Day 7: Guaracabulla-Matagua

Guaracabulla-Matagua

 

There is very little light in the casa cultural of Guaracabulla. The only light bulb worthy of the name shines in the main room, near the front door. The bathroom, next to the room with the mattress, is dark as a cave. The black mass of a large tank filled with water rose between the sink and a flat floor with a drain near the wall; what passes for a shower in Cuba. I “showered” throwing water from the tank on myself with a small cup. The splashing surprising the skin without forewarning from the eyes. Peeing in the toilet during the night was a challenge, not that a few drops outside the bowl would be noticeable. Flushing meant pulling water out of the tank into the toilette with a larger bucket. Nevertheless, it was, as they say, all good. I surface from the blackness with plentiful sleep and ready to roll at six. 

The promotora had brought me a thermos full of coffee the night before. Drinking coffee like this now – as I awake with the morning, in a small town in the center of Cuba, prepared specially to send me on my way through the Cuban countryside – makes it taste like ambrosia. I pull my pack to the front porch, breathing in the cool morning air. 

The night before I had decided to cut across in the direction of Mal Tiempo, where Esteban fought the Spaniards with Maceo in one of the key battles of the Cuban War for Independence. This meant spending tonight in Matagua, rather than Manicaragua. The cultura reps of the region will meet me at the Minas Bajas bridge to make sure that all is going according to plan.  I’m walking with the decima poet from Guaracabulla and a reporter from Juventud Rebelde who wanted to hear my story and is also a daughter of Guaracabulla. I wait for them on the front porch of the Casa Cultural.

“I’m taking your bag to the bridge,” says the driver brightly. “Me and my wife.” 

I look around for his wife. 

“She’ll be here soon. You go ahead. We’re faster.” 

We shake off the town quickly. Before us stretches a day of winding dirt roads and guardarayas in the cane field under a clear blue sky. The bridge over the Aguabama River at Minas Bajas, where the Manicaragua cultura staffer is scheduled to meet us, is about 20 kilometers away. Following that, another ten or fifteen kilometers lay ahead to Matagua. Flat land is the terrain of the day; a long but easy day of walking. 

The decima king and the reporter are good friends, so they take the time to catch up. They spoke of art projects and plans for the town. Small towns like this, they say, depend on the creativity of the residents and the benevolence of the authorities to have a lively community life. Ideas to develop art projects are plentiful, says the decima king. Some get funded by the regional cultura officials, while some do not. Some stay in the pipeline for so long, working their way through the bureaucratic python of the Ministry of Culture, that they are forgotten or lose their relevancy. We are not talking about projects that require the mass mobilization of resources either, he explains. We are talking about poetry readings, conferences, exhibitions; events designed to bring outsiders to Guaracabulla, to spread the name of the town in cultural circles. Every project must be approved, and the process is a long one. 

  

“The town is shrinking. Young people leave, like this one here, when she was young, she left” he laughs, pointing at the reporter, “And your friend Carlos Alejandro. No one moves to live here.” We walk in silence for a few minutes. 

“But we have talents. A rich culture. The Center of Cuba. A history.” He nods, “We want people to come but we have to give them a reason.”

The reporter is a staff writer for Juventud Rebelde, one of the major newspapers on the island.  When she mentioned walking with us to the next stop, I kept silent about my doubts which doubled when she mentioned bringing along her albino Shih Tzu or whatever that bug-eyed furry rug rat was.   But here we are, walking with a lap dog on a leash.  Our pace is that of an albino lap dog—frustrating but steady—and the others do not seem to mind.  When I manage to sneak in a few more strides a minute, the pace gets to be too much for the little legs, and the reporter scoops up the pooch and places her inside a large handbag.  The dirt road stretches smooth, well-trod, not filled with ruts as are most guardarrayas so the little legs had it as easy as could be expected.

The sound of rumbling engines reaches a crescendo as we climb a dirt slope to the Carretera Central, with its abundance of trucks and buses and camellos (camels), converted trailers pulled by semis reworked to transport people.  The terrain we have covered up to this point, we can see now, rests in a basin. Miles of cane fields and royal palms stretch to the horizon behind us. Now we will cross the carretera and wind our way to the terraplén leading straight to Matagua. The reporter pulls out her detailed map. It is really a magnificent map. Trucks rumble by as she finds the right page.  

“We should have looked at this before,” she says. “Look.”  

Seems like we cut too soon to cross the highway. 

“We should have kept to the interior for a few more kilometers before crossing the highway. There is a straight route to Minas Bajas from a junction up ahead. If we had stayed off the road like this,” she traces a line with her fingers over the paper. “We would have gone in more directly.”  

Now we have to back track a bit after crossing the highway, heading east through Quintin, Los Pinos, La Guasasa, before heading west again at Palo Prieto to Minas Bajas, Tres Palma, Maria Rodrigues and eventually Matagua.

“But this is good,” says the decima king. “We just go across and it’s easy.” 

He had designed the route and I could tell he took it personally that we discussed its deficiencies. 

“This way we have more towns to go through. More interesting route,” I say in support. “And that’s good.” I nod at him, “Thanks.”

***

The towns are farming communities. Houses scattered near and far from crossroads with a store or two. We ask for the terraplén at each juncture until, when finally on it, folks stretched their arms in the cutting-hatchet movement meaning straight ahead when we asked about Matagua.  The scenery is outstanding. The most typically Cuban stretch of the walk so far. Small thatched roofed houses surrounded by small plots of planted land.  Fields and fields of vegetables, tobacco, sometimes cane, and, of course; the palms. The horizon itself is growing palms.  

The Minas Bajas bridge is a strong cement structure that could pass for a regular dirt road if no one told you there was a trickle of a stream beneath. We stop under the shade of a large oak tree and wait. And wait. And wait. The decima king provides the entertainment, rifting on goats and horses and Cubans that live abroad.   

An hour later, we are still waiting.  The horse and buggy arrives with my bag and the driver’s wife aboard. We wait some more.  Thinking perhaps we have the wrong bridge, we roll down the terraplén to the next bridge.  We set up shop there for a while, talking about what could have happened to our hosts. 

“Maybe they are waiting in Matagua,” says the driver. 

“Maybe they’re at the town Minas Bajas. It’s off the terraplén,” says the reporter.  

I listen and look at my watch.  Approaching one o’clock now and we still have fifteen kilometers to hoof before reaching Matagua.  These guys better show soon or I’m walking. Standing still, killing time, being slowed down for the sake of hospitality, is wearing on me. I long for the relative speed and absolute tranquility of simply walking. 

After another hour of waiting, the driver unveils a hidden treasure, opening a cooler filled with beer. 

“What the hell! You’ve been holding back,” I laugh. 

I twist the cap off with some viciousness and guzzle a cold one. “You were planning for a long wait all along, it seems.” 

I needed that more than I realized.  A passing farmer riding a similar model mule and buggy sells us some crackers.  Beer and crackers. The lunch of champions.  

After moving back to the original bridge and after two more hours passed us by, even my Cuban friends began to question whether the cultura folks will show. I was certain that somewhere a promotor and his posse were frantically wondering where I was. 

Our driver mentions that he knows a family a short drive down the terraplén.  Maybe we could go there to use the phone, he suggests. Our cells have no signal but the friends have a landline.

 “Hop on,” he says.  

No more than a kilometer down we park the rig front of a small house with enough land around it for a half dozen pigs and a couple of dozen chickens, all frolicking like they do not have a care in the world. 

An impossibly thin woman throws feed down for the chickens on the side yard.  My father always used the term “no comas de lo que pica el pollo” (don’t eat what the chickens peck) as a euphemism for “no comas mierda” (don’t eat shit; roughly translated into “don’t be a dumbass”) a common Cuban insult. This always puzzled me since I never saw a chicken eating shit, not that I paid close attention to their frantic pecking when in their presence, but these chickens clearly gobbled grain; looked like corn that she was flinging.  Tell a Cuban today, “no comas de lo que pica el pollo,” and I’m not sure that it would be taken as an insult. An objection might result as in “why the hell not? Chickens eat corn pretty good! They eat corn!”

“Eeha,” my driver greets her. 

“Eeha,” as far as I can tell, is the guajiro equivalent to “Hey” and it’s a common greeting among friends or just passing strangers. Homero Bermudez, El Caminante Solitario, introduced me to the two-syllable greeting years ago. Every passerby would receive an “Eeha” from him and respond in kind. I never tried to emulate. Did not come natural at all. 

“Come around back,” says the chicken feeder, waving. “What are you doing around here?”  

“Waiting,” he says. 

Around the back, she balances a tray with coffee and water. We sit with her husband on the narrow back porch leading into the kitchen. We tell them our story.  

“We saw a jeep turn up there towards town,” said the man. “Could have been that one.” 

I am reminded of just how aware rural Cubans are of unusual activity around their area. So much of life is predictable that any break in the pattern of the daily normal is noticeable. 

“It wasn’t long ago. A white jeep.”  

There is no point in using the phone after all as no one knows what number to call.  I get antsy.  We’ve been waiting for hours. 

“We have to get back to the others,” I said.  He nodded.  In the middle of the thank yous and good byes, we hear voices at the gate.  The rest of our group stood there, waving.  “We were getting worried,” said the reporter.  

“So,” I said to them as we climbed into the cart.  “My people are late. I need to get going. You two coming with me?” 

“It’s getting late,” said the decima king. “I was just going to walk you to here and let the next group take over.”

“I have to get to Matagua to take the bus to Havana,” says the reporter. “It’s getting late.”

So we all agree that it is getting late.  And we still have fifteen kilometers to walk.  At a good clip that would put us into Matagua in close to four hours.  After six in the evening.  

I turn to the driver.  “Bueno. What if I hire you and your mule as a taxi to take us to Matagua? Possible?” 

He thinks it over. 

“20 CUCs,” I say. 

“Possible,” he answers. 

We stay on the terraplén straight into Matagua and arrive around four, standing on the blacktop about a kilometer from the center of town.  The reporter puts her dog in her bag and I say good-bye to my two Guaracabulla socios.  

“I’ll see you again,” I say. “Guaranteed.”  

The road leading to Matagua is busy. We walked on the sidewalk past several bus stops and dozens of folks trying to get home by standing on the side of the road waving down passing cars.  Cuban roads are busy all the time with people circulating, or trying to, on a limited number of rolling vehicles. I ask hitchhikers lining the road for directions to the Casa de Cultura and we find the place with no difficulty. On the large front porch stands a young woman. 

“We’ve been waiting for you,” she says before I can introduce myself. There was no mistaking me, walking sticks, backpack, güajiro straw hat.  

The reporter asked about the bus station and declines to be guided there. 

“I’ll find it,” she says and turns to me. “Well, good luck. Stay in touch. I’ll write an article about you in Juventud Rebelde. Or Carlos Alejandro will. We’ll let people know what you’re doing. And thank you.”