Letter from María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez to her friends

María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez.

Letter II. (photo of the original at the end).

Women's Prison of Western Cuba, El Guatao, La Lisa, Havana. (PRC) - December 29. Another year begins, always more impoverished and uncertain than the last. Each year arrives with new misery, an accurate prediction of what the next calamities will be. I always write a few words when another 365-day struggle for survival begins for Cubans, and although I have to write in intervals because I'm sick, I maintain the same composure as in previous years.

This new letter sent to you will be the uninterrupted pretext that State Security will use to keep me confined in this cell, where I have been for 50 days. But what will they do to me that they haven't already done? What will they take from me that they haven't already taken? They hate freedom, courageous words, the determined man, the persevering reason within me, and I love everything I possess. Because I have nothing to be ashamed of.

State security punishes me for every word I write, but I can't stop breathing. I'm suffocating from swallowing the harsh impulse of expression that sustains me, and besides, I can't remain unmoved by my own problems. The long stay in this frigid cell and the precarious conditions to which I can't adapt bring me severe back pain and new bouts of the flu. I decided to sleep on the board and abandon the uneven cotton mattress responsible for my disability. I can barely walk upright or sit because a painful jolt runs through my waist and legs; it's the sciatic nerve. I can't bend down to get water since it comes out of a hole four inches from the floor and drips into the latrine itself. That's the water I have to drink and collect very slowly to fill the bucket. All the new women who arrive are astonished by such shoddy work and lack of hygiene. It's always cold, even when I look at the distant sun through the lattice. It's already taking its toll on my bones. I know all this remains because they haven't broken me yet; they want to prevent me at all costs from continuing to denounce and from being surrounded by the inmates so that I don't talk to them about my ideas, as if they were unaware of reality.

I would like to write more, but the pain is a constant thorn in my back. To the people of Cuba, I wish that their cries will be answered, like the one I still hear in the voices of my fellow countrymen: Freedom for Cubans.

Thanks to the love of Jesus Christ, who is my Victory.

A warm embrace from a free homeland to my friends and those I have yet to meet.

Homeland and Life, down with the dictatorship.

María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez.

Republican Party of Cuba.

Vueltabajo Foundation for Cuba.