Pain, Sweat, and Blood, A Week in Hell

By Pedro Pablo Morejón

HAVANA TIMES – It had been a month since my arrival in the United States, and I couldn’t find a job. They told me: “Don’t worry, something will appear. At least you have a roof over your head and food, and you’re already here,” but I wasn’t satisfied; I didn’t come for tourism.

It’s difficult when you don’t have a work permit, and to process it, you need money, which to get you need to work. A vicious circle from which a way out is barely visible. As I heard, times changed after the pandemic and the strong wave of immigration. Now almost no one will give you a job without a work permit.

I had to look for something that almost no Anglo-American wants: construction, washing dishes in some restaurant… things like that, but nothing appeared. Until one morning, my sponsor contacted me with Kevin, the owner of a small company that builds roofs, something like a brigade of self-employed workers in Cuba. They needed more people to finish some jobs.

We saw him and agreed for me to start the next day. We went to a Walmart and bought boots, a hat, and work clothes.

I had to arrive before 7:30 AM, and although I obviously don’t have a car, transportation wouldn’t be a problem. Thanks to a Peruvian friend (whom I’ll surely write about in a future chronicle), I knew the bus routes to get to the site.

Contrary to what is said, public transportation is functional, at least in this city in Florida where the buses run with clock-like regularity, and you don’t wait more than 20 minutes.

I woke up early, which is not my habit, and before the set time, I was already there.

Following instructions, I put on the required protective equipment for working at heights, which weighs about 30 pounds on your body, connected by thick ropes to an anchor.

The group is made up of Central Americans, mostly Hondurans. Young, tough, and hardworking men. Good people, half of them undocumented, working like animals for years and helping their families back home. At first, surprised, they mistook me for a US citizen because of my height and white skin, but only at first. Later, they would joke with me and greet me saying: “qué bolá chico,” clearly alluding to Cuban slang. They move all over the different states, wherever they are hired.

It’s hard work done for more than 12 hours at great heights and outdoors.

Dirt, physical wear, sun, and heat form a lethal combination that makes you feel like you’re in hell.

From time to time, you approach a water tank and drink water or soda to avoid dehydration, but you can’t, or shouldn’t, stop. No one stops, you have to keep going to finish the job, and the minutes seem like hours.

I remember school in the countryside back in Cuba, my summers from 15 to 18 years old planting rice, with no beach or fun. Farm work like a slave during mandatory military service, cutting wood to make charcoal. Nothing compares to this. Besides, I’ve mostly done office work all my life.

When I tell them I was a lawyer, it’s like their minds explode. “Are you crazy, Cuba? What are you doing here?” They don’t know the Cuban reality and can’t imagine it’s worse than their countries. And it’s a good thing I didn’t tell them I’m a writer, or at least aspire to be one…

It’s not even noon, and I imagine it’s 3 in the afternoon. I can’t check my phone; it’s down in my backpack, and my hands are dirty and sticky. Twice I’ve felt close to fatigue. “These people don’t have lunch?” I ask myself, although I’m not hungry, it’s more a desire to rest.

I stop seeing a Venezuelan who started with me; later, I’ll learn he “bailed,” as we say in Cuba about those who give up. I don’t have that option; I’ve burned my bridges long ago. It’s do or die for me.

I remember some words from my grandfather when I was a child, asking me: “Where is a man’s strength?” I flexed my small, childlike arms and pointed, answering: “here.” But he replied: “No, a man’s true strength is in his mind.”

I’m going to endure, I tell myself, fighting the urge to give up and never come back, which would be the easiest. I don’t let the idea of quitting settle in my mind. The body is suffering, but the mind is the battlefield. “You can do it, Pedrito, don’t give up,” I insist.

Noon arrives, and we finally have an hour of rest. I’m not hungry, I just eat a couple pieces of meat and drink a lot of water, discarding the rest of the lunch. My right inner thigh hurts; I check and see a horrible bruise caused by hitting a rotten wood plank. I also notice the blisters starting to form on my feet, which always happens to me with new boots or shoes.

I think about the coming hours and mentally prepare for the afternoon, which will surely come with more aggressive sun, the same sun as in Cuba.

Indeed, the afternoon is more merciless. It feels like a century has passed. Kevin says to me, “Look, Don Pedro” (because this small Honduran capitalist is a humble and very polite man), “we agreed until 5, and you can leave if you want.” “No,” I reply, “I’ll stay until we finish this roof.”

“Cuba, you’re really tough,” the Hondurans say approvingly.

After a while, the threat of fatigue subsides, I don’t know if because the sun has begun to decline or because of the coke I drank to energize myself. The fact is, I got through the worst part, and despite the fatigue, my body starts to respond better.

We finish shortly after 8:00 PM. I’m “crushed,” and the worst part is, it’s just the first day.

The next morning I wake up early again, feeling like my body has barely recovered. Hell awaits, and it repeats for a few days, although each day I feel stronger.

It’s Saturday and starting to get dark. We’ve finished all the work; they were roofs for several warehouses.

“Cuba, you’ve impressed us. We thought you wouldn’t come back. We bet with the boss, but you held out,” one of them, Kevin’s cousin, tells me. The latter pays me for the hours worked and even thanks me for the days I accompanied them. Tomorrow, they head to Virginia, they invite me, but I politely and gratefully decline.

I say goodbye to everyone, one by one. I grew fond of these simple people with whom I made friends.

With the money in my pocket, as I get off the bus, a feeling of happiness invades me.

My feet hurt, bleeding from the blisters, and my body is still sweating from accumulated exhaustion, but despite that, I am happy.

Every step of the 500 meters separating the avenue from the condominium is torture, yet I feel like the most successful man in the world.

Read more from the diary of Pedro Pablo Morejon here.