“I worked like a beast and now I look like a beggar, following officials month after month to get paid what they owe me,” complains Orestes
14ymedio, Carlos A. Rodríguez, Manzanillo, Granma Province, 25 February 2025 — 14ymedio, Carlos A. Rodríguez, Manzanillo, Granma Province, 25 February 2025 — When he worked for the State, Orestes was happy when the payment dates were approaching. However, since he has been retired, the end of the month makes him worried at the prospect of banks without electricity and ATMs without cash in Manzanillo (Granma province). The obstacle course exhausts him before he even sets foot in the street to receive his pension.
Retirement, he says, is not a gift or a work of charity from the State. It is remuneration for the years he worked, for his contribution to society, which belongs to him. Orestes knows this very well, and that’s why he’s indignant that he has to go on an odyssey to receive his pension. “I worked like a beast and now I’m a beggar, going after the officials month after month so they pay me what they owe,” complains the manzanillero from outside the Post Office where he receives his pension.
When the collection dates approach, the place is filled with retirees who wait patiently, sometimes all night, to be paid their pensions. Orestes himself has experienced the despair of standing in line, which he almost always has to do for several days to finally obtain a few thousand pesos.
At almost 70 years old, Orestes hides a catheter under his shirt and belt, just as he hides his everyday hunger and fatigue. He almost never has money to buy a snack, but even if he did, he couldn’t afford it. He spends every peso he receives each month on food and medicine. If it weren’t for the fact that he has no other option, he says, he would think that the hardships he goes through to get his pension are not worth it.
“This time I was lucky and can get paid on the third day. I almost always have to come four or five times because the power goes out, the connection goes out or there is no cash. Every day I dedicate to this – he laments – is a lost day.”
Orestes remembers the time when postmen brought the pensions to the homes of retirees, but with the lack of staff and “bancarización” [banking reform] now even that doesn’t happen. “Today they opened the Post Office around nine because there was no power, and at eleven they had to stop because they only had 1,000 peso bills. There were more than 50 people left, and we had to wait until a girl showed up with a money box and smaller bills,” he explains, still not being able to enter.
The people in line complained, he says, but calmed down when the payments restarted, although the anguish did not disappear. Now, he claims, “they fear the imminent blackout after so much delay.”
On the same days and in the same line, Orestes has met many retirees like himself, and he has seen and heard everything: a woman fainted from fatigue in line; a housewife who does not have enough money even though she receives 7,000 pesos and remittances; people who, to collect their pension, must leave their sick relatives alone for hours.
The list goes on, and the situation is repeated at each of the collection points in the municipality
In bank branches such as Bandec’s, the “desperate people,” the retirees who lengthen the line, sleep there the night before to try to collect. That, warns Orestes, “is if the cashiers have cash and the electricity does not go out.”
The discomfort, notes Orestes, spreads quickly in the lines, as the retirees are exhausted by the ordeal they suffer to collect their meager pension. “I gave my youth and my life to this process. I never thought I would regret it, but it’s one disappointment after another,” he says, throwing up his arms in despair.
Above all, he remembers the years he was an employee of the State: “I worked in Minas del Frío, lived there and was a bricklayer in the construction of the Camilo Cienfuegos School City, in the Caney de las Mercedes in the Sierra. That’s why I was proud when I heard people talking about the leaders and the military as the historic generation of the Revolution. I am also the historic generation! Without me and others like me they wouldn’t have built this shit!”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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