Between tobacco plantations and beautiful nature, the residents of San Juan and Martínez in Pinar del Río continue to suffer the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which last September destroyed much of the municipality’s infrastructure. Added to the meteor’s winds is the state’s negligence that has kept the Modesto Gómez Rubio school without a roof for half a year.
If the educational center, located at kilometer 5 of the road to Punta de Cartas, is observed from outside, it seems that the cyclone hardly managed to damage it. But its blue walls hide from view the drama that is experienced inside its classrooms, from which Ian tore off the cover and also damaged some columns that supported the fiber cement tiles.
Nora Mesa García, mother of three children and resident of San Juan y Martínez, no longer knows which door to knock or which official to ask to install a new roof at the elementary school where her eight-year-old son is in third grade. The woman details a 14ymedio the sequence of winds, voluntarism and inefficiency that has led them to the current situation.
After Hurricane Ian, former spy Gerardo Hernández, National Coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), arrived in San Juan y Martínez with an official delegation. “He said that the school year had to start even though the parents warned him that the school did not meet the conditions,” recalls Mesa.
Despite the arguments for not restarting classes in the conditions of the property, Hernández ignored the proposals of the neighbors
Despite the arguments for not restarting classes in the conditions that the property was in, Hernández ignored the proposals of the residents of San Juan and Martínez and said goodbye to the municipality with a triumphant phrase: “The course is going!” . Six months later the classes continue, but the risk and inconvenience mark the day to day of students and teachers.
“What was done was to collapse the parts that were in danger of falling and they put two awnings on the little school, with the help of the people from the cooperative,” he adds. “We provided a third awning so that at least the children could each be in their respective classroom and they did not have to be all squeezed into a small space.”
With a small enrollment that does not exceed one hundred students, classes are taught at the educational center from preschool to sixth grade. Mesa describes it as a place with “four small classrooms” of which only three were covered with awnings, a temporary solution that has already served half a year without a comprehensive repair of the property being envisioned.
Before it started, “the Show of the elections” to ratify the deputies to the National Assembly, Mesa verbally claimed several of the delegates of the Popular Power of San Juan y Martínez. “It seems incredible that you do not have the courage to say that here the priority is to repair the school so that the children are safe,” he snapped at them.
“Right now there is a lot of wind and the awnings move all the time and you have to go into those classrooms to feel the terror that the teachers live under those awnings. A few days ago when I went to pick up my son from school, I I found out that one of the awnings had fallen and carried away a piece of rubble that almost hit it,” he laments.
“After that, my eight-year-old son hasn’t gone to school anymore because it’s a very dangerous situation,” he says. “Here, the little that has been done at the premises is due to the initiative of the parents, the cooperative and thanks to the courage of the teachers and the school director who are working despite the risk.”
“We feel as if we were orphans everywhere. The rainy season is about to start and thus it will not be possible to be inside the classrooms”
“They told us that this was going to be temporary and that we had to wait because there were many houses destroyed, tobacco houses completely swept away by the winds. But they did nothing to the little school. They only restored the other school that is at the entrance, in the Calderón neighbourhood, close to the road, because it is the one you see when you arrive”.
Mesa has not stayed in regret and wrote to various institutions demanding that the property be repaired. He received a response from the national investment director of the Cuban Ministry of Education, Francisco Navarro. “He told me that yes, that the school is in the investment plan, but that this is not the only one affected but that there are a total of 218. Many justifications but nothing concrete.”
“We feel as if we were orphans everywhere. The rainy season is about to start and thus it will not be possible to be inside the classrooms,” warns Mesa, who feels indignant because she considers that San Juan y Martínez is one of the municipalities that ” contributes more economically to the country” due to its tobacco production that is sold at high prices in the international market.
“It bothers me because this is an area that is giving the main contribution of layers for tobacco [la hoja que se coloca en el exterior del puro y que debe ser de muy buena calidad], which is hardly being produced in the whole country and it is from here that they are coming out. What hurts me is that the authorities of the Ministry of Education have not even come to see how the situation is.”
“You cannot play with the feelings of the parents. They cannot tell us that it is in an investment plan and nothing happens, because those who are under those awnings are our children,” he considers. “They hold a cigar fair, they hold auctions and everything right under our noses without giving a damn about what we are experiencing here,” she underscores. “It’s frustrating because we’ve run out of hope.”
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