IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 47

Once, they [the authorities] said that
anyone with indoor plumbing would get
a ration booklet and a right to own his or
her home. But my stepfather’s mother
never allowed my mother to build a
bathroom. We had to use the sister-inlaw’s bathroom, or urinate in a can, or
do our business on a piece of paper and
then throw it out, sometimes in my
stepfather’s mother’s cesspit.

Santa's bathroom
Kirenia has no good memory of him:
“He mistreated my mother a lot. The
scars on my forehead are from his nails,
which I would frequently dig into me.”
Kirenia: After my mother had been in
jail for two months, her mother-in-law
tells my grandmother to give her my
little brother, so she wouldn’t have the
trouble of dealing with both of the
children. She told her that she was her
grandmother, in any event, and that she
lived next door. My grandmother never
thought she meant any harm, and gave
him to her. Two days later, she told my
grandmother that she and I had to leave
the place. We had been there 11 years,

and my mother was even paying the
CDR (Committee for the Defense of the
Revolution) dues.
She said we had to leave because that
place belonged to her, and her son, my
stepfather, who was in jail, had
authorized her to evict us. My
grandmother said she wasn’t leaving and
we didn’t, but we had no food. A few
days later, my grandmother told me:
‘I’m going to get up early to go to your
aunt’s house, in Lawton, and bring back
some food; don’t let anyone in. I’ll be
back very soon.’
She’d get up at five and be back by nine.
It seems they were watching her.
Suddenly, someone wakes me up,
saying: ‘Get up! We’re going to tear this
down.’ When I opened my eyes, the first
thing I saw was the sky. A
plainclothesman and a uniformed police
officer called Mendilusa forcefully
removed me. He was the unit chief in
Regla. They put all my mother’s
possessions in the middle of the alley. I
can take you to Casablanca, if you like,
so you can see all this is true. All the
neighbors there love me. I had to sleep at
neighbors’ homes; eat there, and at work
centers. As far as I am concerned, that
was an eviction. They opened a case for
us at the Municipal Housing Authority
(DMV) stating we were a social case,
because we had no home. I have been
waiting for 21 years for the case to be
resolved. I remember we’d go to the
DMV and spend hours and hours. Since
it had a cafeteria, they feed us lunch and
dinner. Later, a neighbor (may God have
her in His glory) gave us a section of her

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