Cuban denounces the precarious living conditions of her and her mother: "We are going to die in here"

A woman and her elderly mother live in extreme poverty in the Songo La Maya municipality, in Santiago de Cuba, without help from the state and supporting themselves with a pension of 1,500 pesos in the midst of the current inflation.

HeCuban Observatory of Human Rights shared a video on Twitter whereJoaquina Rodriguez Vera, a humble Cuban from the El Cacagual community, tells her story.

Several years ago, life put Joaquina at a complex crossroads. He had to leave his job in agriculture to take care of his invalid mother and since then there has only beenpoverty, hunger and hopelessness at home.

"I worked for many years in agriculture, but my mother became bedridden and I had to choose between my mother and my job. I chose my mother," the Cuban confessed.

He explained that the elderly woman, like thousands of other Cuban grandparents, does not have medicine. "He lives complaining day and night about pain. I no longer know what I am going to do with the situation he has.I'm on the verge of taking my life for seeing her in so much suffering and so much pain without medication.

Another of the big problems that these Cuban women suffer is the lack of food, because in the midst of the currentcrisis in Cuba, "the little that appears is expensive" and beyond their economic possibilities.

"Everything is in freely convertible currency (MLC). I don't have that money, I get a pension of 1,500 pesos, which is Cuban silver. The little food we have is what they give us in the warehouse and that is from the 1st to the 6th at the latest. From the 6th onwards we have to beinventing what appears because a pound of rice is 200 pesos, a bottle of oil is worth a thousand or so," Joaquina commented.

This woman does not ask for anything for herself, she does not want wealth or trips to Varadero, she only longs to have the basics to live. At Joaquina's homethere is no soap, not a sheet. "I don't have anything for my mom," he confessed.

Their home is made of wood, an almost dismantled hut. "I'm afraid that this house will fall on us because no one comes here to give us any attention. When Cyclone Sandy (2012) fell on us. Some neighbors helped us with some sticks and so on until now, but it is in very bad condition "Joaquina commented.

These women are abandoned to their fate. HeCuban state does not support them, does not solve their housing problem, does not offer them alternatives to overcome extreme poverty and they cling to the only thing they know, the same government to which they have entrusted themselves for decades, despite the fact that it lets them down again and again.

"I ask the authorities to lend their hands, to help us, as the cyclonic season is coming and wewe are going to die in here".

The rural areas of Cuba are full of "Happy Peasants"whose real lives increasingly resemble the image of theextreme poverty in the Cuban fields that the painter Carlos Enríquez reflected around 1938.