CUBA NEWS
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The wife Contreras left in Cuba
By Albor Ruiz, Daily News
Staff Writer. New York Daily News, Jun 1,
2004
PINAR DEL RÍO, Cuba - In the whirlwind
20 months since he defected from Cuba, Yankees
pitcher José Contreras has had a
roller-coaster ride through the major leagues
and become rich beyond his wildest dreams.
But for the wife and daughters Contreras
left behind in the quaint but crumbling
colonial town of Pinar del Río, time
has stood still.
Miriam Murillo-Flores says she has spoken
by telephone with her famous husband just
about every day since he left Cuba on Oct.
25, 2002.
She said he shares his triumphs with her
and confides his fears. She said they ache
for each other and do not know when Cuba's
Communist government will let her see him
again.
It has been like this ever since Contreras,
32, flew off to play baseball in Mexico
and did not come back. The Yankees signed
him to a four-year, $32million contract
last year.
Twice, she said, Cuban officials have denied
her permission to leave. They are still
embarrassed and angry that one of their
brightest baseball hopes ran when he got
the chance.
"I had an interview with the immigration
authorities in Havana on April 27 and they
told me I had to wait five years, until
people had forgotten about José,"
she told the Daily News. "This has
nothing to do with politics. I am just a
housewife trying to get her family back
together. But now I - and the children -
have to pay for what he did."
Murillo-Flores, who married Contreras when
she was 15 and he 16, said she never dreamed
they would ever be separated.
"You know, it is like José
always tells me, marriage was made to be
together," she said.
While Contreras won his last start against
Baltimore last Thursday, Murillo-Flores
says the separation has taken a toll on
her husband's psyche - and has affected
his pitching. Contreras was ineffective
at the start of the season and was sent
to the minors to work out his troubles under
the tutelage of pitching guru Billy Connors.
He returned to the Yankees two weeks ago.
"Some days, when we speak, José
sounds so sad that I get really worried
and try to cheer him up," she said.
"I tell him, 'We have to be patient,
things are going to work out.'"
Contreras' bouts of depression, Murillo-Flores
insisted, "only last a couple of days."
But they have become more frequent as he
has struggled to make his mark in the majors,
where he has posted an overall record of
9-4 with a 4.41 earned run average.
"One day last week I called him and
he sounded really down," she said.
"I asked him what was wrong and he
said, 'Nothing, I'm just tired.' But I knew
it wasn't true. That made me really sad."
"Sometimes I call him a little after
9 p.m. and he is already sleeping. I tell
him, 'How come you are in bed so early?'
and he says, 'I have nothing to do.'"
Contreras declined to discuss his family
situation with The News, but he recently
told a friend, "Every day, I miss Cuba.
Sometimes, I wish I was back there."
Murillo-Flores is convinced Contreras will
return to the form that made him a national
hero in baseball-crazy Cuba when he lead
the national team to victory over the visiting
Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition game
in 1999.
"He is very dedicated, very hardworking,
very responsible," she said. "He
puts a lot of effort into everything he
does. While he was in Cuba, the first thing
for him was training."
A tall and attractive woman of 31, Murillo-Flores
has an easy smile and sad, brown eyes. She
is stylish in jeans and a summery blouse.
By Cuban standards, she is well-off and
drives a blue Peugeot that the government
gave her husband as a reward. But home for
her and Contreras' daughters, Naylan, 11,
and Naylenis, 3, is a two-bedroom apartment
in a rundown government-owned building on
the outskirts of town.
She opted to do the interview in the sunny,
plant-filled lobby of the small Pinar del
Río hotel.
"I just came back from Havana, where
I spent three days," she explained.
"And I haven't had time to tidy up."
Murillo-Flores said she met Contreras in
school, when they were both studying to
be veterinary technicians. "He even
didn't think of becoming a baseball player,"
she said.
But Contreras was destined to shine on
the baseball diamond. And as his star rose,
he dreamed of providing a better life for
his family.
"We lived seven years with his parents
and then six years at a place similar to
the one I live now, in the municipality
of Sandino, almost at the end of the island,
where José was born," she said.
Contreras' 83-year-old father and his 68-year-old
mother still live there.
"We had been asking for a house, we
wanted a place of our own," Murillo-Flores
added. "We were finally given a house
in the city of Pinar del Río but
it needed a lot of repairs and we waited
and waited for over two years. In the meantime
we moved to the building where I live now."
Politics, Murillo-Flores said, never figured
in Contreras' decision to defect from Cuba.
"José told me, 'Miriam, you
know that my dream was to play in the Major
Leagues, but if we had had our own house,
for us and the girls to be together as a
family, I would've been there with you.
But I had to do something to guarantee the
future of my family.'"
Despite his ups and downs as a Yankees
pitcher, Contreras remains very popular
in Cuba, where people follow his every move.
Murillo-Flores said she takes much comfort
in that.
"I never imagined that so many people
knew José, followed his career and
loved him," she said. "There is
no way I can tell him on the phone about
all the people who ask me to say hello to
him, who wish him luck. They are too many!
It makes me very proud."
Still, the separation is hard - especially
on their daughters.
"We talk every day and Naylenis tells
him, 'Daddy, take me with you,'" Murillo-Flores
said. "She misses her father very much.
He used to give her dinner every evening
when he wasn't playing and he would help
Naylan with her homework."
With each passing day, it seems to get
harder for the girls, Murillo-Flores said.
"They cry a lot for their father,"
she said. "They want to be with their
dad. Naylan tells me that she is tired of
going to school all by herself, without
her dad. And the little one asks him on
the phone, 'Daddy, when are you coming home?'"
A few weeks ago, Murillo-Flores said, her
husband described the home he bought for
them in Tampa. He told her about the beautiful
apartment that he bought for them in New
York. He told her he wishes they could live
together again as a family, but she spent
their 16th wedding anniversary last Friday
alone with the kids.
Asked how she manages, Murillo-Flores shrugged.
"You know, I miss him all the time,"
she said. "Yes, he sends me money and
that helps. But I want to be with him. We
are like one person. There are so many things
I want to tell him, so many things I can't
talk to anybody else about. Now I am alone.
I have no one I can really speak with. The
situation makes me feel desperate."
Does she have any regrets?
Murillo-Flores shook her head no.
"I am his wife and I am behind him
all the way. I support the decisions he
makes," she said. But she admits she
is tired of not knowing when she will see
her husband again.
"I used to have an upbeat, happy personality,
but I am very bitter now," she said.
"I am even taking medication for depression.
Hope? Sure I have hope. That's the last
thing you lose."
Then, almost in a whisper, she added, "At
times I feel it is the only thing I have
left. The truth is that I lose hope sometimes
but I tell myself that I must have faith
that things are going to get better."
Full
story at New York Daily News
Train Carrying Students Derails in Cuba
HAVANA, 28 (AP) - A train carrying boarding
school students back from the countryside
derailed south of Havana on Friday morning.
A local hospital reported treating some
of the teenagers for injuries.
Associated Press reporters later saw flattened
passenger seats and twisted steel inside
three yellow passenger cars toppled on their
sides, along with the locomotive, in a town
called Jamaica, about 30 miles south of
Havana.
There was no immediate statement from authorities
about the cause or seriousness of the derailment
or the number of casualties. Officials at
one nearby hospital confirmed they had treated
several people injured in the derailment.
In Cuba, many students ranging in age from
16 to 18, attend government-run boarding
schools in the countryside, where they work
in the fields and attend classes. Many return
to Havana on the weekends to be with their
families.
Catholic Bishops Decry Cuban Price Hikes
HAVANA, 27 (AP) - Poor Cuban families will
suffer most under new U.S. measures to tighten
an economic embargo and price increases
imposed by the Cuban government, Cuba's
Roman Catholic bishops said Wednesday.
"It hurts us to see that the measures
announced by the United States and those
taken by the Cuban government affect, directly
or indirectly, the poorest families of our
nation," Cuba's Bishops' Conference
said in a statement released to reporters.
Both governments have taken steps that
"inflame the already anguished situation
(of Cubans) and aggravate the separation
of those who live in Cuba and the United
States," the bishops said.
The U.S. government has said it would reduce
hard currency on the communist-run island
by limiting how often Cuban-Americans can
visit relatives, decreasing how much they
can spend while here and prohibiting money
transfers to Cuban officials and Communist
Party members.
In response to the measures, the Cuban
government raised prices an average 15 percent
on gasoline and nearly all goods sold in
dollars, including food, clothes and personal
hygiene products. Officials said the increases
were necessary to offset the anticipated
blow to the Cuban economy.
The bishops urged open dialogue among Cubans
to find solutions to their economic and
political problems.
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