Mal Tiempo
Mal Tiempo was necessary to give courage to the Cubans and to give strength to the revolution. Anyone who fought there left convinced he could face the enemy….Maceo was certain of victory. He was tougher than a hardwood tree.
--Esteban Montejo
Night falls softly in this area of the flatlands. Buses emptying workers into the dusty streets, tilting with the weight of the passengers pouring out the same side. Men stand on the sidewalks or leaning against walls rehashing the day’s news. Walkers hurry somewhere important. This corner is the crossroads of the town. Men sit on the wall of the Casa de Cultura facing the street or stand facing those who are, telling stories, gesturing wildly, well into the night. It was the town crier corner. I sit on the porch and watch the town breathe.
Around eight I get ready for bed. I decide against sleeping on the sofa and lay out my mat, lining up the two available fans to deliver what passes for coolness all over my body. As I’m getting my toiletries in order, I see a large, muscular man open the gate from the street and walk towards the open front door.
“Aquí no hay nadie,” I say. There’s nobody around.
“I know,” he says. “I’m the night watchman,” El sereno.
They are the only words he says to me all night. He makes the rounds in silence, which in the case of the one room building means looking around, checking the back door, inspecting from afar the few furnishings, opening the second door facing the street at the other end of the front porch and taking the keys from their hanging place above the phone. He takes a chair from around the folding table and places it outside, under the roof at the corner of the property, facing the crossroads and the crier’s corner. He sits and looked out into the street, saying not another word to me.
I sleep on the floor as well as could be expected. Sometime near dawn, a loud snoring wakes me up. The sereno asleep on the sofa. I am glad that I had left it for him.
****
I awake to the sound of the town stirring as workers deal with the transportation headaches that are life’s rollcall for every Cuba. The buses and converted trucks that transport most of the population for as little as one Cuban peso fill up quickly. At around five thirty, the night watchman packs up as well.
“I’m heading to my day job now,” he says.
Aniel arrives a few minutes late. I finish the coffee and guayaba juice brought by the promotora and saddle the backpack.
Aniel and I work our way through the back roads in the direction of Los Baños de Bija, a venue of hot springs famous for attracting a vast number of tourists until the priorities of the Revolution devalued them. Regularly scheduled minibuses full of visitors left Cruces and Potrerillo to take the passengers to spend the day at the baths. This lasted into the 1960s, well after the Triumph of the Revolution. At some point, the place fell out of favor of the regional development planners and the buses stopped coming in, as did the tourists.
“The baths are still there” says Aniel. “In ruins,” like some ancient aboriginal temple, overrun by vegetation.
We make a beeline to the baths through short grass and brambles. The wall of marabú soon becames too much for us. About two kilometers from the baths, the thorny bush overwhelms the path and forces us to go wide, further north, to follow the more easily traveled dirt roads around the hilly, barbed wire enclosed pastures.
The Bija path needs to be recovered for the Camino del Cimarron, I note in my journal. The marabú must be conquered and the ruins of the baths restored. For the sake of the towns nearby, the recuperation of the Baños de Bija, as a stop along this Camino del Cimarron, could serve as an engine for economic development in the regions.
We zig and zag through the hills, ducking under barbed wires and sometimes backtracking until eventually, we find a clean path towards Navaja, the small settlement where the promotora from Mal Tiempo awaits. We signal to some farmers and workers turning over the soil on a recently cut cane field.[1] Our path runs above them, on a slight incline. Below us stretches a lake of cane stubs jutting from rich red earth, bounded by the bluish tint of the Escambray Mountains at the horizon. Two teams of deep brown oxen led by two thin, leather tanned guiajiros crush through the bristle.
“This the way to Navaja?” asks Aniel, gesturing down the tractor trail.
The guajiro nearest to us points with his entire arm in the same direction. We nod and kept walking.
Soon we see a lone wooden house in a barren hill cleared from the surrounding woods; two small women stand by the front door.
“That’s Maipu, the promotora cultural of Mal Tiempo. We made it,” Aniel says, his face brightening. He looks and sounds surprised.
“Buenos dias,” we greet.
“Señora,” I nod to the older, thin woman at the door. “Do you live here?” I ask Maipu.
“Oh no. But this is my area. I know everyone here. This was a good place to meet since I had to talk to Cari anyway.” Cari stands in the doorway and waves as we head out.
“This way,” says Maipu. She signals down a narrow walking path that led into the marabú.
“You coming with us, niño?” she asks Aniel.
“Yes. I’ll catch a ride back from Mal Tiempo,” he says.
***
We walk quickly the two kilometers through the narrow path cutting through the low green bushes leading to the monument commemorating the battle of Mal Tiempo. The plaza, with the obelisk at its center, erupts in front of us and we left the thick brush behind. On one side of the plaza is a motel, empty of visitors, it seems. On the other side of the obelisk are the ruins of a brick fort overtaken by the rebels during their assault. Other structures in various states of renovation litter the area around the site as well as a few inhabited houses leading into the fields away from the encampment. A small but healthy ceiba tree grows at the edge of the plaza. It was a product of the “Camino de las 100 Ceibas” (The Trail of the 100 Ceibas) project which had the goal of planting 100 ceibas throughout the country at important historic sites. The cement plaque at its foot identified it as Ceiba #64, planted on October 11, 2011.
“It’s one of the few that has taken root and thrived,” says Maipu; pride warming her voice.
The obelisk dates to 1910. It was constructed in commemoration of those who fought and perished at the Battle of Mal Tiempo. The monument served as the tomb for the bodies of seventy-nine Spaniard and seven Cuban casualties exhumed and reburied at its base. The battle it memorializes represents a foundational event for the Cuban nation and identity.
On December 15, 1895, rebel troops, headed by Maximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, entered the region of Cienfuegos. Esteban joined the group further east, sometime around the third or fourth of December. They met a resisting Spanish force of about 2,000 at Mal Tiempo, defeating them in what turned out to be a critical battle in the westward movement of the rebel army. At Mal Tiempo, Esteban fought alongside Antonio Maceo, the Bronze Titan, second in command of the liberation forces against Spain, and Maximo Gomez, the Dominican born Major General who headed the Cuban forces. Both were veterans of the 10 Years War (1868-1878) and now pushed westward in what would be the final war of independence from Spain.
The use of the term Mambí to refer to the Cuban independence fighters of the 10 Years War and the War of Independence (1895-1898). Various versions of the origin of the reference runs through popular culture. In one version the term is associated with a certain Eutimio Mambí, a black Spanish army officer, who deserted to fight for the independence of Santo Domingo in 1846. His men gained fame as particularly fearless fighters who used the machete in frightening and effective ways while the Spaniards fumbled their formations and one-shot muskets. They soon became known as “Mambí’s Men” (los hombres de Mambí) or Mambíses. The Spaniards referred to the Cuban patriots as Mambíses because of their similar savage use of the machete, particularly on horseback, and the guerrilla tactics which wreaked havoc on old world infantry traditions. An early Cuban historian claimed that the battle of Mal Tiempo was the first assault where the Mambí army depended entirely on the machete as a weapon. Other origin stories trace the term back to aboriginal roots associated with rebellion and, in Biografía de un Cimarron, Esteban is unsure of its root but believes it has African origins.
Former slaves composed a substantial portion of the rebel fighters. Esteban joined the Mambí army while working at the Ariosa mill, with his friend Juan Fabregas. He joined the front at Camagüey and, by the time the troops reached Mal Tiempo, he was well incorporated into the ranks. Mal Tiempo was his first encounter with the Spaniards and it was a decisive victory for the Mambí army. The brutal battle decimated the Spanish forces throughout the entire region. The Mambí army set fire to the cane fields and charged like savages on horseback with their machetes. The machete attacks were unstoppable. Heads literally rolled during this assault.
Esteban remembered General Maceo as a motivator, an inspirational leader. He remembered being unclear about the purpose of the war until Maceo made a speech before Mal Tiempo to motivate the troops. After the speech, independence meant something for Esteban. Cuba might have been an abstraction before, an idea rather than a place, a nation. But after the speech, Esteban realized that he was fighting for the independence of Cuba and for his own independence. The entire island, an island full of Cimarrónes, was fighting to be free from the rule of others. Fighting for freedom was something he understood.
When we got to Mal Tiempo, Maceo gave the order to fight face-to-face. And that’s how it was done. The Spaniards, from the moment they saw us, went stiff all over. They thought we came armed with short carabines and Mausers. But, shit, what we did was take some shafts of wild guava and carry them under our arms to scare them. They went crazy when they saw us, and they threw themselves into the thick of it, but the fight didn’t last long because at almost the same instant we started to chop off their heads. But really chopping them off. The Spaniards were scared shitless of the machetes. They weren’t afraid of rifles—but machetes, yes. I raised mine and from a distance said, “You bastard, now I’m going to cut your head off. Then the starched little soldier turned tail immediately and took off….They started to think we were animals, not men—that’s how they came to call us Mambíses. Mambí means the child of a monkey and a buzzard. It was a taunting phrase, but we used it in order to cut off their heads. (135-136)
The inscription on the monument at Mal Tiempo reads: "En este histórico lugar, el 15 de diciembre de 1895, nuestro ejército libertador, al mando de los generales Antonio Maceo y Máximo Gómez, derrotó las fuerzas españolas en batalla decisiva demostrándose una vez más el arrojo, valentía y firmeza de nuestros heroicos Mambíses. Quien intente apoderarse de Cuba, recogerá el polvo de su suelo anegado en sangre, si no perece en la lucha" - Antonio Maceo[2]
According to Orlando, Esteban continued with the liberating army into Matanzas, Havana and Pinar del Rio, the regiment led by Maceo, until the great general met his end near the small town of San Pedro, killed in an insignificant skirmish against the Spaniards.[3]
[1] From November through April, just before the beginning of the rainy season, sugar production is at its peak in Cuba. After that, is the period called “tiempo muerto” or “dead time,” when field workers clear fields and try to make ends meet until the next sugar cycle.
2] “In this historic place, on December 15, 1895, our liberating army, under the command of Generals Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez, defeated the Spanish forces in a decisive battle, demonstrating once again the daring, courage and firmness of our heroic Mambises. Whoever tries to seize Cuba will collect the dust from its soil flooded with blood, if he does not perish in the fight.”
[3] Personal correspondence with Orlando Garcia Martinez. See also Foner, Philip Sheldon, Antonio Maceo: the "bronze titan" of Cuba's struggle for independence, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977.
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