MEXICO CITY. – Caibarién had already completed its scheduled 12 hours without electricity that day, so people assumed that at least that night they could cook, watch the soap opera and rest without heat or mosquitoes, because even sleeping is a luxury in Cuba. However, around 9:00 pm the service was cut off again, and with the unexpected blackout came protest.
At the sound of empty cauldrons and shouts of “Join, Caibarién”, some people came out from the 31st avenue of the fishing city. More people joined them little by little as they passed through the streets. In night clothes, without a shirt, with children in their arms, as the blackout surprised them, they went out to demonstrate. Others joined the ride on their bicycles and electric scooters, riding along the side of the road.
“The people had demonstrated before, but never had so many people come out. It is that the disappointment that we live is increasing. Because the days go by, the years go by and nothing improves”. This weariness described by Dayana Vergel, one of the protesters, led her neighbors to take to the streets. “Caibarién put his fear in his pocket and went out,” she says.
By 11:00 p.m., the protesters had already crossed Alonso Avenue and stopped in front of the municipal headquarters of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) to demand a dignified life. The protest lasted about three hours, because even after they turned on the power, people stayed another hour screaming in front of the institution. Not even the drizzle made them move. Caibarién, as seen in the videos of last October 10, did not only go out to ask for light, but also freedom.
“People did not leave because they wanted to make themselves felt. We know that after the protest they turn on the power to shut us up, but the next day we go back to the blackout and live the same story. That night people were excited about what could be achieved and they stayed”, explains Dayana.
The young mother joined the demonstration because she too is tired of cooking with charcoal, of not finding food for her daughters, of the girls not being able to sleep at night and the next day going to school exhausted. “Life in Cuba is desperate,” she laments.
The lesson fell to Alexis
In the videos of that day, Cubans are seen shouting “Homeland and Life” and “The people united will never be defeated.” You see people excitedly saying that this could be the day they reach freedom, but what you don’t see is any manifestation of violence.
Although on October 10 the city took to the streets peacefully, on the 11th the police arrested at least three of the protesters. One of them is Alexis Córdova García, the father of Dayana’s girls and who was her partner for 14 years.
Supposedly Alexis, who does not belong to any opposition movement, who did not even film a direct one, nor was he one of the first to take to the streets, would be one of the leaders of a demonstration that had no leaders, other than the call for empty pots. Why Alexis among so many protesters, if “his criminal record” is limited to a fine for selling tomatoes?
Perhaps, her ex-partner thinks, because she expresses openly and anywhere her desire for change in Cuba. In addition, in Caibarién, which is a small city, the Police already know him for his political opinions and his multiple attempts to leave the country on a raft.
Since 2006, Alexis has tried to flee without success. She once almost made it, but the closest she got to Florida was three miles. There the authorities intercepted the precarious boat and returned all the rafters. “He tries, he doesn’t get it, he forgets it for a while, and then he throws himself again. He once was about to be swallowed by the water, but nothing stops him, ”says Dayana. Out of fear, she has never accompanied him, nor has she exposed the girls to the journey. Alexis, on the other hand, is not afraid of the sea, more than she is afraid of dying in Cuba.
“I understand your desperation because this country is in agony. We both long for our daughters to be able to grow up abroad. There is nothing good here for their future or anyone else’s. Alexis was processing a visa for Mexico to leave legally. When it seemed that she was going to achieve it, they put him in jail”.
Alexis, from the detention center, called Dayana on the morning of October 12, told her to find a lawyer, that everything indicated that it would be “for a long time.”
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