The Life of Tina

The Life of Tina


Introduction

This the true story of a Nicaraguan woman, Florentina Perez Calderon. It is a remarkable record of strength and courage in the face of adversity.

Tina wants her story to be read as widely as possible for the sake of peoples in struggle everywhere. Read it, and pass it on!

Produced by C.M.Z.P. (Co-operativa Maria Zunilda Perez). Copyright 1994


The CMZP is named in honour of Tina's daughter who was killed by the Contra on 31st December 1984. We have been working with Tina's community in Nicaragua since 1987 to promote co-operative development and fair trade.

For more information and/or more copies of this book, ( 1.50 english pounds inclusive of postage and packing), please contact:

C.M.Z.P.
25 Hamilton Gardens
London NW8 9PU
Tel: 071 286 3483
Fax: 081 969 7527





My name is Florentina Perez Calderon. I was born on June 20 1948 in the village of La Danta, Municipality of San Juan de Limay, Department of Esteli, Nicaragua. I am the third child in a family of nine children. I carry my mother's last name due to the Nicaraguan custom that children of an unmarried couple can only use their mother's last name.

Sometimes when I look back over my life, at all of the suffering I've had, I think there is nothing else that would shake me. Sometimes I now think I won't die.

My first suffering occurred when I was one year old. My mother had sent my sister for firewood. I still couldn't walk very well but I followed her. Along the way I fell into an oven which was used to process sugar cane. My hands and feet were severely burned by the time my mother got to me. She put my feet into a bucket of water and they got huge blisters on them. After three days a neighbour came to our house and told my parents that I needed to see a doctor or I would die. They took me to Limay where there was a doctor. By this time my feet were infected and it had spread all the way up my legs. The man slashed open the blisters, which were like water bags. Off came the blisters along with all the skin off of my feet and my toenails. I cried and cried day and night and didn't sleep for days. My mother put oil of Burillo on my feet and wrapped them in grape leaves. Then I started to improve. After several months they bought me a pair of shoes and filled them with cotton so that I could start to walk again. I was the only child with shoes because my parents didn't have money to buy us all shoes.

My parents were very poor. We lived way out in the countryside in precarious conditions and extreme poverty. Our house was made of sticks. As a child, I never had the opportunity to go to school. At that time the country was run by the Somoza family, fascists, who never cared about schools for the rural areas. Neither my parents nor any of us children went to school. We were all illiterate.

Looking back, my first memory of the Sandinista Front was when I was about ten years old. A group of guerillas passed through our village asking for the way to Esteli. My mother showed them the way and they left. But the next day every one was talking about it. They had left bags of medicine, blankets, everything they were leaving along the way because they were exhausted and needed to lighten their load. We asked my mother who they were and she told us not to say a word - to be silent because if the Guardia got word that they had passed through, they would come to interrogate us and might take my father and put him in jail. My father went away to hide for a few days in case the Guardia came. We were very frightened. The Guardia came and collected all they had left behind but they didn't come to our house. They found one of the guerillas in a house nearby and fired on him with heavy weapons. Sometimes we saw planes overhead and heard guns. My mother explained to us about war. She was very frightened.

When I was 15, I met Jose Angel Perez, my husband, companero for life. We were married in 1963. In 1964 my first daughter was born, Maria Zunilda. When she was two and a half she got polio. It was a struggle to save her but she survived, though her leg was impaired.

I had had my second child, Osmar, by then. Osmar died at age six due to an overdose of anasthesia, leaving me with two children, Maria Zunilda and Chema. After Osmar died I was so sad. I dreamt of him all the time. I would see him in the caminos and say, "What are you doing here? You died." I was always so happy when I saw him. I would see him in the pasture bringing in the cows. Every night I dreamt of him. I cried and cried and couldn't eat. I felt like I was going to die. One day I said to Jose Angel, "I can't stand this any longer, I'm going to die." He said, "Ask God to help you. Ask the Virgin to take away these dreams." Then one night I dreamt that I came to an abandoned house. It was full of broken, discarded things. In the midst of all that was my son, lying on a bed. I ran to him and took his head in my hands. I felt how soft his hair was. Then I felt something strong pulling me - pulling hard and fast. It was a force, something much bigger than him. I got very scared and screamed for it to let go of me. I woke up very frightened. That was my cure. That was the last dream I had of Osmar.

In 1975 my fourth child was born. We named him Osmar to replace my dead son. My fifth child was a girl, Julia Marina, who was born with measles, but she survived. Then I suffered two miscarriages, making a total of five miscarriages. Later in 1981 I had my last daughter, Anaccli de la Conception.

When I was growing up, and even the first few years that Jose Angel and I were married, people way out in the campo like us didn't know how things were in Nicaragua. We knew that Somoza was the President and that was fine with us. We knew we were poor, that life was always a struggle, but that's just the way things were. But then in the 1970's things started to change. There was a young priest in Achuapa, Gustavo Martinez. He was working with the people, doing workshops, organizing, conscientizing. Many people were going. Jose Angel started to go to the workshops and came home talking about Carlos Fonseca. At that time we didn't even know who he was! All we knew was what the radio said, that he was a bandit and had been killed. But Jose Angel explained who he was, what he struggled for, and that there were groups organized who were working for the same cause. We had heard about these groups on the radio - that they were communist, very bad, sent from Cuba where they ate children and killed old people. We believed all of that! The workshops clarified all of that and helped us to understand things the way they really were. We were understanding more and more. I still remember the day we pulled a poster of Somoza that we had out from under the bed - one left over from an electoral campaign - and we burnt it.

By 1978 guerilla groups were all over. We had a cousin who was a delegate of the word like Jose Angel and Amancio and went to the workshops with them. He had formed the guerillas and gave them word that they could trust us, so they started to come. Soon we were collaborators of the guerillas of the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (F.S.L.N.). We referred to them as "Los Muchachos" (The Boys) because for the most part they were young people. At this time the dictator had unleashed a harsh wave of repression. It was a great risk to collaborate.

The guerillas had a camp in La Aceituna, several hours from our house in Las Lajas, and wanted to form a new one in La Flor, close to our house. They were moving deeper into the mountain, to start working in this area. I remember the first night they came. There were three of them. They asked if we would cook for them and take them food to where they were hiding in the mountain. I was very nervous because it was the first time but we said yes, I knew we had to help. That was the only way things were going to change.

The next night there were twenty-two "Muchachos." Jose Angel and I were sleeping when we heard them outside. They had coffee with them so I mad ethem coffee. There was a woman with them and she came to help me. She asked me what I thought of their struggle, if I was afraid. I said I was afraid of the Guardia. She told me to be very careful. She said, "Tomorrow make sure you bury all those coffee grounds and sweep up any cigarette butts that they leave on the ground. If the Guardia see that they'll know you're collaborating." She also said to be very careful of the Guardia informants. She said if we knew of one to let them know so they could take care of it. I didn't even wait until morning. In the middle of the night I was out there collecting cigarette butts and erasing their tracks.

We were sending them food every day. They couldn't cook in the mountain because the fire would reveal their position to the Guardia. But it didn't end there. The next thing I knew, Jose Angel says they're going to bring some cloth for him to make bandanas. "Oh, no!" I thought, "What are we going to do with a bunch of red and black cloths in the house?" Jose Angel said, "Don't worry. We're going to do it at night and they'll surround the house with lookouts to warn us if anything happens."

One day a friend of ours came to the house and said that the Guardia were coming because they had detected the guerillas' camp in the mountain. No sooner had she left then we heard the first planes, flying very low. There were five planes. We could hear heavy combat and decided we'd better leave the house. We got the children and headed for my sister-in-law's house. But along the way we ran into the "Muchachos" evacuating. The Guardia had divided into two groups and mistakenly opened fire on each other. The combat was amongst themselves and the "Muchachos" got away.

After having discovered the camp, the Guardia conducted what they called "limpieza" (clean up operation). They sent in lots of Guardia to patrol the whole mountain. If they found anyone there they killed them. We never left the house for fear of running into the Guardia. It was a very frightening time. And just then, of all times, Julia got a kernel of corn stuck in her nose. We tried everything but we couldn't get it out. There was nothing to do but to take her to Achuapa. I decided to go on horseback. When I got there everything was very tense. People said the guerillas were all around and that the Guardia were coming. We could already hear the planes. In the midst of all this I was trying to get a corn kernel out of Julia's nose and was only successful in getting it lodged further up the nostril. Well, then I was determined to at least take advantage of the trip to purchase some provisions. Everyone was telling me to go home but I went into a store and ordered my provisions. I was standing at the counter paying the bill when suddenly a huge crate came crashing through the roof! It broke a huge hole. The Guardia were dropping crates of ammunition to the troops in Achuapa. I gathered up my provision and got out of Achuapa just in time. By the time I reached Las Lajas I could hear the combat back in Achuapa. It was Easter week. A few days later the guerillas came to our house and I learned that one of the "Muchachos" that I had been feeding was killed in the combat. The guerillas continued their attacks on the Guardia in all of the towns around until one by one they were liberated. My house continued to be a safe house throughout the war for liberation.

After many long nights of fear, death threats and suffering, one day something happened which filled us with joy. After having repressed the people for 40 years the tyrant Anastasio Somoza Debayle fled the country. In Nicaragua it was incredible to everyone that Somoza could be defeated. But it was true. Somoza had been forced to flee due to popular pressure, a prolonged war and the unity of the people to achieve a common objective: the end of Somocismo, the end of Somoza. Somoza fled on July 17, 1979. Two days later we achieved the total triumph when the rest of Somoza's assassins fled.

With the triumph of the revolution on July 19, 1979 extraordinary things began to happen in our lives. One of the most important was the Literacy Crusade. Huge numbers of young people from the cities were mobilised to the countryside. A young man from Leon, Isidiro Rojas, came to my house and he taught us to read and write. The Literacy Crusade lifted us out of the darkness in which we were submerged. It was at this time, however, that all over Nicaragua the counter-revolution began to break out. The Literacy brigadistas were the first targets. On March 24 the contras murdered Georgino Andrade, the first Martyr of the Crusade. We were very firghtened that the Contra would come to our community to kill us and our brigadistas. Fortunately, nothing happened in our village and the crusade finished with success and one of our most beautiful dreams came true - to learn to read and write.

Soon Cuban teachers began to arrive in Nicaragua. They were noble people whose objective was to realise the dreams of Carlos Fonseca and Che Guevara - to educate our children. They opened the first school in the history of Las Lajas.

In 1983 my husband Jose Angel travelled to our sister republic of Cuba. He was sent by the National Union of Agricultural and Cattle Workers (U.N.A.G.) to receive a course on cooperatives. While he was away, a Cuban teacher, Ismael Fernandez, stayed in my home. I was very frightened because the Contra looked for Cubans to kill them. My husband was away for three months. During this time, the cooperative "Santiago Arauz Reyes" was officially formed. My husband had been one of the principal promoters of this cooperative. By the time Jose Angel returned from Cuba the first members of the cooperative had moved on to the lands of Lagartillo. Before the triumph this land had belonged to a Guardia lieutenant, Antonio Palacios. However, the revolution made it available to the many landless campesinos in our area.

Upon his return, Jose Angel was very happy to see that people were really committed to working together in a cooperative. He travelled three kilometers from our home in Las Lajas to Lagartillo every day. He went back and forth for almost two years because there were no houses in Lagartillo. But by November of 1984 the Contra war, sponsored by the United States, had become very serious. The United States had organised the Contra into a mercenary force and placed an economic embargo on Nicaragua. In response to the U.S. aggression, the Nicaraguan people organised themselves in all aspects: in the C.D.S., A.M.N.L.A.E., Milicias Populares, A.T.C., Juventud Sandinista... We were involved in all of these organisations in order to defend our interests and our lives. These were years of very heavy struggle and arduous work. The Contra were a criminal force, killing many people.

In November of 1984, the Contra passed through Las Lajas where we lived and kidnapped some campesinos. They left death threats for us. This made us think seriously about moving to the cooperative in order to be better protected. We decided to move to Lagartillo where we would live in the school, which had been built of wood. We moved in with another family. We had a lot of difficulties but we had hope and we believed in the cooperative. In order to protect ourselves we dug bomb shelters and trenches. We kept watch 24 hours a day, often going without sleep and the men went to work with rifles on their shoulders. The Contra were very close, moving like a pack of bloody dogs, wanting to kill all of the campesinos.

Christmas that year was very tense. We were receiving lots of threats from the Contra. Several days after Christmas I had a dream that the Contra were coming to attack us. In the dream, I was alone and very frightened. I went to wake up Jose Angel and Amancio because they had fallen asleep but I couldn't wake them. Then the Contra attacked us.

Three days later, on December 31, at about 8:00 a.m., we were warned that the Contra were coming. That's when the most horrible tragedy began - so horrible it's almost impossible to describe. The warning arrived just five minutes before the Contra were upon us. The Contra caught us literally off guard. There were only a few arms in the cooperative. Amancio was in Achuapa. When we realised what was hapening, Zunilda said she was going to fight. She grabbed a gun and went to take a position. Valentin was assigned to guide the women and children down to Achuapa. We hadn't been in the cooperative very long and didn't know the routes well. Valentin headed us all off near where Zunilda was positioned. I stopped in my tracks. In my dream, that was exactly where the Contra had attacked from. I held back with Osmar and Coni and tried to tell the others not to go that way. Within minutes the combat opened. Valentin had walked right into them. They came running back to where I was and we headed off another way, through a place we call the Inferno. It was a very treacherous pass, huge boulders and steep drops. It was like hell - women and children screaming, crying, we didn't know where we were going. There were drops so steep that we had to drop the children to people waiting below.

When Zunilda had grabbed the rifle I had yelled to her, "Don't go to the southern end of the cooperative - that's where they're going to enter." But she took her combat position in the South. The Contra were firing with artillery, bombs, rockets and mortars. It was so terrible. As we ran, we imagined that all of our companeros were dead. The combat was so heavy and there were only fourteen people defending the cooperative - and 150 Contra.

After three hours we arrived in Achuapa. Everyone went into town but I didn't want to go in. I stayed by the river. I didn't want anyone to ask me anything. I was full of anguish - imagining everyone dead. We waited all day. By 2:00, the first wounded came in - my nephew and a friend. Finally, at about 5:00, a companero came with the report. I ran out to meet him. "How many dead are there?" I asked. "Jose Angel and Zunilda are dead," he told me. Twenty minutes later a truck arrived with the cadavers. I followed it to the health center where they cleaned the bodies. At that moment I felt such pain, such anguish. Then my screams turned into anger, fury against all of the people there since many of them were Contra sympathisers. There were six dead from the cooperative: three adults, Jose Angel, Rameiro Bravo and Encarnacion Palma, two fourteen year old boys: Reynaldo Ramirez and Javier Perez (my nephew), and my daughter Zunilda, 20 years old. We laid all of our dead out in the church. It hurt my very soul to see little Javier with his head split open.

The Contra destroyed the school where we had been living. They burnt everything. All I had left was the clothing on my back and my children. We buried our dead on January 1st, 1985. The war worsened and the Sandinista Army came in to fight the Contra until they retreated.

I remained in Achuapa for a year - I had no food, no clothes, nothing. The cooperative had been destroyed. Most of all, our dreams and hopes and projects had been smashed. So many years of struggle reduced to ashes. I was alone, without my husband, without my daughter and with my heart broken into a thousand pieces. I was so alone. I didn't know what to do, where to turn.

In 1986 they started building houses in Lagartillo. I moved back up to the cooperative. I began to feel a little better. A doctor told me I should talk to people and to get out of the country for a while if possible. I laughed at that - how would I ever dream of leaving the country. Never did I imagine that that year Witness for Peace would ask me to do a speaking tour in the United States. I travelled with my friend Chantal Blanche, whose husband Mauricio Demeiere was assassinated by the Contra in 1985 in Somotillo. The objective of our trip was to publicise, at the international level, the atrocities committed by Ronald Reagan's mercenaries who have assassinated my husband, my daughter, my nephew and my friend, and so many thousands of Nicaraguans. A second purpose of the trip was to help me overcome the nervous crisis which I was suffering as a result of the tragedy.

We made an extensive trip throughout the United States, telling our story, denouncing all we could. We did all we could in the interest of stopping the war that we could live in peace and dignity. The trip helped me very much emotionally. Telling my story, sharing my tragedy over and over again was helpful. It also helped me feel that their deaths would not go unnoticed. I was going to tell as many people as possible of the tragedy in my country.

I returned to Nicaragua on October 19, 1986 and went directly to my house in the cooperative. There were many European brigadistas there - part of a Brigade which was formed in solidarity with Nicaragua and which took the name of my daughter Maria Zunilda. My life was changing little by little. I was coming back to life. The support of the people was so great. My daughter Coni developed a nervous condition as a result of the war which she has never overcome.

The cooperative began to advance little by little through our efforts and with international assistance. A new school was built, 15 houses, a water system was installed, the men began to work the fields more as the war moved to other areas of the country, and the women to milk the cows. Our children were studying and things were advancing.

In 1989 we began to prepare for the second free elections in Nicaragua. I had great hopes that the FSLN would win the elections so that the revolutionary project, which had helped us in so many ways, would continue. We worked very hard in the electoral campaign, but the result was terrible. The FSLN lost the elections and the disgraceful UNO coalition won - directed and financed by the United States. For me, this was the worst blow in the entire struggle for liberation. It was even worse than when I lost my family because their deaths were my personal loss; the loss of the revolution was the loss of freedom for my entire country. We were so shocked and traumatised. At first we couldn't even get up out of bed, didn't know what to do, what was going to happen, where to take the next step. All we had struggled and sacrificed for was gone. But little by little we began to find our way again. Our martyrs help a lot at these times of despair. I remember one day when I was sitting in the doorway of a friend's house, resting from a trip. I was very quiet, dozing, thinking about all that had hapened over all these years. In that moment I saw Maria Zunilda. She looked beautiful and I was so happy to see her. I sad, "Zunilda, I miss you so much. You look so beautiful - how can you be here, you are dead. We bury the dead and that's the end, that's what people say." She said to me, "That's a little lie Mommy. I'm fine except that we work so hard." "What do you mean, work so hard Zunilda?" I asked her. "We work for the revolution Mommy." Our martyrs show us that even when all hopes seem to be destroyed, gone, that our struggle continues. I dream of Jose Angel often. He comes to visit me, the children, I have a very definite sense that he has been with me. I feel that they are somewhere and I will see them again. I look forward to that.