Marcelino Rodriguez narrowly saved his house in the neighborhood of La Laguna (La Palma), an area that still has “broken heart” by the volcano, which swallowed up part of this core and left another intact, in a fateful line between what nature took away and what it did not.
As the president of the La Laguna neighborhood association explained in an interview with the solidarity newspaper El Valle de Aridane, “it’s as if a war had happened to us, with the destruction left by this volcano,” he admits, “because we lost this war without casualtiesbut yes with pain and uncertainty. Now, “it is time to fight and not to sit back” because “we must not be afraid to defend our rights, because After what happened to us, the worst that can happen is death.and it affects everyone.
He asked his neighbors via social media goodbye and “make their voices heard” because despite the years, the concerns and demands of the affected families, stuck in the reconstruction process, remain.
“Those of us who have our homes on the other side of the lava are lucky, but how can we feel that way if the neighbor six meters away lost it?». Part of the neighborhood “is fighting to continue their lives, and others to find a life again,” the president says. The pain is shared by those who have lost and those who have not lost, he assures, despite the “mixed feelings.”
“We meet a neighbor and we don’t know how to apologize or cheer ourselves up,” because under this lava there are “stories and there is life,” and even if it doesn’t seem like it now, “I should say in everyone, such a person lived here and “He must have run away.”.
The neighborhood association La Laguna de Tajuya called on those affected to ensure that neighbors “they can meet again and share with others their experiences, feelings, concerns and desires regarding the reconstruction process, which remains full of uncertainties” and know “what our demands and hopes are”.
The president of the association La Laguna explained to the solidarity newspaper, in a personal capacity, that there are still problems such as decision-making by public administrations “with little or no participation of those affected”, which adds to the uncertainty about the territorial model, the deadlines and financing of the reconstruction, and the absence of a payment schedule for the aid with which the Canarian government has promised to compensate for the value of what was lost.
