Baracoa, Guantánamo.— Jesús Nolasco awakens in a chair. For a month and three or four days now, he hasn't had a bed, a mattress, or a house.
He has been a nurse for 25 years, and is working in a different clinic now, without a uniform, since the plastic bag where he stashed his clothes was carried away by the hurricane.
"I was in my neighbor's house, and all we heard was wind. The water came later. When the eye passed over, we felt the calm, and looked outside. But my friends and the neighbor's husband called on the phone from Havana, and said: Don't go out, the eye is passing over, don't trust the calm. But we did go out…"
October 4, around 5:00 am, Jesús climbed up on his neighbor's roof with a flashlight. Shining the light toward his house next door, he broke into sobs, the most dignified man I can imagine.
In an indescribable voice he says, "I turned on the flashlight and saw my little house destroyed. Part of some land we had planted, the majority of the trees, on the ground; coconut palms and avocado trees broken, pulled up by the roots; plantain … Terrible, terrible. And my little house didn't have a roof, or walls. I felt a tightness in my chest. I think nothing happened to me because I prepared myself." Then he smiles, "But a plum tree was left."
Late in the afternoon on the 4th, Jesús went out to rummage through what remained of his house, looking for anything that might be useful.
He plugged in the refrigerator and it started up, then cut off. He tried again, on, off, and then off.
Meanwhile, his wife went to the president of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution's house and called someone in the provincial government. They spent the night with their neighbor.
The next morning, the government placed them in a classroom on the second floor of the Rodney Coutín Correa School, serving as an evacuation center for those left homeless in the La Asunción defense district.
"During the hurricane, there were 1,899 people who had been evacuated to the school. Now there are 258 (63 families). There are 37 children, newborns to six years of age; 28 between seven and 14; 89 aged 15 to 40; and 89 persons over 40 years of age, 27 of these over 60," reports Lázaro Emilio Chávez Pérez, in charge of the center.
Housed in the Rodney Coutín, he adds, are seven individuals with physical disabilities, three with psychological ailments, and five with cancer, noting that, since conditions are not appropriate, those with cancer are staying for the most part with relatives, but the center guarantees their meals.
One night at almost 2:00am, someone knocked loudly on the door; Jesús opened it.
He and his wife have been sleeping on the floor for days, with only a sheet.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Doctor, I brought a boy here because he's bleeding from the nose," the man answered, with a 12 or 13 year-old at his side.
Jesus tells me, "I looked him over, but there wasn't anything the matter, there are people who bleed easily and it runs down their face. It seemed that the boy had cleaned himself a bit, I don't know. I explained to the father that this is normal. The nose is an area with lots of blood vessels, lots of veins and capillaries, that sometimes, when you sneeze, explode. At this age, they are very fragile. I asked if this happened often and he said: Yes. I said to the boy, well, just go to bed as usual, and don't put your head down.
"The next morning, the father came to see me, and said: Doctor, thank you so much for your concern."
Some days earlier, Jesús had gone to his workplace, a small camp for elementary school students.
It was devastated. Then, he reported, it was proposed that he work in a classroom at the Rodney Coutín, set up as a nursing station to serve those staying at the evacuation center. He agreed.
"There are four nurses. The shifts are 7:00 in the morning until 7.00 at night, and then the next day 7:00 pm until 7:00 am, with the rest of that day and the next day off. The doctors have a more regular schedule.
According to Lázaro Emilio, the center has a messenger who gets supplies everyday.
"Everyday, at 9:00am, the medical staff makes a report on what things are needed. And if some kind of supplies are needed, or some prescription medication, we work with Public Health and it is provided. The messenger departs every morning and comes back with everything, from pills to a tank of oxygen.”
Eight days after the hurricane, Alfredo Jesús Nolasco Ferrer received 50 sheets of roofing and a bag of nails.
A process is underway to supply homeowners with a package of supplies, depending on the type of damage they are repairing, which can include 50 sheets of asbestos cement roofing; ten wooden poles; 3.5 kilograms of nails; a sack of cement; and one of sand - free of charge, according to Eduardo Zorrilla Romero, vice president of the Municipal Assembly of People's Power and president of Baracoa's evacuation commission.
"To date, we have delivered 250 of these modules within the municipality. And eight cases are left, among them that of Jesús, to whom it has not been possible to supply the complete package, because the wood is not available due to problems reaching sites where timber is harvested.
"Additionally, we are beginning the preparation of another type of module that consists of a set of four chairs (of sanded wood with vinyl backs and seats), a bed, and mattress, to gradually provide to those whose furniture was damaged, that is, to those people who may have already reconstructed the basic structures of their homes, but cannot re-establish themselves since they lack the material conditions."
Zorrilla said that, thus far, 124 mattresses have been delivered to the 14 evacuation centers, although more are needed.
The nursing station is in a small, damp room with two tables and three or four chairs. There are some windows in the back wall, but they are closed. There is not much light. Next to the only door sits the oxygen tank on a plastic chair, with a prescription pad, pen, disposable syringes and bags of saline solution on the tables.
People come and go.
The doctor checks symptoms, jotting everything down in a notebook: headache, fatigue… She greets someone who walks by.
Jesús spreads cream on a scratch, injects medication, while saying that it's a quiet evening - one that will end for him the next morning.
"The life of a nurse," he says, "depends on whether you like the job or not. I'm thrilled when I have patients and am able to save them. This same man who was just here with the wound: when I heal that wound, and see that he's better the next day, this is satisfaction for me.
"Yes. We have had complications. A little nine-month-old girl came in with diarrhea, and since we don't have the conditions here to admit her, we opted to refer her elsewhere. Previously we had a little boy with a bad cough, due to a condition he has. We referred him to the Octavio de la Concepción y de la Pedraja Hospital, here in Baracoa."
Sometime an emergency comes up for the doctor and Jesús is left alone in the clinic. Then, with the door half open, he snuggles up on the floor and sleeps a little or he wakes up in a chair.
There is a mattress rolled up on a chair, but Jesús does not dare touch it, saying it belongs to another nurse.
Tell me about your house. How's it gong?, I ask.
"I got the roof up with the help of a stepson. We did it quickly since it was a repair. Construction will begin when they deliver the rest of the materials. It has to be done over, starting from zero.
"Thus far, we have covered the two bedrooms and some of the living room with the sheeting. A piece of the wall was left standing and we made use of that. And with this same sheeting, we made the other walls."
And so, I ask, "Is Baracoa recovering?"
"I have hopes that everything will be recovered. Since I have a little land cultivated, I even told the leaders that, if they like, I would donate a piece of land to construct my house and others, since they're building two and three level multifamily homes. They told me they would take it into consideration."
Then he smiled.
"What makes me happy," he said, "is that I have some plants on that land that are already coming back. There's a little plantain that has leaves sprouting and everything. Plants are like that, you know, they fall down, but they grow again.
