally. They are going to keep informing us because it is not yet known if he is alive or maybe the explosion has thrown him to the mountains. I’m hopeful that he will appear,” Luddvianka Álvarez said in an interview with Martí Radio-TV.
Meanwhile, relatives of Andy Michel Ramos have also reported him missing. According to Amarilys Ramos, nothing was heard from him after he went to the scene of the incident.
The only thing known about Osmany Blasco Sosa was that he was on duty, putting out the fire. The relatives of Raciel Martínez Navarro, Diosdel Nazco, Adrián Rodríguez and Areskys Quintero have also asked for help to obtain information. The only thing known about the latter is that he worked at the company Unión de Construcciones Militares de La Habana.
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A fight in a line while waiting to buy food in Managua, Arroyo Naranjo, where pregnant Ayamey González Valdés, dressed in blue, can be observed (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Havana, 18 July 2022 — Rumors started to spread, as has happened in recent months in Cuba, from some images published on social networks on Saturday. According to word of mouth, a pregnant woman miscarried her baby after a beating in a dispute between citizens and police in Managua, in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo.
The next day, official accounts and pages related to the regime rushed to deny the falsehood: the woman had not had a miscarriage and she was in good health. In a video shared by the official Mauro Torres, it is observed, in effect, how the pregnant woman, identified as Ayamey González Valdés, faints after a violent argument between several people. Later, the Police squad carried her out in their arms.
What those sources in support of the Cuban government did not say is, on the one hand, that the agents, after getting into a fight in a food line, ceaselessly beat several young people that were present. On the other hand, they also ignore the real drama: a system that reduces its people to behave in an almost animalistic way in order to buy food.
The regime prefers to put on a brave face for having “saved” the pregnant woman. Ayamey González Valdés, according to the Municipal Health Directorate of Arroyo Naranjo Twitter account, “was evaluated at the Enrique Cabrera Hospital. An ultrasound was performed, the fetus has good vitality, with a normal heartbeat and the mother’s placenta is intact. While she was being examined, her mother arrived, who was able to listen to the heartbeat of her future grandson’s heart.”
Depending on the sensitivity of the product being sold and how long the people have been waiting for it to become available, some clashes can be more aggressive
La cola* [the line], one of the oldest Cuban institutions linked to the chronic shortages the island has experienced for decades, has been transforming in recent years. The pandemic moved many of these lines away from stores’ main entrance, as a strategy to have more control over customer access, but the end of many health restrictions did not end this practice. continue reading
Now, the lines to buy food continue to form several yards away from the store, in a park, a square or a street, where consumers organize themselves and wait for hours until they are called, in groups of five or ten, to enter the store. This distance fuels suspicions of mismanagement by employees and is also used by those who do not want to wait so long and try to sneak in.
The fights are so frequent that many believe that there is no Cuban line without anger or shoving. Depending on the sensitivity of the product being sold and how long the people have been waiting for it to become available, some clashes can be more aggressive. Lines for frozen chicken, vegetable oil and baby diapers are among the busiest, but punches and bumps can also happen as dozens of people wait to buy hot dogs or bath soap.
No one knows for sure how much time the average Cuban spends standing in lines each week, but as the crisis has deepened, leisure time has become shorter. If the nights belonged to the family in the past, for watching television or going on a recreational outing, now many families start to prepare from the night before to start to form a line that might allow them to buy food the next day.
*Translator’s note: La cola literally translates as “the tail,” refers to a line.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Ermes Orta, one of the young people arrested in Sancti Spíritus because of 11J, offers his testimony to ’14ymedio’
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, On 16 July 2021, five days after the massive protests throughout Cuba, State Security forcefully entered a house on Calle Independencia #77, in Sancti Spíritus. There, they detained several young people, none of whom had gone out on the streets on 11J.
Ermes Orta Bernal was one of the ones who testified. Almost a year after those events, Ermes spoke with 14ymedio by telephone from the United States, where he now resides, to offer his version. The story reveals the regime’s strategies in jailing boys who did not even protest publicly.
“No crime was committed, it was just a punishment they wanted to inflict on the residents of Sancti Spiritus,” confirms the 20-year-old
“No crime was committed, it was just a punishment they wanted to inflict on the residents of Sancti Spiritus,” confirms the 20-year-old
Ermes tells that, after July 11th, a group of friends from Sancti Spíritus decided that they had to demonstrate peacefully once again, to demand the freedom of political prisoners Luis Mario Niedas Hernández and Alexander Fábregas. To that end, they joined a WhatsApp group called “Todos por laLibertad” and agreed to march as soon as possible.
That July 16th, at Leodán’s house, he says, “there was never a weapon, a machete, nothing, just a thermos of coffee on the table.” The police knocked on the door and entered without the residents’ consent. The boys turned their phones on and began broadcasting directly through their social networks. “We have nothing to talk about,” they told agent Orelvis Pérez Díaz, who had “taken an interest” in them for some time.
More strangers began to enter the house. Apparently, according to Ermes, State Security knew the purpose of the meeting, and had brought more people to support the arrest. “When we asked them to see an arrest warrant, they told us that it was not necessary, that they just wanted to talk.”
The atmosphere began to heat up when one of the officers discovered a recording phone and violently slammed it against a table. The boys remained calm in the face of the agent’s attitude and agreed to leave the place.
His phrase of choice was “They are ready to be transferred to Nieves Morejón,” referring to the maximum-security prison in Sancti Spiritus
“When we left the house there were a lot of people outside,” recounts Ermes, “there was police presence, many cars, people with sticks and stakes yelling “delinquents!” at us. Those people had been taken from their workplaces for an “act of revolutionary reaffirmation” against the young men, under the pretext that they had stoned the windows of a foreign exchange store. continue reading
They were transferred two by two to the Sancti Spíritus Bivouac. The cars: a police car, a Jeep and a black Geely. “We know the type of people they are, and they have been followed up,” snapped the officer who received them.
The first thing they did was to isolate them for an hour in personal dungeons less than 22 square feet in size. They were then led through a gated courtyard to the infirmary, where they were weighed and measured. They repeated the process later, with new officers, but this time they recorded them with cameras and “worked on their psychology,” according to Ermes.
Their phrase of choice was, “They are ready to be transferred to Nieves Morejón,” in reference to the maximum-security prison in Sancti Spiritus. After the medical check-up, they were kept in their cells. Little by little, they were called to interrogation rooms.
“We began to shout from dungeon to dungeon. Then an officer would come and silence us by hitting the bars hard. At night, they did the same thing with tin cans, they wouldn’t let us sleep. The interrogations were even done at dawn.”
“We did our business in a hole, a latrine, from which water came out twice a day, to be flushed. The stink was nauseating”
When Ermes read the order of disturbance in his precautionary disposition, he noticed that the document accused him of protesting on July 11th. It was difficult for him to rectify that manuscript, which also stated that they had thrown stones at the stores and had offended Díaz-Canel.
“On the third day of being locked up, they fumigated us with chlorine,” recalls Ermes. “A man came, an old man, with a chlorine gun, and he sprayed the liquid on us. I got intoxicated and told the officer: ‘I’m going to die, I’m allergic to chlorine, look what’s happening to me’. The old man replied that he didn’t care, he just did what he was told. ‘And if they send you to kill us, will you kill us?’ The policeman’s response was withering: “Probably.”
According to Ermes, the prison food was not as bad as might be expected, but the hygienic conditions were appalling. We did our business in a hole, a latrine, from which water came out twice a day, to be flushed. The stink was nauseating”
“There was a time,” he says, “when the showers were not working and we had to take some bottles that our relatives brought us. We filled them up with collected water from the trench to be able to wash ourselves.”
As the days went by, they were transferred to other cells, forming pairs with alleged 11J protesters. According to their new condition, they were assigned a number and the interrogations continued.
“They asked us who was paying us. They made us fight among ourselves. The questions were violent. They confronted each other.” The police frequently carried out nasal tests to verify if they were infected with covid-19, fumigated them with chlorine again and demanded the passwords of their phones.
“They asked us who was paying us. They made us fight among ourselves. The questions were violent”
“With all that pressure we had no choice but to deliver them.” From that moment on, the Police had access to the detainees’ messages and private photos.” They showed us naked photos of some of us, our text messages, they continued with the abuse.”
Ermes states that every day they asked the agents: “When are we leaving?” “Tomorrow,” they said, without the promise being fulfilled. Despite frequent chlorine intoxications, they were denied medical assistance.
The initial period in prison was the hardest, particularly for Yoel Castillo, who was 21 years old and is still in prison. Yoel attempted suicide twice. “After the first attempt, they took him to the infirmary where he tried again, hanging himself with a sheet. It was too much pressure for him.”
“They assigned a single lawyer to us, since “they were being so kind to us,” because the office was not working. When you went to find out who the woman was [Dunia Mariana Rodríguez del Toro], it turned out that she had been a State Security prosecutor. She ended up being the lawyer for Yoan and the others. Everything was ‘fixed’. She told us, cynically: ‘Don’t you want me to defend you?'”
Ermes Orta had a lawyer close to him: his own father, but at first, they did not allow him to serve as his attorney. Then they relented, and when he demanded to see the file, they tried to delay at all costs. Examining the documents, he realized that there was nothing of substance written, no real cause formed.
“Someone sent some photos of some machetes and some arrows through the WhatsApp group, but they immediately removed them. We did not send them. That boy was never detained, he was never in court.”
They were released a few at a time, each with a different mandate. Ermes was accused of contempt and conspiracy to commit a crime, without any evidence of violent acts. “It was a mousetrap, to teach everybody a lesson,” he concludes.
“On the record, they even accuse us of wanting to attack a police station in Sancti Spíritus. Six boys! No one believes that”
As a requirement for his phone to be returned, he had to pay a fine. The trial, held in January of this year, was a farce. The accused were called one by one, and the alleged witnesses did not even know them. The courtroom was filled with State Security officers, informers and policemen.
“On the record they even accuse us of wanting to attack a police station in Sancti Spíritus. Six boys! No one believes that. It’s a joke.”
Since he was in high school, in 2019, Ermes Orta was in the sights of State Security. When the long lines began during the pandemic and he denounced the situation on his social networks, an officer began to “observe” him. He was kicked out of boxing training for having “the Statue of Liberty tattooed on his ribcage.” They sanctioned him and, after the events of July 16th, warned him that he was “regulated.” [Ed. note: A euphemism meaning forbidden to travel.]
“You put up with jail, but when you get out, your friends’ parents ask you not to see them anymore. Then, since no business in Cuba is clean, the people you work with tell you: ‘Don’t come here anymore, because you’re going to have me marked.’ And one needs to understand.”
State Security began to harass him with the idea of leaving the country. They put pressure on his mother, who ended up crying every day. “The only way we are going to leave you alone is if you leave,” they told him.
His brother spent a lot of money from the United States on two flights through Copa Airlines, but the company canceled his ticket days before Ermes could board. Finally, he left the Island on January 27th, through Aruba, on a charter flight. He had to leave his 8-month-old son behind.
“What happened in Sancti Spíritus to us and with those who are still imprisoned was an injustice. After 11J Cuba has gotten much worse and they knew it. That’s why they turned on the valve. But people are no longer afraid because they have children and they don’t want the same for them.”
In exile, where he is preparing to debut as a professional boxer, Ermes says that he has understood what freedom, democracy and the possibility of having a future means. “That same freedom,” he asserts, “is what I want for Cuba.”
Translated by Norma Whiting
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The references, monikers and criticisms for so many extra pounds are constantly heard in the streets of Cuba. (Municipal Administration Council of Old Havana)
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 25 June 2022 — Last Thursday, at a fat contest in celebration of Father’s Day in Nicaragua, a man with a circumference of 57 inches around his belly was the winner. The peculiar award has caught the attention of Cubans, who in recent years have seen their relatives lose weight due to the crisis while the senior leaders’ bellies grow every day, as shown by the images published in the official press.
60-year-old Ricardo Páiz is the proud Nicaraguan who swept the belly competition in the “Papá Panzón”(Potbelly Dad) competition, but if the contest were held in Cuba, it is very likely that the first places would fall on one or another cadre of the Communist Party, the administrator of a state entity or the Provincial Governors, many of them with weight problems.
Although the kilogram excesses are generally associated with poor nutrition, having a high position in Cuba carries the “privilege” of being able to binge eat, while the majority of the population deals with the difficulties of finding something to put on the table. The trend towards athletic and sporting politics seems not to have reached Cuba, where its ruler, Miguel Díaz-Canel himself, has experienced a notable weight gain since he became president.
While clavicles protrude in some, bellies grow in others (Standing, left, President Diaz-Canel). (@RGZapata500/Twitter)
The bulk, which they often try to cover up with girdles that squeeze the bellies but are noticeable in front of the cameras, wide shirts, baggy jackets and filtering the angle of the official photos, generates discomfort among Cubans, who see in their leaders’ obesity a clear indicator of the abundance at their tables. References, monikers and criticism about so many extra pounds are constantly heard on the streets of Cuba.
“Fat necks,” “the first belly of the Republic,” “the paunchy,” “the potbellies” and many other nicknames have been added to the glossary of the popular ridicule against ministers and partisan cadres. This, despite the fact that there is a high prevalence of overweight people in Cuba at 59%, while obesity has already reached 25%, according to FAO data. But the current crisis could be taking away some of those “life preservers” around the abdomen.
“Fat necks,” “the first belly of the Republic,” “the paunchy,” “the potbellies” and many other nicknames have been added to the glossary of the popular ridicule against ministers and partisan cadres. (Granma photo)
Between 1990 and 1995, the most difficult years of the Special Period, the Cuban population lost an average of over 12 pounds of weight, according to a study published in 2014 by the British Medical Journal. The data of the current crisis are still unknown but most of those interviewed by this newspaper say that both they and their relatives “are now thinner and eat less” than five years ago.
But while clavicles protrude in some, bellies grow in others. Manuel Marrero, the Cuban Prime Minister, shows one of the most obvious pictures of obesity and his attempts to hide his belly in public are no longer of any use. “He was lucky they removed the mandatory mandate, because he was going to need a bed sheet to cover his face” says María, a 65-year-old from Havana who has lost over 15 and a pounds in three years.
Camagüey’s governor, Yoseily Góngora López, is another of the most extreme cases of overweight among Cuban officials. In August 2022, the activist of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, José Luis Acosta Cortellón, was arrested and accused of threatening Góngora on social networks for publishing a meme in which he alluded to Góngora’s obesity.
Manuel Marrero (in dark blue shirt), the Cuban Prime Minister, is the most evident picture of obesity, and his trying to hide his belly in public no longer works. (Twitter/ @MMarreroCruz)
“Just by awarding someone an important position causes that person’s weight to go up immediately”, complains Antonio, a retiree from La Lisa, who clarifies that “it’s not a question of fatsophobia or believing that all people with a few extra pounds are corrupt, but the amount of overweight that is seen in party leaders when out in public is immoral.”
A group of Cuban high-school students share audiovisual content through a cell phone. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 1 June 2022 — If anything surprised the Cuban government during the July 11th (11J) protests, it was the large number of teenagers who took to the streets. Engaged in the surveillance of activists and independent media, or focusing their attention on workplaces and universities, it seems that State Security neglected boys under 18 years of age.
They were the ones, cell phone in hand, who managed to keep the VPNs active and inform their families about the situation in the country. The price they paid was high: according to the Attorney General’s Office, of the 760 prosecuted after the protests, 55 are between 14 and 17 years old. Since then, caution has been redoubled in secondary and pre-university (high) schools.
However, and despite the fear injected in schools and families by the regime, the boys “have not learned their lesson.” Through Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, thousands of adolescents speak — loudly, using their own jargon, through codes and double meanings — about their main problems: the lack of a future, the need for money, family anguish due to blackouts or food, migration, indoctrination in the educational system, military service, and precocious habit of snitching at school.
Despite the fear instilled in schools and families by the regime, the boys “simply never learn their lesson.” Thousands of teenagers speak out from Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
I tell K. — let’s call him K., like the Kafka character — that I’m interested in knowing what Cuba looks like from the daily life of an adolescent. That notion is relatively new. My grandparents — born and raised in the most provincial of small-towns Cuba — believed that, at 16 years old, boys were men and girls were women. Today, adulthood is delayed, at least until 18; life runs at a different pace.
This does not prevent K. from having opinions — most of them clear and affirmative — about politics, society and the economy of his country. He sometimes watches the news, likes coffee and makes a habit of singing the choruses of reggae songs. “Music gives everything a bit of color,” he says, “otherwise I’d be burned out by now.”
He’s in his second year of ‘pre-university’ — as high school is called — but that’s just a saying. In Cuba no one is preparing for university, and even less for the future. But that’s where he has his friends and he has to pass the time somehow. continue reading
“I get up in the morning, eat the breakfast that my mother works so hard to obtain. On the days that I have classes, under a Caribbean sun at its highest point, I walk more than two kilometers to school, since there is no consistent or efficient public transportation system.”
I am acquainted with the route: a long street that crosses the city and where only horse carts roam. The dust, the manure, the potholes and the coachmen – surly and unfriendly – give the road the atmosphere of a western movie.
“Well,” continues K., “at lunch time, I come home from school. The same story of the sun and the walk is repeated. I arrive, take a shower, eat something for lunch and return, walking through the sad streets and seeing the facades destroyed by the path of ‘hurricane dictatorship’. I enter my classroom with the cement floor full of holes. Heat, mosquitoes. The bathroom smell is overwhelming.”
“And in addition, with no desire to study: a Cuban degree is useless anywhere in the world. I return home. Calculate this: I have already walked eight kilometers on foot. I arrive exhausted, take off my uniform and lie down to rest for a while. When I get up, the “boring process” begins: there aren’t even any parks to go to. So, I sit on the armchairs for a while to talk with my family about the near future outside this prison-island. Afterwards, I go to sleep.”
“If communism failed, I would not stay. Cuba is going to take many, many years to become a country. And those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it”
I made the mistake of asking K. how he saw Cuba in five years. “I don’t even want to imagine it,” he replies. “If communism failed, I wouldn’t stay. It will take many, but many years for Cuba to become a country. And those who don’t know their history are condemned to repeat it.”
Sometimes K. speaks with the bad habits of an adult, as if he had had to put up with too many blows. It’s natural. The Cuban child is almost always educated among older relatives and in very small households. As he grows up, domestic problems and anxieties are passed down, discussed, and grieved together.
It is the accumulation of these concerns at the wrong time that makes the Cuban teenager more aware and more mature, but it also throws him into a kind of congenital bitterness which he carries throughout his whole life.
An additional factor of that anxiety is the Military Service — “the green” — mandatory in Cuba, which functions as a rite of passage in the totalitarian society. “There is a part of the parents who think that ‘the green’ makes us more manly but, for me, that does not influence anything. It is unfair because it is forced. You cannot even ‘pledge to the flag’ personally. Another person does it for you. And if you protest about that…”
K is not far from the Military Service, but he is more concerned about high school and what it has become: “There is massive indoctrination. The classes are the worst. They teach us a number of absurd things. We hardly have any teachers. Everything is a mess.”
I ask if there are snitches in his classroom. “All my friends are frustrated by the situation in Cuba,” admits K., “and our only topic of conversation is about leaving the country. The idea of one day leaving here completely dissociates us from everything. With things being so unattainable for our parents’ pockets, we cannot dress as we would like. It is obvious that I want to leave. Some are afraid to say it because of the great repression that exists, and because some girls report to the teachers. They snitch on you for just about anything.”
“And what can I tell you about the neighborhood? You already know how a neighborhood functions here, so you can complete that part.” he tells me, already a little bored by the “questioning.”
K has a cousin his age in the United States. His father recently “sponsored” him, and after nearly a month in Guyana he managed to get him on the plane to Hialeah. I ask him the same questions as K., but now I am interested in understanding how one feels about Cuba when one leaves so young.
“Living in this country doesn’t change me as a person. But it’s hard for me to get used to it. One has always been there. I miss my family. It’s a bit difficult, because one longs for the family”
“From the outside, Cuba looks like a backward country. And there are times when you don’t realize how backward it really is. My life, of course, is different. What I did there has nothing to do with what I do here. Living in this country doesn’t change me as a person. But it’s hard for me to get used to it. One has always been there. I miss my family. It’s a bit difficult, because one longs for the family.”
K.’s cousin doesn’t talk much and has always been discreet when talking about the government. But now there is no problem. He can tell me —without fear of an agent listening in — that they are “a shameless gang, eating up the people with lies. That’s what I think, but I don’t really care much about politics. I don’t care, really.”
I want to know if he will ever return to Cuba. “I don’t know. I suppose so. I suppose that if communism fails, things will improve.”
K and his cousin agree on something. One inside and the other outside, they belong to a generation that no longer has fears or complexes. They know they are being watched, they understand the limits of the manipulation and fear that comes “from above,” but they care very little when they see the family’s asphyxia. They feel responsible, they are tired. But they are stronger than ever.
I ask K. what pseudonym he prefers me to use when I write about him. “What are you going to use? My name with his two surnames, of course.” I tell him no, that I have to protect his identity, the source and all that. “Well, then write…”
I am not going to say the names that he told me next, because they could offend the sensibilities of the ministers and presidents of the republic. But be warned: there is a hurricane coming.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Drivers of state vehicles do not stop in response to signals of the new inspectors and, if they do stop, they do not take on any passengers. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 30 May 2022 — “Transportation is bad, but not worse than other days.” Havana residents have not been taken by surprise by the declarations of the provincial authorities acknowledging the critical situation the sector finds itself in, because they have been putting up with it daily for at least three months.
Neither is it any better. This Monday, after the Havana government made the announcement that 286 vehicles, “school buses and from different institutions and organizations,” would be added to the urban buses that are circulating in the capital “as part of the strategy to alleviate situation in this sphere”, there were more Transmetro buses, which normally transport state workers, but this hasn’t seemed to have alleviated the problems, the waiting lines or the crowds.
The inspectors, uniformed in blue, also returned this Monday. Their function is to force state vehicles to stop to take possible passengers who are going in the same direction but, in this regard, they do not impose much of their authority either. As this newspaper was able to testify, either the drivers do not stop in response to their signals or, if they do stop, they do not allow anyone to get in either.
The Government’s voluntarism, which has promised to expand “electric tricycle routes in the municipality of Boyeros” and study a “similar system” for Guanabacoa, does not hide what they themselves have acknowledged: “Currently, Havana has the lowest technical readiness coefficient of the last ten years”, Granma cites, based on statements by First Deputy Minister of Transportation, Marta Oramas Rivero.
Until April, Havana Provincial Transport Company only had 442 vehicles in operation, reports the same official press, which transported more than 580,000 people daily, “a figure that is far from the 780 buses scheduled three years ago, with 20% in reserve”.
Last Friday, the governor of the province, Reinaldo García Zapata, stated that “the situation is critical”, since only 30% of the total fleet of transport buses is active.
The authorities did not refer to the fuel crisis that, for a few days, has shaken the country again. They did mention “the energy issue”, only to announce “saving measures in the non-residential sector to reduce consumption during peak hours”.
At any rate, Cubans are resigned, although they can no longer stand the analyzing. “It’s one lie after another with the problem of electricity,” complained a man on crutches, while waiting for a bus this Monday in Central Havana, to which another man replied: “If they stopped building hotels, they could improve the state of the National Electric System.”
Translated by Norma Whiting
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Already very close to the river, three or four people arrived, one of them with a raft with capacity for six people. They told 15 of us to get in. (CBP/File)
14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 1 May 2022 — We were very afraid in that thicket. We didn’t know what was going to happen, we didn’t have phones, helicopters were flying overhead. If they saw us, we had to run, but… there was nowhere to run. We were there for three or four hours. I wrote with a toothpick on a nopal cactus plant “patria y vida” [homeland and life] and drew a little Cuban flag. If a Cuban comes here tomorrow and sees this plant, he will know that another one of his compatriots was here.
After three or four hours, the truck came again and someone shouted the password to the code they had assigned to us and we had to come out running. At that time, we turned into a group of 40, at least, because they had brought others who had the same instructions, and that’s when the chaos started.
Everyone started running through the thorns to try to get a seat in the truck. Fortunately, my Nicaraguan friend was grasping me, because all the while it felt as if I was about to fall down, especially when the driver accelerated.
When we were very close to the river, three or four people arrived, one of them with a six-person capacity raft. They told fifteen of us to get in. I placed myself in the group with the first ones, because I thought that my female Honduran friend was part of that group. However, it didn’t turn out that way. When I looked back, my friend had already remained behind and I would never know what happened to her.
They explained to us what the crossing entailed: they were going to throw the raft into the river, we were going to have to get in and kneel down, so that the 15 of us and the man who was rowing could fit. And that’s what we did. We had to get wet, up to our ankles more or less, and the water was very, very cold. We got in, the man got in, the guide too, in the front, and all of us started to row with our hands so it would take less time. We rowed and rowed… until we reached the other shore.
We quickly walked a few meters. I threw myself to the ground, sank to my knees, pressed my forehead to the ground and was grateful for having arrived alive, not having been scammed, not having been kidnapped and many other things that many migrants unfortunately experience throughout their journey to the United States.
Tears came to my eyes and I called my cousin to tell him that I had already arrived, but I couldn’t even speak, because I had a lump in my throat. continue reading
If a Cuban comes here tomorrow and sees this plant, he will know that another compatriot was here. (14ymedio)
There were many emotions at that moment, but, returning to reality, the men who were helping us cross from the other side of the river yelled at us: “Run, run!” We thought that the immigration officers were coming and we started to run. We went up some hills, down some hills, until we reached a place and said: “Let’s stay here and see if the others come.” But they never did.
When immigration agents arrived, they stopped about 50 meters from us. One, who sounded Mexican, says: “Come, come, come closer, don’t be afraid.” We started running again, because we thought it had to be the Mexicans, but in the end, we heard them speaking to the officers in English and we finally surrendered.
That was very emotional. There were soldiers with AR15 machine guns, but they made nice gestures, like welcoming us, just like the Border Patrol, who were very kind.
They took us to a baseball stadium, where they took our information. One of them, Officer Alvarado, distributed us in vans and, along the way, asked us about our situation, our countries, and we told him. He was very sympathetic.
At the stadium, they removed our belts and shoelaces and took us to a location in McAllen, Texas, where we were sorted, fingerprinted and photographed. They searched us and threw almost everything in the trash, except for the essentials. Then they placed more than 66 people in some cells they call ice coolers for about 24 hours. Horrible, very cramped.
Some Cubans tried to ask me to come closer, but we couldn’t, we didn’t fit. In the end, thanks to them, I was able to sit on a small bench and make room for my Nicaraguan friends. One of the Cubans was from Holguín and the other from Cienfuegos. They told me that one normally stays there for about three days and then goes out with a phone so you can be in contact every week with an immigration officer, to whom you have to send a current photo and the location of the device. In other words, as if you had an electronic ankle bracelet, because you cannot move away from the delimited area.
The food was pretty good, so I thought we could hold our own, but happiness in a poor man’s house is short-lived. They didn’t let us out with a phone, period. They put us on a bus, almost 60 of us, back to another ice-cooler. And the Border Patrol officer intimidated us. In his rather broken Spanish, he said, “Who are the Cubans here?” Almost 20 of us raised our hands. Then he added: “Ok, just so you know, I don’t like Cubans and I’m the boss here. Cubans think that this is Disneyworld, so whoever cracks a joke with me, I’m going to put his face against the floor.”
There are cold or indifferent guards, but not one like this one, none. He had to check on me and even kicked me in the ankle so that I would separate my feet even more. I decided to shut up and suck it up, because, if I had protested, it would have been worse. But he had no right; he did ugly things to us and we felt afraid. He slammed a Nicaraguan into the ground and locked him up because he tried to ask him something. To an older man, who was not feeling well and asked to go to the infirmary, he said: “Drop dead.”
The day they took me out of that “ice-cooler” was my birthday. I felt very bad because they handcuffed us, and I had never been put in handcuffs, not even in Cuba
In this prison, in this cooler, we spent five days that traumatized me. The diet was meager: a burrito in the morning, juice and some cookies at noon, another juice and other cookies at six in the afternoon, another burrito at ten at night and that was it. I lost 17 pounds, but another guy, who stayed for nine days, lost 20. We know this because they weighed us at the next place when we arrived. The change was incredible.
In this other place there were quite a few Cubans, and one day, I heard one debating with a Venezuelan, to whom he said: “You can criticize anything in my country, but not its education, because it is the best in the world.” I slowly turned to where that young man was and faced him. I told him that that was a lie, that how could he say that after having fled from a dictatorship, he was so indoctrinated.
Many there supported me and, well, we had a discussion, just a debate, nothing violent.
The day they took me out of that cooler was my birthday. I felt very bad because they handcuffed us, and I had never been handcuffed, not even in Cuba. They put handcuffs on my hands, feet and waist: they chained us up and made us go out towards a bus where they took us to a closed prison. I did not understand that, I did not expect it. It seems they were doing this because there was such a large volume of migrants.
There, we feel imprisoned, but with better conditions. Much better. We had a dormitory with 80 bunk beds. Hot showers too, and 55-inch televisions in the bedroom. In addition, the guards treated us very well. Many hardly spoke Spanish, but I acted as an intermediary.
In that place, I was able to call my cousin and tell him: “Buddy, I’m in prison, buddy, I’m in prison,” and I couldn’t speak anymore, because I burst into tears.
Tomorrow:
Final chapter: A few days in jail in Texas and the unknown taste of freedom
They dropped us off at a gas station in mid-trip, and again they put us back in a minibus. (EFE/Juan Manuel Blanco)
14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 30 April 2022 — Three hours into the trip, on the way to Monterrey, I had cramps on my buttocks. Imagine eleven more hours. Luckily, I took a paracetamol which relieved the pain, but after a few hours the pain was back again. I asked them to please let me stretch out my foot but I couldn’t: there was no room.
There, I heard a very interesting story. There was a Nicaraguan who worked in a Managua restaurant, where President Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo love to eat. Although he did not like what the leaders were doing to the country, he was very happy when they came to the restaurant for dinner, because they left each one of the servers a 100-dollar tip, and according to what he told me, there were sometimes as many as 14 to 16 servers. The Ortegas went to eat at the restaurant as often as once a week, the Nicaraguan declared, and he told me that when Díaz-Canel was in Nicaragua for the inauguration, they asked them to close the place, because he was going to go with Ortega, although at the end, they changed plans and went somewhere else.
The individual I was talking to was also one of those who were not running away from the political situation. Only one of the ones I met was leaving for that reason. The rest were leaving to make some money and then return.
They dropped us off at a gas station in mid-trip, and again they put us back in a minibus. We spent an hour waiting for some guards to leave the area we had to cross, and from there, we went to a small desert town, with a sun so strong that it burned you, although it was not as hot as in Cuba.
They put us in a warehouse at that location, with a swimming pool; they call those rural houses in Mexico una quinta (a country house). They had divided us into two groups: we were going to Monterrey, and the rest, to another place. Then a woman told us: “Look, please, those who have swimming suits may change and go swimming; the rest, stay around here. Let’s put on a little music. In case inspectors come, you guys rented this property and are celebrating a birthday.
Those who went swimming had a nice day, but in the end, everything was so-so, because they told us that we could not drink the tap water, so we were not able to drink anything until around three in the afternoon, when they showed up with two 5-liter water bottles of water, but there were more than 60 of us! Then they brought two tacos per person and some weird beans, with a little bit of meat, but it was terrible. I looked at it and thought: “Well, I’ll have to eat it, who knows how long we will be here and if they will bring us food again.” Good thing, because we were there all day, all night, and until late the next dawn.
The vans that were to pick us up at 10 o’clock had to go to the other place, because half of the people in the other group had been put in a container and they didn’t want to go because they were suffocating. They started banging and banging, and, luckily, the driver stopped and about 20 or 25 got out: they complained that they had paid thousands of dollars and they didn’t want to continue in the container where they were suffocating. continue reading
“The others, stay around here. Let’s put on some music. In case inspectors come, you guys rented this and are celebrating a birthday“
The vans finally appeared at our location at 5:00 in the morning. Only women and children slept in the house, the men had to mostly sleep outside. In the desert it is terribly sunny during the day, but at night it’s three times worse, because it turns very cold.
The vans, thank God, did have heating, and we were able to take off our coats for a little while. The trip turned out to be much longer than anticipated, because we had to avoid several control points, and the trip, supposed to be completed in five hours, took us about eight.
Upon arrival in Monterrey, we waited at a place in the city for some taxis, in which they divided us up to finally board a closed truck, which had openings on the roof, at another location. There were 42 people there, and we stayed together until the end. I was the only Cuban, the rest were Honduran, Nicaraguans and Guatemalan. There was a warehouse where we stayed locked-up for a day and a half, and it was also very cold and the conditions were bad. There weren’t enough sleeping matts for all of us, and we squeezed in as best we could.
At least they did bring us good food, and the things they sold us were cheaper than in Mexico City. However, I had another anxiety crisis, because everything was closed, and when I called my family, I exploded: “This can’t be real. I don’t understand what’s happening, they didn’t tell me it would be like this.” They always paint everything in rosy colors, that’s the hook, and, despite everything, I can’t complain, because there are people who have a worse time of it.
From there they took us to a small field where there were three or four trucks, in which we already knew there were some people, although not how many. We got the biggest truck, one like the ones used in Cuba to transport sugar cane, with high railings in the back. When we got on, there were already almost 200 people there. We were all pressed as tight as possible, without the possibility of holding on. It was a short but hard trip. There were several people who injured their ankles, including me, although nothing that prevented me from continuing.
At midnight we arrived at a point near Reynosa where we stopped, because there was a checkpoint with seven patrols. Apparently, a truck like ours, trafficking undocumented immigrants, had overturned. They allowed us to get out of the truck, the temperature was zero degrees, but we were able to smoke and eat some cookies, until we were able to continue at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.
Then we got to another place where we were divided into two groups. Each of us had a code that they gave us in Monterrey, which the cartels assign to you, and it is the one that you have to give the cartel, so that you are allowed to continue or to take you to the border. There were many, many of us, in several trucks. There had to be more than 400 people, because I was number 367. We looked like merchandise.
Forty-two of us were picked up at that warehouse, in two vans. That was the last warehouse before crossing, the one in Reynosa. In it, I met a Honduran who had been waiting three months for a supposedly special trip, because he was physically disabled, but his son, who was in the US and was paying for everything, was taken and sent back to Honduras. The guy had been there for three months, waiting for his son to have enough money again, because he couldn’t go around like the others to avoid controls.
It was extremely cold in that place too, although the coyote treated me very well. They were not used to Cubans and they asked me about many things, and they treated me differently because I was from Cuba. We stayed there for three or four days. The conditions were not the best, the food was not the best, but at least we were relaxed after so much travel.
When they came for us, they separated us into lists: Cubans, Nicaraguans, and women and children, one from El Salvador and the other women from Honduras. They are handed over because they are not rejected: if they are accompanied by small children, they are allowed entry. The Hondurans and Guatemalans had to stay and wait for another list to make their escape. They cross and begin to circle to avoid the migration guards; quite the opposite of what we do, those of us who are delivered. We cross and we have to look for the guards to turn ourselves in, so they can take us prisoner.
When they came for us, they separated us into lists: Cubans, Nicaraguans, and women and children, one from El Salvador and the other women from Honduras.
On the fourth day it was my group’s turn. They came for us in a van, we were nine adults and two children, and they took us to a place very close to the Rio Grande. They screened us through a person who gave us some numbered blue bracelets with the word “delivery” on them. For each migrant who crosses, the coyote has to pay the cartel, and that is carefully controlled, because sometimes they try to pay less, which has resulted in many deaths. That’s why now they do it like this, all square: person for money.
I was lucky, because a few days ago I was able to talk to the guy who used to be my barber in Havana, who now lives in the US, and I noticed he acted very strange. This is not the David I know, I thought. The point is that he crossed through Piedras Negras, Coahuila, with about 120 others, at 3:00 in the morning. He says that they threw a small raft for the children and a rope from one side to the other. That’s where adults had to go. The deepest part of the river covered his nose, and he is about five-and-a-half feet tall. He was helping a girl who, at one point, became very nervous, but she was holding on well to the bottom and they managed to cross about 70 meters of river. Ahead of them was a Nicaraguan woman who started to say: “I’m drowning, I’m drowning”… And before they could see her, she was gone. She vanished.
He was traumatized, and, at that moment, his legs did not respond, he could not cross, he lost consciousness. Luckily, the immigration officers caught him and wrapped him in blankets, but he told me that he thought he was going to die. His journey was shorter than mine, but it was less safe: they took him prisoner in Honduras, they had a bus accident, then this last thing on the river… Everything was quite ugly.
Then they made us hide in a bush and wait for them to come and give us the signal.
Tomorrow
They put 15 of us on our knees on a raft to cross the Rio Grande
Translated by Norma Whiting
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
We had to make the trip to Mexico City like animals. Among us there were two pregnant women. (El Sol de Cuernavaca)
14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 29 April 2022 — On the third day in Villahermosa, in the state of Tabasco, they prepared a bag for us with a snack and explained that the bus trip to Mexico City was going to be a bit long. We would have between 15 and 24 hours ahead of us, depending on how many checkpoints we had to clear. We carried sandwiches in bags, plus fruit, an energy drink and water, in addition to what we bought ourselves: cookies, Doritos, energy bars, chocolates, things like that, to stave off hunger.
At around 7, they had us say goodbye to the family, turn off our cell phones and hand them over. They took us out of the house in several vehicles, because there were about 50 of us, and transported us to a place on the outskirts of Villahermosa, in the middle of a grass field, where they put us against a concrete wall in an abandoned building. There were three buses: the first two were full of people who came from other warehouses, and we would occupy the last bus.
Added to the uncertainty of being incommunicado was the Mexicans’ lack of friendliness. “Get down, get down! Get close to the wall, closer!” they shouted. This was because if a drone flew by, we could be seen. According to what they told us, the authorities manage to know how many people are in a vehicle by the number of turned-on cell phones they detect, and that is why they took them away from us.
We were there for about 15 or 20 minutes in total darkness, until they put the women and children on the bus. While we men waited on the ground, other vehicles kept arriving with more people, up to two or three cars, with 18 or 20 people. In the end, there were a lot of people on that bus. Three women sat in seats for two (because they had to be seated) and the men sat on the floor, some wedged into each other’s legs. After 20 minutes, my butt was already hurting and I thought: how am I going to last 20 or 30 hours like this!
Suddenly, the alarm went off because the air conditioning was broken. Although they tried to fix it, they couldn’t, so after being idle and ready to get started, it couldn’t be done. The cars that had dropped us off came back and picked us up, and the next day the story repeated itself.
When I got off, I felt as if my legs, my spine and my neck had been hit with a bat, and my eyes were swollen
Except that we were the last ones that time, and, when we were going to get on the bus we didn’t fit. Half of us were put in the suitcase compartment with others who were already there, about 15 people packed down there, and they put me on the bus with another four guys. They managed to get us in and close the door while pushing, shoving and screaming.
That’s how we had to make the 17-hour trip to Mexico City, like animals. Among us, there were two pregnant women. continue reading
We had no phones; we didn’t know what time it was and we couldn’t open the curtains. I was trying to joke and some people laughed, but we had 17 hours standing ahead of us, tightly packed, with leg cramps and sleepy.
Around 10 in the morning we arrived at the Mexican capital, which is a very impressive city. I was surprised by its sheer size. They took us to a warehouse on the outskirts that did not have even the slightest facilities. There were not only the 130 or 140 who came on that bus, but an additional 60 others arrived.
When I got off, I felt as if I had been hit with a wooden pole on my legs, my spine, my neck, plus my eyes were swollen. I ordered coffee, but they only had what they call “American,” not espresso, which is what I wanted, so I had to settle.
They gave us back our phones and I was able to talk to my family. On the other end of the call, they were crying and getting emotional, but I just told them: “I need to rest, let me rest.” When we got to the bedrooms, we got hit with another bucket of cold water (another nasty surprise): there was a large space and they had thin, dirty, very dirty mattresses on the floor. So much so that I wondered how I was going to sleep there. I was so tired that I finally slept four hours, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I thought then that it was time for a bath, but there were only three bathrooms for more than two hundred people. There were lines for everything: to use the toilets, to bathe with freezing cold water. I was afraid of getting sick, because the children began to run fevers and get diarrhea, and many adults too, so I decided not to bathe. I bought wet wipes and with that, I scoured myself.
I would tell myself: “OK, that’s it, it is what it is, this is not a tourist trip.”
I slept with a sweater on, with the coat that I had bought in Guatemala with a hood, pants with socks, and I covered myself with the blankets that they had given us, but even so, it was not enough and I woke up with cramps. It was extremely cold in that place.
Also, the food was no longer so generous. I didn’t like the Mexican tortillas, which is what they gave us. A little chicken with a tortilla, a little meat with a tortilla, some spaghetti… with a tortilla. And I couldn’t even eat. Luckily, they also had things for sale, so one day I sent for a Burger King Whopper. It was the first time I was going to try the famous Whooper, and when I did, I thought: Wow, incredibly delicious. It’s like the TV commercials or the series on El Paquete*. I ate it with great pleasure, it settled in my stomach and, at least that day, I ate well.
While we waited to leave, I met a man who lived in Nicaragua, not too bad, but he believed that because of Ortega the whole country was being destroyed and that there was no way back from that situation, so his wife, who spent three months in prison at the border, went first. And now he was going.
I also struck up a conversation with two brothers from Ocotal, although one lived in Managua, who left because one of them got into drug problems and they no longer had anything to do there. One had taken part in the 2018 demonstrations, something similar to what happened in Cuba on July 11th, and he told me that many people were hoping that Ortega would eventually leave. Since in the end there was no change, he decided to leave because he did not want to live in a dictatorship. And that was the only Nicaraguan I met on the road who said something like that to me. The others didn’t make mention of politics at all.
I didn’t want to say that I had a fever, because in that case, they would not allow me to leave, but a Honduran noticed: “Hey, are you feeling sick? Do you need something, can I help you?”
I started to feel very sick: I had trouble breathing, I felt pain in my chest. They told us it would be two days, but we had already been there four or five. I even called my cousin in the United States and told him: “I can’t, I don’t think I’ll be able to. This is not normal. There are a lot of people here, it’s very crowded.”
One day I started with a fever and had to buy medicine. We were very afraid that it was COVID, in very crowded conditions, with more than 200 people together, but it turned out to be a stomach infection.
I didn’t want to say that I had a fever, because in that case, they would not allow me to leave, but a Honduran noticed: “Hey, are you feeling sick? Do you need something, can I help you?” I explained to him what was happening to me, but the worst thing was that I was beginning to have a panic attack, and he told me: “Hey, pal, don’t… don’t feel that way, come on right here,” sit like that, lie down here.” And that gave me great encouragement. My attack began to subside – your mind plays tricks on you – and all thanks to this Honduran friend, who I continue to be in touch with today.
One fine day they came and told us that, at dawn, we would leave for Monterrey, without explanations of how it was going to be or anything. I took out the last 250 Mexican pesos I had left and bought medicine, cookies and Electrolytes. They woke us up at 10 that night and took us out in some vans, one of those little buses that can carry around 18 or 20 people. In a place quite close by, on a very dark street, they quickly allowed us to get off, we threw our backpacks in the trunk of the bus and, running, we got in.
That time, I thought we weren’t going to be overcrowded, but I was wrong. More and more people kept coming in, too many. And it was that way the whole trip to Monterrey, 15 horrible hours of travel.
Tomorrow
In Monterrey, each cartel assigns a code to its migrants
*Translator’s note: El Paquete, or The Packet, delivered once a week for $6.50, has become the primary way Cubans receive illegally recorded American media, news and entertainment.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Usumacinta River, which divides Guatemala from Mexico. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Alejandro Mena Ortiz, 28 April 2022 — The entrance to Mexico was incredibly calm, it was as if we were arriving home. There was also one of these mobsters there, I guess waiting for a payment. After a while, the guide returned with a very modern Nissan and took us to a warehouse to wait.
I met some Nicaraguans there and we started a conversation. They began to tell me about the atrocities that Ortega was doing with the elections. That if the country was screwing up, that if it was soon going to be the new Venezuela, that if they were afraid and decided to go out to try their fortune in the United States… They left with the intention of earning money for two or three years and coming back… which I don’t understand, because if they think that their country is a mess…
We spent a couple of hours until they came to pick us up and took us to Palenque along an incredibly long highway, where there were many túmulos (grave mounds), which is what we call in Cuba police officers acostados (lying down), in other words, ‘speed bumps.’
The man accelerated and I thought: “My God, we’re going to die!” Nobody in the car was wearing a seatbelt: the driver in front, two women next to him, one sitting on top of the other, and four in the back, three Nicaraguans and me, very uncomfortable. At 180 kilometers per hour, if the car hits a stone on the road I would have died, just like that, without saying a word.
After four hours, we arrived at Palenque, which is where we changed trucks again. They kept us parked for about an hour and twenty minutes, the seven of us squeezed together. I was desperate to get off and because of the uncertainty, because the cartels already operate directly over us.
Finally, the truck left and suddenly we went from being alone to joining an immense caravan, so huge that I could not see neither tip nor tail of it: they were all nine-seater trucks, all loaded with migrants.
In Palenque they took us to a warehouse, which is what they call the places where they leave migrants, a three-story, though very narrow house. That place was just horrible, and it disturbed me. There were many Cubans inside. It was drizzling and we went in there, all wet and muddy from the coming and going of shoes, very dirty, very dark, with many children. continue reading
It was drizzling and we went in there, all wet and muddy from the coming and going of shoes, very dirty, very dark, with very many children
The children played with each other on very thin foam mats and the mothers were desperate. One approached us and told us: “Hey, you have to go in, you can’t stay there” because according to what they said, the migra (Immigration agents) and the Federals were constantly passing by and shouldn’t see anyone outside. But in reality, everyone knows what happens there. Everything I saw in Mexico was too much.
Luckily, the driver took us to his house, which was on the outskirts, and had one of these empty warehouses, so we were the only ones there. His wife was very friendly, she treated us very well. She made us some fried fish and she gave us a drink. They would say to me: “Look, Cuban, try this fruit.” On the farm they had pigs, birds, rabbits, everything. There, I ate fruits that I had never eaten in my life, fruits I didn’t even know existed.
We slept in a bed each, with air conditioning, though I was already beginning to feel the Mexican cold.
The next day was February 14th, the Day of Love and Friendship, and they had a celebration with streamers and tequila. They gave me beers from Mexico to try and they asked me about Cuba. I wanted to be more discreet there, but I told them a few things. That man belonged to a cartel, according to other migrants, of the Zetas, and God knows what things he must have done, because he had a good position within the cartel. All in all, that man was very sympathetic to the Cuban situation that I was telling him about: he didn’t know anything and he told me that he hoped everything would happen soon, because Cuba must be a beautiful country.
They were planning the route to go to Cancun, because from Palenque they distribute migrants to Villahermosa and to Cancun
That night, three Cubans arrived, two young girls and a young man, who were surprised to find out how quickly I had gotten there. They were planning the route to Cancun, because from Palenque they distribute migrants to Villahermosa and to Cancun. There, they had to board these famous Mexicali flights, from where you cross the border on foot. In other words, there is no river there, they open a small door for you, you cross and you are already in the United States.
The next day, the man calls and tells his wife to get ready, because there are 80 Cubans on the way to the house. And I couldn’t believe it, there was hardly room for 30! But I started organizing with her and I even helped make food for everyone, and they thought I was one of them, and I had to tell them that no, I was just another Cuban.
There, because the world is as small as a handkerchief, I found a person who stood in line at Trimagen, a store in my Havana neighborhood. The man started talking to me. He used to stand in line holding places for others, for a fee, but that the pandemic… “you know,” and the son was in the US, so he and his wife managed to get money to get out. That entire group, all 80 of them, went by way of the Cancun visa. They protested a lot, because they said that they were treated like cattle and they had paid a lot of money: some about 5,000 dollars, others 7,000 dollars. Each one is different.
Among the 80, there was one who turned out to be Uruguayan, with his heavy accent. So I asked him. This guy traveled to Cuba in 2021, and while he was there, he decided to get a Cuban identity. He did not want to explain to me how he did it, only that it cost him 11,000 dollars, and he told me that in this way, he could get the benefits that we Cubans get, to stay in the United States. He had gone out into the streets on July 11th, but not to protest, just to watch. That’s what the Uruguayan said, but Alison and I speculated that he had some problem in his country, or that he was a fugitive. He seemed like a nice person, but you never know.
That afternoon they finally took us to Villahermosa. The caravan was composed of about eight vehicles and we were evading some controls, but the truth is that everything went great, everyone was talking: the driver, Alison and the three Cubans.
There were two Nicaraguans who were indeed quieter. The driver also thought that Cuba was the pearl of the Caribbean, but one of the girls told him that she was from Las Tunas, where she worked as a teacher, and her income was not enough to feed her son. The driver said: “Well, but if they live on an island, they must have fish, they have to have fish.” I laughed.
We told him that there was a dictatorship in Cuba, and he said that he had lived through hard times in Mexico, but he had never had to worry about what he was going to eat tomorrow.
I left that car quite depressed, after remembering so many things about my country, but I arrived in Villahermosa at a warehouse and since then I haven’t seen any more Cubans. It was a very large and very nice house, very modern, in which I spent four days with 50 or 60 Hondurans. Every morning, the managers brought us food and we distributed the housework to each other: some cleaned, others cooked, others tidied up… The only thing we couldn’t do was be on the porch, in case they saw us.
The driver kept saying: “Well, but if they live on an island at least they must have fish, they have to have fish” I laughed
In one of the rooms where I had to sleep in that house, we had some of these mats that have a blue lining, like a swimming pool, with a quilt, and in each room, for example, 12 or 13 people slept in mine, the men below and the women above, separated.
I thought, since there were no Cubans, who was I going to talk to? but it was very nice. “Look, a Cuban,” many said, because they had never seen a Cuban. In fact, I think not one of them had. Then they began to ask me things and we talked and we had a lot in common. That group arrived at the border together and we helped each other a lot, all the time.
I made a lot of friends with Ángel. He was 21 years old and had two small children, that’s why he identified with me, because I also have two. He told me that he was from northern Honduras, a large area of San Pedro Sula and its surrounding towns, where a lot of gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, operate. Ángel became acquainted with the wrong people and ended up being a hitman. He made it clear to me that he did not kill, that he was a driver.
Then he told me that he had to lead the hit men to kill people and once they had to kidnap one on the orders of his brother, apparently because of a drug problem. The brother paid about 10,000 dollars not only to have his brother killed, but to be tortured. He wanted the brother to be hung in one place and skinned alive. When he saw that, he couldn’t stand it and had to leave so he could vomit.
Then they began to ask me things and we talked and we had a lot in common. We and that team got to the border together and we helped each other a lot, all the time.
He saw horrible things, one of the other rival gangs had problems with him and, in the end, he ended up talking to his hitmen friends to go kill all those who were threatening him. So he finally did, he ended up firing a gun and killing, killing people. And for that reason, he left. He first went into hiding, and left after a month.
Ángel has a brother who lives in California who was helping him get out of that movie set environment. As much as they tell me, I can’t imagine something like that in real life.
The thing about the gangs in Honduras is terrible. I heard horrible things about that country, like if you wear a specific shoe worn by Gang 18, without being a member, they will shoot you, or that you can’t drive by with tinted car windows… Alison, the girl who travels with me, is 17 years old and has lived there all her life, but someone who was involved in a gang took an interest in her and ‘made her life a yogurt’, as we say in Cuba [made her life impossible]. He chased her, tried to rape her… Then she told her father, who has lived in the US for 13 years: “Daddy, I need you to get me out of here, because they are going to rape me.” And he, of course, did the impossible to get the money.
Tomorrow
To Mexico City, a 17-hour bus ride, standing.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
