After these 67 years of the Revolution, and having turned 78, there are many negative experiences that I have lived since those first days of January 1959, of which I have such bad memories.
HAVANA.- On the night of December 31, 1958, my mother and I—I was twelve years old at the time—went in a cousin’s husband’s car to San Luis, in Pinar del Ríoto visit my paternal grandmother, who lived there. During the journey we did not see anything unusual nor did we have any setbacks. However, near the city of Pinar del Río we observed strange movements. When our cousin turned on the radio, we heard the news that Fulgencio Batista He had left Cuba. It would be a different January in Cuba.
We were able to continue the trip to our destination without problems. However, the cousin decided to immediately return to Havana for fear that the warehouse he owned in Mantilla could be looted. My mother also chose to return, worried about my father, who was a police officer.
The return trip was uneventful, although there was disbelief, uncertainty and fear. At some points on the highway there were concentrations of sympathizers of the revolution, but they were never the large crowds that Castro’s propaganda would later talk about.
In a town on the Central Highway we saw an army barracks with entrenched soldiers, who did not allow the revolutionaries to take the facility. That forced us to detour through nearby streets.
Upon reaching the La Lisa bridge, members of the July 26 Movement—who had probably not fired a single shot against the Batista regime—stopped all passing cars to paint a “26” on their bodies. The owner of a 53 Ford refused and the vehicle was set on fire. It was the first arbitrariness that I observed committed in the name of “the revolution.”
In reality, there were many similar actions carried out in those first days of January by the so-called “revolutionaries”, who behaved like criminals, violating the laws and taking justice into their own hands.
Upon arriving in Havana, my mother immediately went to the Seventh Police Station, located in Infanta, between Amenidad and Manglar, in El Cerro, to which my father belonged and where they held him.
He was detained for 28 days, undergoing investigations. Finally, when they did not find him guilty, he was released, but they left him unemployed.
Left without a salary, he was forced to do menial jobs to support his family, although he never had enough money. Thanks to the help of family and friends, we were able to resist.
The income was not enough to pay for my studies at the modest school I attended. That traumatized me in such a way that, from always being one of the first three in the classroom, I went to sixth place, because I lost motivation for learning.
To pay for my studies, my mother started working as an assistant at the same school I attended. His entire salary went towards the cost of my education.
After spending six months without a job, a familiar architect, who worked in the then Ministry of Public Works, found my father a job as a carpenter.
To go to work, my father would get up at four-thirty in the morning and return very late, sometimes after dark. The physical exhaustion he suffered during the almost four years he worked in construction was enormous.
They retired him with 98 pesos, an amount less than the amount stipulated for the 27 years of services provided as an agent of the authority.
After these 67 years of the Revolution, and having turned 78, there are many negative experiences that I have lived since those first days of January 1959, of which I have such bad memories.
