2024-02-20 05:03:18
From makeup to clothing, the family of those who died in Sancti Spíritus must provide all the necessary supplies for the preparation of the corpse. Interviewed by the official press, Alberto Gómez, the Communal Services employee who is in charge of this job, recounted the string of precariousness that his job has, which he describes as “necessary and chilling”, in the funeral home of the provincial capital.
In his testimony, Gómez does not mince his words: there is a lack of makeup, “which was previously in stock”, there is a lack of razors and many “other resources” that he must ask for from family members. They “collaborate with some of these products and we appreciate it, because this way we cover any needs that may exist.” However, ditch, “it’s hard.”
Gómez, whom Escambray He asks the “secrets of the hard job of preparing corpses”, he poses a little hunched over his work stretcher on which he shows the few instruments he has: a tweezers, a brush, a cloth, a basin and a kind of lockpick. The man does not show his face, which he covers with a mask.
The lack of makeup is a serious obstacle, he clarifies, because it prevents “hiding a bruise” and filling “the cavities of the face, ears and nostrils.”
In vain the newspaper tries to soften the conditions of its work. To each idyllic phrase, such as the one that portrays him as an “artisan of the image,” Gómez opposes strong descriptions of his daily routine, which – on “good” days – consists of trying to return to the deceased “the shape of the face, the faded colors, the physical presence and even the arrangement of the hair.
The lack of makeup is a serious obstacle, he clarifies, because it prevents “hiding a bruise” and filling “the cavities of the face, ears and nostrils.” Gómez assures that the family usually wants to see the face of the deceased for the last time, which means leaving the body in the most decent condition possible. The issue is complicated, however, when it comes to someone who died in an accident.
“Sometimes I receive corpses of an injured person and, generally, we try to ensure that they can be displayed, but when it is impossible, due to the disfigurement of the face, then we consult the relatives so that they approve sealing the coffin and veiling it with a photo of the deceased,” he says.
After 12 years as a coffin maker, Gómez is not unfamiliar with any of the difficulties of the trade and the most difficult cases, such as preparing a deceased child, are now accepted with resignation. “It’s something that shakes me to the teeth,” he says, “because it’s very hard to see his small body on that cold table and think that he didn’t live long enough, but this is the job we’re given and someone has to do it.” .
The job also includes placing the body in the box, moving it to the funeral home chapel and keeping an eye on it, in case the tropical climate and poor quality makeup cause any “difficulty.” Before the burial, he seals the coffin himself. Other services? The “collection at home” and the arrangements for the deceased in one’s own home, when the wake is domestic.
The silent debacle of Cuban Communal Services has its most evident effect in the company’s inability to collect garbage from the streets
The silent debacle of Cuban Communal Services has its most obvious effect in the company’s inability to collect garbage from Cuban streets, but it also takes its toll on cemeteries – increasingly neglected and exposed to desecration – and funeral homes. . Families on the Island must deal with all kinds of difficulties that range from the confusion of data – and not infrequently bodies – to the discovery of open graves, with bones stolen for ritual purposes.
One of the most serious moments of the crisis occurred after the numerous deaths during the coronavirus pandemic. The low capacity of cemeteries in many municipalities led to extreme measures, such as burial in mass graves. This was the case of Manzanillo, in the province of Granma, where the gravediggers told 14 intervene that up to 200 dead people were buried in the neighboring cemetery of the San Francisco batey in one day.
Overwhelmed by the number of deaths and the crudeness of their instructions – they had to bury the patient three hours after death –, the testimonies of the Manzanilla gravediggers do not differ much from those of Gómez in Sancti Spíritus. In Cuba, there is no respect or rest in death either.
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