MEXICO CITY.- Amelia Calzadilla is the name of a Cuban mother who only needed eight minutes to become a hero. In a Facebook direct that she posted on her social media on June 9, the mother fearlessly lashed out at officials, first for high electricity prices, and then for the government’s inefficiency in managing the economy.
The young woman, a graduate of English Language at the University of Havana, said that at any moment she gets nervous because her children do not have food, shoes or medicine, and she has to wait for help from her family abroad to live. worthily
Calzadilla called on the Cuban people to join him: “You Cuban people, how much longer are you going to put up with?”
“If you are like me, who can’t anymore, let’s unite,” exhorted the young woman almost at the end of her direct.
Twenty-four hours later, a wave of solidarity with Amelia has been unleashed on networks. Cuban mothers and fathers have shared videos and texts on social networks denouncing all the shortcomings suffered by their families. CubaNet has prepared this summary for you with some exclusive testimonies from Cuban men and women who have publicly supported Amelia.
Yesenia: “Amelia is the face of the Cuban people”
Yesenia was the first mother to film her video in support of Amelia. “I have seen the video of Amelia. I have two children, I have spent the whole night crying, because her feelings are mine, I feel identified with her, “said the Cuban in a short clip that has been broadcast on social networks.
In a conversation with CubaNet, Yesenia confessed that she published the complaint without her family’s full approval, but that she could not remain silent for fear. “It’s not me. All Cubans are afraid. But it works the other way around for me. Instead of running away from what scares me, I go upstairs”.
Yesenia described her day-to-day as “hard and frustrating”, adding: “We are all in the same”. On why she joined the denunciations of Amelia Calzadilla, she replied: “Amelia is the face of the Cuban people, the same image of the Cuban woman: exhausted, suffocated, hopeless and worn out.”
Harold Jimenez: “ I’m tired of busting my back every day for a simple plate of food “
Like Amelia, Harold lives in El Cerro, Havana. Like her, Harold also doesn’t know what to invent to feed his six-year-old girl. These are his statements to CubaNet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Q8NcuUEZQ
“I get up thinking about what I am going to give my daughter to eat, for a snack, how can I buy her a candy. I am an actor and I have been out of work for two years because of COVID, because there is no budget. I started making sweets, I got my patent and the sugar was lost. Nothing is constant. There is no solution. I’m sick of busting my back every day for a simple plate of food.”
Harold has been routinely cited to the police for his social media posts and anti-regime political views. He went to demonstrate on July 11 and says that he cannot stop denouncing, even if it affects his family, because he is not satisfied with what is happening in Cuba.
“Millions of friends have called my wife to tell her to be careful, that they can take me to jail for the video I made; but honestly I don’t care. My oldest son has just left for Canada with his mother. It was a sad relief for me. I miss him, but at least he’s not going to lose his life. Here, even if you don’t die, you lose your life. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, but he’s already out of here. That is the most important”
Gisset : “If the government does not guarantee conditions for my children, I will”
With three children aged eight and five and another nine months old, she does not have a safe place to live. Her bed gets wet. In Regla, her roof can’t hold. The technical opinion specifies that the house is in danger of collapsing. She has no way of treating her children’s allergies due to the shortage of medicines. Gisset, 26, is a single mother and receives a pension of 4 thousand pesos. It’s all they have for thirty days. Four people survive with a sum that is equivalent to a pair of shoes in Cuba.
In an interview with CubaNet, Gisset said that today she joined another mother and they occupied a house built by the government for education directors in her municipality. “We broke the door and got in because we are tired of being ignored along with our children. For them and to get them out of misery we will do whatever is necessary. If the government does not guarantee conditions for my children, I will do it.” In the last communication with Gisset, the police were evicting these mothers with two babies in their arms. We haven’t had any more news.
Kitty Mendez: “ I can’t take this life anymore”
“Cuba needs a change and that change is going to start with the warrior mothers,” said Ketty, a mother of three children, one of them with disabilities, in a video published on June 10.
About the situation she is experiencing and that led her to make this complaint, she spoke with our media. This is her testimony:
“My daughter wakes up asking for food, but she doesn’t accept anything due to her autism. Almost everything I give her, I mean, what I can get, she rejects. She suffers from states of anorexia and this is very devastating for her health. For a while now she has not regained her weight and vitality. She barely got any food. The main course has been missing for months. To complete where I live I don’t even have a supply book. I occupied this apartment, which falls on me, 16 years ago and I’m still illegal.
I can pay for electricity because I consume little. More than half of my house has no electricity. In addition, I hardly have any electrical equipment: only two fans, an old washing machine, the refrigerator, and a mixer that has been broken for a month.
The only thing the “government” has given me (which is a right, not a favor) is a checkbook for three thousand seven hundred pesos. Of that, 2 thousand pesos only go to the guts for the assholes. In cleaning, I spend almost a thousand more.
The little that remains is to buy Jennifer’s medicines, which are expensive, and mine for diabetes. Besides, I have to pay 150 pesos every two or three days so that they bring me a little water.
I never buy my daughter clothes, or new disposable panties, which she needs so much. Some friends have donated some clothes to me but it always ends up at zero. She pees and poops all day. When there is water in the building I wash them right away, but most of the time there is no water. I can’t take this life anymore.”
Karelia Contreras: “I joined to support Amelia because I am a mother and I suffer from her problems”
The political activist and mother of three girls told CubaNet why she had joined the wave of solidarity with Amelia.
“My day to day is very difficult. I have to be thinking about where to get milk, food, cleanliness, money, assholes. I have to think how to survive. Add to that the blackouts. Five years ago I came to Villa Clara and some people broke into my house in Havana and the police never took them out. I have no legal home right now. Anyway, I joined in supporting Amelia because I am a mother and I suffer from her problems.”
Yaneli Morales: “It is impossible to live in a country where there is nothing to eat”
“I am 47 years old. I am the mother of three children who were born outside of Cuba, fortunately. Amelia we are all a long time ago. But now the situation is overflowing and it is impossible to live in a country where there is nothing to eat,” the mother told CubaNet
In his video, published on social networks, he recalled the years he lived on the island and summed it up this way: “In Cuba we all have needs, hunger, shortages… Fear does not feed.”
Raisa Velazquez: “ Our rulers are our worst enemies.”
“I am also tired of hunger and misery, that my children do not have a plate of food, that they have to go to school with broken shoes and an old backpack. I can’t take it anymore,” said Raisa Velázquez in your video.
“I am a single mother of two children and I live in Havana. I identify with Amelia Calzadilla for the simple fact that I am also tired of so much misery, of so much nerve from the government, making fun of the people. I’m tired of everything going up in price and not having a way to buy food.
“We have rights that are taken from us, violated. They impose family codes and laws on us without consulting the people, because they feel like it, period. They want to shut us up but we’re awake. Most took off the blindfold.
“I’m tired of seeing my children suffer because they don’t have something to eat, it hurts me to hear them say that it would be better to leave this country with no future. Cuba needs a system change now. If the leaders do not have the capacity to get us ahead, then let them resign, let them go now. We Cubans deserve a better life. Our rulers are our worst enemies. They are the ones who have us blocked. They have blocked us from the mind to the food.”
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