Cubans from the Depths of the Valley
Text and Photos by Nester Nuñez (Joven Cuba)
HAVANA TIMES – Once upon a time, in 1872, Grand Duke Alexei, son of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, came to Cuba. Although he spent most of his time in Havana, he was also brought to Matanzas. From the San Severino castle, his arrival to the city was announced with a 21-gun salute. The ordinary townspeople, who had decorated their homes in advance, came out to greet the caravan of carriages carrying the Grand Duke and the cream of the local bourgeoisie as they made their way to the already famous Bellamar Caves, and later to the heights of La Cumbre.
Alexei Alexandrovich Romanov, whom we imagine as mustached and dressed in a ceremonial military uniform with epaulettes, stars, and other symbols of nobility, gazed at the sunset over the Yumurí Valley. He was enraptured, they say, and was heard to remark: “For this valley to be paradise on earth, it only lacks Adam and Eve,” or something like that.
Since centuries ago, the unquestionable natural beauty of the Yumurí Valley has worked its magic. It enchants the soul, I mean, and not just those of poets like Carilda Oliver or Federico García Lorca, who also gazed at the valley from the heights of Monserrate in 1930. As must have happened to them, our gaze and imagination wander through all that hopeful green, through the many palms and hills that make us believe there’s a new horizon still to be conquered, that life isn’t just about working to pay bills—at best, or the daily struggle with stale bread, water shortages, and blackouts. Climbing up here means taking a breather, a vacation, leaving reality behind, getting blissfully lost, for you deserve it.
You watch your children run, kiss your partner, share a bottle of rum with friends, and smile for a final selfie when the Eden-like landscape turns golden. For a moment, you feel like an artist, a prince, a romantic poet, a full owner of beauty. The little houses below add an exotic touch to the photo. You might even think how cute or funny it would be to see a canoe of natives casting nets on the river. A second later, you’re fleeing because a swarm of mosquitoes and gnats has emerged from the woods, making it impossible to stay. You rush back to your own routine, even if it’s the same old, thinking that the countryside is lovely, yes—but only for a little while, and from afar. The usual thing is to remain in the postcard and never really learn anything.
Juan Basura was not a farmer. After the destruction caused by Hurricane Flora in 1963, his family was relocated from the eastern provinces to Matanzas. After much wandering, in 2002 he ended up building a small house in the valley while continuing to work at the Cubanitro company. On his plot of land he planted plantains and all kinds of fruit trees, the stony ground doesn’t allow for much else. The most well-off period was the 21 years he worked for the municipal sanitation services. He raised pigs, chickens, rabbits… He expanded the house and replaced some wooden planks with stone. If not happy, at least Juan and his wife had some measure of peace.
It was she who planted ornamental plants in plastic containers that still hang on the porch; who arranged all the little dolls Juan brought her atop the empty shell of a Russian TV set; who used a colorful LGBTIQ flag to separate the living room from the would-be kitchen; who cleaned the artificial flower petals and sprinkled water on the dirt floor to keep the dust down. She also gathered mangos and avocados, made guava jam, tended to the chickens, cooked over a wood fire, and watched over the house when Juan was out working, which wasn’t easy. But she had type 2 diabetes and one day, she died. Juan was left alone.
The lack of rain doesn’t help, he says. He points to the “jobo” mangos, with their perfume-like taste, and says that’s why he sells them cheap. He retired with a monthly pension of 4,225 pesos ($11.50 USD) after 21 years in sanitation services. “Getting paid is a hassle. Either there’s no electricity when you get there, or the ATM has no money, or who knows what else. If you don’t waste the trip entirely, you spend the whole day on it.” His biggest worry is leaving the house unattended for too long. The fear of theft and criminals never leaves his mind.
It’s worse at night. Taking advantage of the blackout-driven cooking gas shortage, Juan has been making charcoal for months. He chopped down a couple of male mamoncillo trees that bear no fruit and gets to work with his axe and machete. About 60 or 70 meters from the house, he arranges horizontal kilns, like a bed, because cone-shaped ones are harder to manage. “When it forms a mouth—because it always does in the middle—you’ve got to have chopped sticks ready, add weeds and dirt. If you only use dirt, it smothers and you lose all your effort.”
While the kiln is burning, he has to stay alert constantly. Juan makes countless trips between the kiln and the house: cooking, fetching water, checking on the animals. “It’s up the hill with a flashlight, then down to check the house, all by myself. It’s three or four nights, depending on the size of the kiln. I barely sleep. Each one gives me at most 15 sacks. I can’t make them too big.”
Juan walks the five kilometers into town pushing a wheelbarrow with seven sacks. A reseller friend buys them for a thousand pesos each (just under $3 USD). When he gets back, he’s dead tired. Some afternoons he lies on the bed watching DVDs. The old device still plays the discs he used to find while working sanitation. He has a ton of them, and what appears on screen is always a surprise—it could be a movie, a documentary, a red carpet event, or a Mexican soap opera. Sometimes the video stops halfway.
Juan doesn’t even get annoyed anymore. He steps out onto the porch to sip coffee and lets his gaze wander over his little plot, then toward the distant hills. He doesn’t know it, but up there a tourist, a poet, or an amateur photographer is thinking how beautiful the countryside is. But then the sandflies come out, and Juan crawls under his mosquito net.
Not far from there, Mildrey is already asleep. She’ll leap from bed at three in the morning to keep watch. She’s an agricultural technician and has worked the furrows on this side of the valley for 29 years. Her and her husband’s farm is much larger than Juan’s, but since it’s in hilly terrain with average-quality soil, it only qualifies as subsistence-level. They have well-lit pens for pigs and cows, plus three mongrel dogs that bark at the slightest sound, but they can’t let their guard down for a second. Thieves are always waiting. People who want to live off others’ labor.
“Bad nights aren’t easy. A few months ago, they stole a bull from us. We had an idea they took it to a part of the river where the mangroves are really thick. The problem is that here, each farm is a kilometer apart. So what, are you going to grab a machete and face those criminals? We called the police. What did they say? That it wasn’t a priority. So, I let them kill the bull. That’s when we realized we have no support and have to guard the animals ourselves, because that was one of the first thefts around here.”
At six in the morning, Lazaro is already milking cows. A bit later, the workers arrive. They don’t get paid. They’re friends, like an extended family. If it’s time to harvest tomatoes and make puree, four or five show up. Mildrey cooks anyway, enough for two or three extras, because whoever arrives unannounced is also welcome at the table.
Alberto is the oldest. He has a nice house in the city that’s now too big for him. His whole family moved to the US. His kids send him plenty of money each month, so he comes to the farm because he likes it, to stay active, to spend time with good people, because loneliness at his age is rough. He bought a white mare and a cart to go back and forth. He bought some pigs and split them with Mildrey and Lazaro. Sometimes he shows up with a bottle of rum or some beers to share after the workday.
The youngest is Yuniel. He came from Guantanamo, brought by an uncle who also worked the farm before emigrating. Yuniel does sleep at the house. He says he’s not going back East. He hardly talks. Mostly, he works in the furrows and laughs at others’ jokes.
“Tocayo” lives in Simpson, a neighborhood of rumba and Santería. He works 24-hour shifts at Varadero airport, and during his three days off, he comes to the farm to do whatever’s needed. On the way back, he takes some sweet potatoes, a squash, mangos, custard apples, maybe a chicken, whatever they offer. Anything helps, but he never asks for anything. Manuel, his friend and neighbor, knows what’s up. He also helps on the farm whenever he can.
While they’re gathering tomatoes, an inspector shows up asking for paperwork. Lazaro handles it, since Mildrey is cutting sesame and sunflowers for the chickens and picking some root vegetables for a stew. The result: a fine for planting on land they don’t own. Land that belongs to a friend who’s temporarily abroad and gave them written permission, of course.
“Part of the tomatoes, squash, and sweet potatoes we’re contracted to sell to the daycare center come from that borrowed land. But they don’t consider that if we only used our land, there wouldn’t be enough food for us or anyone else. Up here it’s too arid, and it doesn’t rain. Down on the plain it’s more fertile and the water table isn’t deep. That saves the crops, because there’s no way to irrigate, the State doesn’t sell herbicides or fertilizer, and on the black market it’s too expensive. Food production is needed—but honestly, who understands them?”
It’s incredibly frustrating to know there’s always someone up there, a duke, a poet, an inspector, a bad manager, a politician, who looks out over the valley without truly seeing. Or worse, who delights in the golden surface of the river, knowing it hides plenty of mud and other filth below. If the descendants of the Russian Grand Duke, of Lorca’s countrymen, if the Chinese or Vietnamese, or better yet, if Alberto’s relatives abroad, invested their money in agriculture, would Cuba become an idyllic Eden? Are we missing Adams and Eves, capital, or many more things?
The problems of rural people concern those of us in the cities too. Our hands are dirty, not just from the red soil that gets under our nails while peeling root vegetables. Workers and farmers are the same exploited class and, at the same time, the force of change, as history has taught us. There is more beauty in unity than in gazing at the sunset.
