Ana Margarita Vijil recounts her time in prison and how she has experienced exile. “Both experiences leave scars,” she says.
By Ana Margarita Vijil (100% Noticias)
HAVANA TIMES – It was the night of February 9, 2023. I was in the middle of the largest hall of the Westin Hotel in Washington DC, surrounded by acquaintances and strangers. The crowd was suffocating me, the floor was moving, and the sensation of having opened an Alka-Seltzer in my head clouded my senses, but I was amazingly happy.
Six hundred six days in solitary confinement, in a police facility turned into a maximum security prison by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, took a toll on my body and mind, but my spirit was soaring. I was sure of that liberation, with a conviction sometimes labeled as magical, which some people now blame me for when I say, with equal emphasis, that we will achieve the other freedom, that of Nicaragua, and it will be sooner than we think.
Just the day before, I had performed my prison routine for the last time. Alone in a cell, I divided my time between walks, managing the pain of a back injury, meals, and moments of reflection. The most exciting, restorative, and rebellious part of the day was the time to pray the rosary, which my fellow inmates and I did in our cells, an activity prohibited until a few weeks ago when our jailers stopped reprimanding us for carrying it out.
I arrived at that Westin Hotel after being part of a movie-like adventure. In a matter of hours and in absolute secrecy, 222 political prisoners o