{"id":192865,"date":"2019-02-01T12:11:48","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T17:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=192865"},"modified":"2019-02-01T12:11:48","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T17:11:48","slug":"stories-and-inevitabilities-of-the-tornado-in-guanabacoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/society-cuba\/population\/stories-and-inevitabilities-of-the-tornado-in-guanabacoa\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories and inevitabilities of the tornado in Guanabacoa"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I have to get out of here, I have nothing left,” says Danaisy Alfonso as she picks up the clothes scattered among the ruins of what was once her home. She does so restlessly, compulsively, keeping an eye on her three-year-old daughter Emilenys.<\/span><\/p>\n

The girl barely leaves her side. At times she tries to play with a broken toy, but she immediately returns to her mother\u2019s side. Her eyes show her fear. Her face and back bear the marks of what she experienced last Sunday with <\/span>the tornado<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since that night her 10-month-old sister has been hospitalized in the Pediatric Hospital of Centro Habana. Her older sister, seven years old, was also hit by the wall that came down.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t even want to remember…,” says Danaisy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mother was putting her daughters to bed when the wind ripped out an avocado tree in front of her house, in Villa Primera, Guanabacoa, and threw it against the wall of her room. The frayed roof fell in the yard.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some time ago, she affirms, she had asked the forestry services to cut down the tree, “but they told me I had to wait, even though I had three young girls. And because of the waiting, look, it fell on top of us.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Three-year-old<\/a>
Three-year-old Emilenys shows the scars on her back, as her mother looks on. Photo: Otmaro Rodr\u00edguez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I tried to protect the girls, but I didn\u2019t have time for anything,” she says, as she shows her own scars. \u201cI don\u2019t know from where I got the strength; I only thought about saving my daughters. I removed the rubble on top of us and I ran out with the three of them.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In the middle of the rain and darkness, she managed to get to a neighbor’s house. The tornado had already passed, but her anxiety was increasingly greater.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I didn\u2019t go out in an ambulance, they couldn\u2019t get through because of all the rubble. The president of the CDR [Committee for the Defense of the Revolution] took me in a car as far as he could. I had to continue on foot to the polyclinic and from there they sent me to the children\u2019s hospital.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Danaisy spent the early morning hours in the hospital. Distressed. Aching. Without sleeping. Fortunately, she was able to locate the father of her youngest daughter so that he could take over while she returned home, to discover the size of the disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The doctors have treated her well,” she says of the girl, “they have her under observation and until now it has not been necessary to operate. I only ask God that she can recover. I didn\u2019t want to leave her, but I had to know how everything was over here, to see what I could do.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Danaisy is a single mother, unemployed. Because of her situation she receives social assistance. Her house, now destroyed, was built by the government.<\/span><\/p>\n

She tells me specialists from Physical Planning passed by her house to see the damages. However, she can\u2019t wait. Because of her daughters.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’m going to the government to see where they’re going to put us. I lost the TV set, the bed, sheets, furniture, the crib and some other of the girls\u2019 things, I don\u2019t know if the refrigerator will work,” she says. \u201cLuckily, my neighbor is going to store for me what little was left, and she has helped me wash some clothes. The main thing is that we are alive. I have to go on with that. “<\/span><\/p>\n