Experiences in Cuba: Under the Rain

Margarita, su esposo y el pequeño hijo de tres meses de edad, vivian en una humilde casa en el poblado de Managua, a las afueras de la ciudad de La Habana.

Margarita asked me when I answered her knock at my door.

The house belonged to her husband’s mother and paternal grandmother of a child who recently died. She had gotten the house in a free usufruct. But now, the “humanitarian and benevolent” authorities of the revolution wanted to take it from her under the pretext that she did not have the regulatory time of cohabitation to rightfully stay there.

A few days after our conversation, Margarita and her family were thrown out of their house. In the late hours of the night, inspectors from the Office of Housing and agents of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) kicked down their doors and forced them into the rainy street.

I was able to witness this from my hiding place behind the column of a neighboring house. Luckily, the police didn’t see me.

The evicted residents and their belongings were herded onto a truck bed without any protection from the downpour of the rain, and were sent to a shack with almost no roof over a kilometer away.

This is what I was able to share a little while after, when the governmental authorities had left the zone where they had abandoned the couple with the baby.

That night I asked Margarita to return to her house to fight for her son, who was now living in a place not even suitable for animals.

That anguished mother listened to me, and determined to fight against such an injustice, returned to her house that same morning. She was able to sneak back in by undoing the rope that the police and inspectors had placed in front of her front door.

The information that I wrote about that event was published by Cubanet and Radio Marti, the radical media in Miami. The case was given true visibility and I think that it stopped the bad intentions of the local government.

For this reason, I was summoned to the police station by the State Security to once again hear their threats for me to continue writing for “counterrevolutionary media that was dedicated only to defame the true Cuba”.

I also learned through some friends that the local delegate of the People’s Power had expressed that they were “tired of this woman who only caused problems.” They were talking about me.

Margarita and her family continued to stay in her house, and continued to endure pressure from the authorities, but she was not intimidated and continued to denounce the Office of Housing’s decisions and to reclaim her rights.

The visibility of the case given by the media also did its part. Finally, after much struggle, litigation, and claims, the authorities of the Municipal Housing Office had no choice but to recognize the family’s right to the house.

It was later found out that the tenant of a neighboring house near Margarita was an inspector for the Office of Housing. Apparently, she had wanted to use Margarita’s housing space to expand her back patio.

Today, Margarita’s little boy attends school, and every day he repeats the same slogans of loyalty that were established for all students in the government’s public education system.

But this will never alleviate his asthma that he contracted from that night when the authorities inhumanely threw him from his home - trying to condemn him to a life that would be much harder than it already had been.