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Stories from Flor del Campo

Secundino Antonio Casco: "The city promised us they would fix this problem"

Secundino Antonio Casco was born in Soledad, El Paraíso, but he has lived for 21 years in Flor del Campo in Tegucigalpa, where he has educated his five children and filled his home with grandchildren. Today 14 people live in his house.

"When I first came here there were no homes. I was one of the first people to come to live here. My house was one of the first. In the beginning it was just a little wood house, but little by little I have fixed it up some," he explained.

Casco is one of the cases of titles that are not registered. After he paid the city for his property, he received documents naming him the owner, but due to the legal actions of Siri Zúñiga, his dream of ownership has yet to be fully realized.

"We are waiting for the city to help us solve this problem. I paid the city. I have had my title for 7 months. They gave me all the papers necessary for the registration and then we learned that the Registry of Property would not register it," he recounted. "The city promised us they would fix this problem."

Paula Corrales: "I had to go pay for what was already mine"

In the San Buenaventura neighborhood there is a small house built of wooden planks. Bushes and flowers decorate the front but inside there is only a wooden table, three chairs and two small armchairs covered with a sheet. Paula Corrales lives here, a humble women of 59 years of age who has paid three times for her property.

Corrales bought it the first time more than 15 years ago from an individual, but when legal problems began to arise over the land, she decided to pay the monthly payments the city demanded.

Eleven years passed and Corrales, who raised 9 children, received a notice that a stranger claimed to have bought the property from the Zúñigas. Mr. Luis Beltrán brought the police to evict Corrales, with the evidence of a title granted by the Zúñigas. In other words, they had sold him land she had paid for years earlier.

Corrales was arrested on the street at the entrance to her house and put in jail with common criminals. "I was under arrest for five days. They caught me as I was coming from work. They had an order to arrest me for staying on the land illegally," she remembered.

After paying an expensive lawyer to get her released from prison, the harassed woman continued to receive eviction notices and under the constant pressure, she finally agreed to pay for her house for the third time.

"Finally I came to an agreement with Beltrán and I paid him 60,000 lempiras. My daughter-in-law told me that I could not keep running from this because I did not have anywhere to go. I had to turn around and buy what was already mine."

Natalia Rodas: "Sometimes I really do not know what to do"

At the end of dirt road in Flor del Campo, you can see the red roses covering Natalia Rodas' house.

"I have lived here since 1981 and I have paid the city of Tegucigalpa for my little house, but I still do not own it. We went to a meeting held by the Zúñigas, but we did not give them money because we already had an agreement with the city," she explained.

Rodas spent a lot time trying to figure out who to pay for the land on which she lives. The city was demanding money, but Zúñiga was also sending notices to collect payments. "We did not know who to pay and we were stuck. It seemed more secure to me to work with someone in authority. So I worked with the city, where I owed only 1,500 lempiras more," she added.

"I still do not have my title. They tell you to pay and you pay. They tell you to stop and you stop. Last year I was about to finish my payments, but we stopped when the city told us to. Sometimes I really do not know what to do," she said.

Maria Luisa Mendoza: "She told me: Look, this is something I feel bad about, but there is nothing to be done about it."

Maria Luisa Mendoza has lived in this neighborhood 23 years and has paid both the city and the Zúñigas for her land, and she has still not been able to gain a title to her land.

"The truth is when you pay someone, they should give you a paper showing what you bought, but they gave me a paper and told me to come back in three years to ask if it was a title. The titles from the Zúñigas have not worked for anyone," stated Mendoza.

"To finish it, I paid the city too. I have the receipts and I began the process of getting the title. In the mayor's office the clerk Antonieta de Andino told me that she felt very sorry for me, but there was nothing she could do with the payments I made to Zúñiga. She told me: Look, this is something I feel bad about, but there is nothing to be done about it," Mendoza related.

"This house has cost me part of my soul. I am 49 years old. My two sons and I built this house ourselves," she said, with evident anguish.

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