Life Can Prosper Even if Conditions Aren’t Optimal

By Lien Estrada

HAVANA TIMES – When I worked as a guide at the botanical garden in Holguín, I had to take gardening courses. I remember one with particular fondness from a biology professor from Las Tunas who was working on his doctorate while maintaining his ornamental plant sales business.

One of the many anecdotes he shared with us to illustrate what he wanted to teach us about plant cultivation stays with me and makes me smile every time I remember it. And I remember it often. Here is the story:

He told us that whenever he wanted to successfully grow ferns, acacias, cacti, or any other type of plant, they considered the pH of the soil, the humidity or amount of water and its quality to supply it, the days to change the soil for the plant’s nutrients, the sunlight, and all the many factors that biologists take into account when working with their crops. And many times, despite all these cares, the plant might not thrive or would do so with difficulty.

Suddenly, he would visit a house where an elderly lady had planted some phenomenal ferns in a chamber pot where he knew perfectly well that the lady did not follow even half of the care suggestions he gave; and there it was: lush and majestic, that plant imposing beauty and life right where it had been placed.

This amused us. Because that was life on more than one occasion, not only in the experience of a doctoral biology student dedicated to the cultivation and sale of ornamental plants.

And it’s a good thing that this is the case on this island called Cuba. I think. Because if we needed all the conditions for something to grow or develop optimally, I suspect nothing would be achieved due to the shortages and absences that constantly pursue us and become a constant in our daily lives. It’s not for nothing that so many people emigrate daily.

But it seems that nature itself has its own benevolence, and without apparent logical explanations, we have a life that persists and encourages us like a miracle that, even if unexpected, happens. This has really happened to me on several occasions.

Read more from the diary of Lien Estrada aquí en Havana Times.