HAVANA, Cuba. – “I am helpless. No one has come here to even ask how I got through the cyclone,” denounced Ramón Donatien Piedra, a Cuban resident of the Plaza de la Revolución municipality whose home lost most of the roof due to the winds of the Hurricane Rafael.
In interview with CubaNetthe man said that he sleeps “where the night catches him” for fear that the little roof that remains on his home will fall on him.
“You can’t live here, I eat and bathe in the street; “I am living a terrible life,” said Donatien Piedra.
His small apartment is the third and last on a lot located on Santa María and Ulloa streets, which only has half of its roof standing, which due to advanced deterioration could collapse at any time.
According to the interviewee, his situation is known to the president of his Popular Council, to whom he has approached and asked for help on several occasions.
“He told me that he was going to throw a cape [ayudar]”But at the rate this is going, I don’t believe it,” he lamented.
Donatien Piedra, who works in a bakery near his home, added that over time he has lost all his belongings and that currently he no longer has anything left but “the few clothes” he has.
Furthermore, he said that his salary does not exceed 3,000 Cuban pesos, which is why, he says, it is impossible for him to rebuild the roof of his home.
“I have to stop doing a pile of things to be able to fix the roof, stop eating, dressing myself because the salary is not enough… A tile is between 5,000 and 10,000 pesos,” he commented.
In November, Cuban Juan Osmani Paula Suárez, also a resident of the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, reported a similar situation. The man told CubaNet who has been asking for help from the authorities for seven years and they have ignored him.
“When the roof falls on me there will be no solution, after I am dead I don’t need help,” was the message he sent to the authorities.
Housing continues to be one of the main problems of Cuban society. More and more residents of the Island are using social networks or independent media to denounce the “forgetfulness” or “ineffectiveness” of the authorities to provide help.
