PHOTOS: JAVIER FUENTES
Alejo Sánchez has lived alone in La Marisma, his fishing boat, for more than 20 years. But for a week he has been sharing the scarce six square meters of his boat with his three children and María Olimpia, the children's mother. The boat is located in the fishing port of Las Santa and apparently it has been the family's eventual home for a week.
"My children have nowhere to live because María's house Olimpia in Valterra, burned down in a fire last week," says Alejo. The fisherman, and father of the three children, assures that his children are enduring very harsh living conditions because "there is hardly any space and they get very cold at night." Alejo says that he has asked for help from the Arrecife City Council and the Cabildo after the fire to get "a house where the children can live with their mother, because I live on the boat." The family is waiting for a response from the president of the Cabildo, Inés Rojas, who according to Alejo "promised us an apartment for this week and I still have no news on the matter", he points out.
Living on a boat
Life in La Marisma, a small fishing boat, "is fine for me because I'm used to it, but the children are cold", in addition to enduring very harsh conditions since they don't have bathrooms and sleep in a small cabin of less than two square meters. Every night the family must devise ways to remove the fishing gear to fit everyone in the cabin, "although I sleep in the hatch where the engines are."
For the normal life of a child, living on a boat in La Santa only has inconveniences. The family claims to have to use a hose in the port to wash and wash clothes, which they then hang on the same boat. But hygiene and space are not the most worrying problem in this situation. According to Alejo, Christian, Acerina and Alejo, seven, five and two years old respectively, have not been to school for a few days because they have no means to take them to Arrecife and because there is no public transport service in La Santa. In this regard, the father has criticized the lack of help from the island's administrations and "the rejection of people who, like me, also pay our taxes and are treated like garbage." Alejo wanted to make it clear that he needs to work to live and that Social Services must do something to solve his problem because "if I have to go out to sea to work, I will even do it with my children, so it is in their hands."
Until an answer arrives "we will continue here going through hardships and waiting for them to give us a solution", concludes Alejo. In this way a boat has become an makeshift home where children live their lives. But La Marisma is not a place for a family with difficulties who do not plan to abandon it until they find another better house.
The cause of the problems: the fire
Alejo and María Olimpia say that they still do not know the causes of the fire that left the house in Valterra without the possibility of living in it. The fire house is in the seaside neighborhood of Valterra, in front of the health center. After the fire, which started due to a short circuit that set fire to a mattress, the house, according to Alejo, was destroyed. The fire occurred on April 13 on the third floor of the 80 Viviendas and did not have more drastic consequences because everyone there was unharmed.
