Jorge Olivera (b. 1961) and Nancy Alfaya (b. 1962) were supposed to be examples of the New Man predicted by Ernesto “Che” Guevara — individuals born in the socialist Revolution, free from the original sin of having tasted the capitalist apple, ready to kill and obey in the name of utopia.

Both spent most of their lives in Old Havana, the historic center of the Cuban capital. It is a place that is remembered for the proliferation of lots, the vast majority of which are in terrible structural condition and are occupied by numerous families. Every other day, it seems, a balcony falls on pedestrians or an entire building collapses with the beauty of its eclectic architecture and its miserable inhabitants inside.

Part of a family of five brothers, Jorge studied to be a telecommunications technician, and when he was 19 years old, he was put on a ship, crossed the Atlantic, and completed his Mandatory Military Service in the Angolan civil war. To defend the socialist regime of Agostinho Neto, Fidel Castro sent tanks, planes, and bodies of young men. More than 2,000 returned in coffins.

Jorge served from 1981 to 1983 in the jungle, and about that experience that put him on the brink of death more than once, he wrote two books, one of fiction titled “Before Dawn and Other Stories,” and the poetry collection “Quemar las Naves.”

Back in Havana, he took a video editing course, and began working for official television. He was there for 10 years. There he had his first experiences and disappointments in relation to censorship in the media and the rest of Castro’s cultural institutions. The thing about freedom, he saw firsthand, was a lie.

He says that at that time he began to live as a dissident, someone who to some extent opposed the socialist system and tried to change it through peaceful means. Although he always saw himself as a defender of freedom of expression, in the 1990s he stepped into the void: he became an “open-faced dissident.”

Since March 1993, he had joined the pro-democratic movement, first as Secretary of Dissemination and Propaganda of the Confederation of Democratic Workers of Cuba. It was a conscious decision. He was clear about the consequences to which he was exposing himself.

Jorge was also one of the journalists of the independent press agency Habana Press, founded in 1995 and among the pioneers of journalism outside the State during Castroism. At the beginning of the 2000s he himself would direct it, with several of its founders already exiled in Spain, including Rafael Solano, Luisa Robaina, Osmel and Maritza Lugo, Daniel Mejías, and Obett Matos.

The work, in which they had to deal with the paleolithic internet in Cuba, was artisanal. Jorge and other reporters from the island went to the house of someone they knew who had a telephone line. There, they dictated the articles to someone in exile, who then reproduced them on various websites, to facilitate the international dissemination of Cuban reality.

At that time, in addition to journalistic work, Jorge published his poems in independent media such as Revista de Cuba (2002), from the Manuel Márquez Sterling Journalist Society, a member of the Reporters Without Borders network.

In 1997, Nancy and Jorge crossed paths by chance in the central Parque de la Fraternidad. When the two first met, in 1980 in the populous neighborhood of Belén, Nancy was a friend of Jorge’s sister. But something attracted them that day of reunion.

It had been a long time since they had seen each other. He was involved in what was popularly known as “Human Rights,” “the Human Rights people,” the anti-establishment activists who tried to educate other citizens about the freedoms that socialism took away from them. She was beginning her journey as a Christian.

While Nancy shared the teachings of the Bible with Jorge, he spoke to her about the ins and outs of anti-totalitarian activism. Each one was nourished by the experiences and knowledge of the other. Theology and politics. Verb and action. The high and the earthly. Everything was intertwined in their conversations.

For Jorge, God made individuals free and therefore he considered that passivity in the face of the excesses of an atheistic and abusive regime was not acceptable. “I respect the decision that everyone makes, whether they are Christians or not. I know that fear is a beast that many have not been able to subdue,” he observed. “In my case, I was able to tame it with faith and the conviction that God is in control of what happens in my life. For him who believes, everything works for good.”

“Jorge didn’t know about God and I didn’t know anything about the issue of human rights. It was a perfect combination,” Nancy said. “Our union was strengthened in the love of God and in the love for the freedom of Cuba. It was a stage with enormous challenges, but love conquers all. We are one flesh, one for the other, until eternity.”

She had known the gospel thanks to her aunt and grandmother, both Seventh-day Adventists. She remembers them talking to her about the Bible, although in truth she only gave her life to Jesus after a terrible accident, when she fell from the first floor of a building under construction in central Havana. “I cried out to God from the ground, promising to be faithful to him. It was a miracle to survive without sequelae. The accident occurred on February 8, 1994 and I was baptized on October 22.”

She began to congregate with her aunt and her grandmother at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Cerro municipality. Something she remembers vividly about both of them was their criticism of socialism, especially her grandmother’s criticism of Fidel Castro. Although at that time Nancy had no idea what human rights were, and she was unaware of the existence of an opposition against the dictatorship, she said that in her “there were rebellious feelings waiting to materialize. I never sympathized with the dictatorial system.”