I have known Uncle Rosell for as long as I can remember. Serious and cheerful at the same time, at the right moments he laughs and even declaims old stanzas with rhythm and rhyme, no matter if it is asonant or consonant. Rosell is a man of work. He is such a working man that he has never wanted to leave his native Santa Justa to come to the city or to settle in other places, even though he has had plenty of proposals for farms, wells and electricity from the national grid. In the hills where he lives he is happy.
Despite the traps that nature sets for him with pests, droughts or excessive rains at times, Uncle Rosell and his family manage to keep alive and maintain in good condition the seeds of certain varieties of plants, from harvest to harvest. This is how the farmer used to be, those who stand in a unique way and do not take off their hats, sometimes not even for lunch.
Uncle Rosell goes up and down the steep hills I don’t know how many times a day, he bends his back and stands upright and even falls. What peasant doesn’t go to the ground when he gets tangled with a vine or because the years and fatigue tangle his feet?
Like Uncle Rosell, there are hundreds of peasants, each one with his own customs and habits, but with similarities, because it is a culture that has been lost in the new generations. Not everyone wants to learn from the old book that does not change the essence. The cycles, tides and moons remain the same, regardless of the emergence of new varieties of sweet potatoes, corn or taro.
Some like to sow grain by grain, others almost to the trickle, they are methods and tastes, but you have to sow, hoe, save seeds and wait for the cycle, so they taught and so it remains, regardless of what the owner of the farm is called or the place where the piece of land is located.
There are farmers who like exotic fruits or varieties: melon, mango, seibei, red guineo or the new varieties of pears and grapes. But they sow, others do not plant a single seed of anything. There is unused land, both state and private.
Whoever stands on one of the many heights that Banes has will realize how much we could have if there was a logical use of the plots of land. I have sometimes heard that “why sow a plant if I am not going to eat from it”. If our grandparents and other ancestors had thought like that, we would not even know fruits like mango. Life is made up of consequences, derivations, it is a network that generates experiences and effects. But common sense and love for the land can be the basis for a better development of the family and society.
Uncle Rosell makes his family happy with his example, defects and virtues. He is the trunk of that common branch that accompanies him and congratulates him. Both nourish each other in their harmony. It is the way of the country man, of the original peasant who follows the path of his genes.
By Orestes Díaz Guerrero /radiobanes.icrt.cu / Translated by Radio Angulo
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