IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 53

that they will be in the article we’ll
publish on the Internet.
Alina: Anything you guys can include
that will be of benefit to us, do. After all,
reality is reality. I am not a
counterrevolutionary and I’d die for
Cuba, honestly, but reality is reality. If I
live with seven people, why can’t I be
offered an option?

Alina Margarita’s cubicle
Alina confessed to me that her
relationship with her neighbors is not the
best, but my interviewees all seem to
have something in common, something
in addition to the precarious life they
share in this albergue: their support for
what we call the revolution.
Vivian stated that she couldn’t do
anything, unfortunately. She did when
she could. She has even gotten laurels
from the CDR. Santa got her TV (which
she had to pay in installments) when the
CDR was still granting them. She did all
the watches for the CDR, went to the
Plaza, everything…
Alina: One must say what one feels. All
the neighbors got together and wrote a
letter to Canal Habana because all the

pipes were all clogged and we were not
getting any water from our taps. That
was last year. They told us they have no
budget; that there’s no money.
Alina tells me that she won the TV “by
the sweat of her brow,” through her
work center. She was a messenger for
the People’s Assembly, and never once
did they offer her one via the CDR, not
even considering her sick son. Alina was
also a pre-school teacher for many years,
but now works as a custodian.
Alina: Once a child was trying to escape
the pre-school, on account of an aide,
and I jumped to catch him so he
wouldn’t hurt himself. I broke my arm; it
had to be put in a cast. When they took
off the cast, the skin was quite fragile,
and they had to brush paraffin on it. Yet,
it was too hot when they did it and ended
up giving me third degree burns. That’s
why they decided to switch me over a
custodian job. I’m better, because it’s
right across the street from where I live,
but salary is not much.
Her brothers, Manuel and Luís Roca
Agredo, live in the United States, but
Alina hasn’t heard from them in a long
time. She hopes they read this journal
and can get in touch with her.
I am not going to be paid for the
interview
The first time I was at the albergue with
the NPR crew, the people I saw, that I
was able to speak to, were black women.
I had the impression that everyone who
lived there was an Afro-descendent. I
was wrong. There are 21 cubicles in the
albergue, and according to Santa, “there

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