If I got nostalgic in the previous quote, with this one I almost cried when I thought about it. I’ll be honest, my husband suggested it. I did not look for a single piece of information on the Internet to find out the number of scholarship holders per year, nor the causes, or the most varied reasons why they made me invest three years of my life collecting how much citrus fruit had been planted near the Junior High School in the Field where I survived part of my adolescence. Or veneering, or collecting stones to make a fence.
I asked no one, because my personal anecdote is quite notorious as to need references. And I am convinced that these stories are replicated throughout the country, with more or less substance. I think that in the Cuban chapter of scholarships they also owe us thousands of responses.
And I say I survived, with all of the law, because still —without shocking the issue—, there are times when I think that working is honorable, even from an early age, if it is regulated and combined with other activities to make that young person , a good human being. But that, at least in the period in which I had to study high school, was not study/work. I insist: it was surviving. We are talking about the nineties.
The students from almost all the municipalities received scholarships, those from the provincial capital did not, as in the case of my husband. They had access to high school in the city and only spent a few weeks of school in the country in each course.
I think my mom once told me who the “ideologues” of the Unión de Reyes scholarship schools had been. But I don’t remember it anymore, just as I don’t remember many of the names of those who lived with me for three years, too far from home for our liking.
[embedded content]
I do remember, and in the least pleasant way, a field technician who yelled a sea of profanity at us so that we would not stop and be able to comply with the norm. The competition was between the technicians and us, who could barely carry the jolongs (the laptop’s corrector points out this ugly word in red), we cried from the effort and the fear that —as happened on several occasions— we would They will take after teaching hours to finish the rule that we broke on the day.
How defenseless I felt, I, the only daughter of parents who were teachers, a beloved granddaughter, a fat bitonga with glasses, orthopedic shoes, a knee-length skirt, short hair and a height that did not exceed 1.45 m —with a reputation for being a know-it-all, too—, when that woman shouted so many bad words at us… I still think she invented them right there, exclusively for us. In my twelve years she had never heard such a prosaic arsenal emerging from a human mouth.
And nobody saw that, I never knew that they called her attention or sanctioned her. And we returned with our souls in suspense to school, from the furrow, almost in silence. Believe me if I confess that for years I came to hate the very tasty oranges. Irony of fate: today I miss them and my children barely know them, why talk about tangerines. I inherited an electric juicer that I have used twice? in seven years.
The other day of extreme survival awaited us when we arrived from the field. Perfectly my Perla paste or my Vitral soap were not in the locker and I had to wait for one of my little friends to take a bath, in addition to running out of lunch, so as not to be late for the teacher.
I couldn’t list the times my stockings, food, or underwear were stolen, the “rags” that my mom prepared for me to get through my period, the things in my hair… No mercy. But the hair thing I did solve quickly: I peeled very short the first chance I had. My classic wooden suitcase could not hold a lock, far from my sight it was a constant prey to the insatiable hunger of so much accumulated adolescence.
Today they would have told me that I am a dot, but the majority in the shelter, in the school, was without a doubt. We were points of the older girls and some abusive boys. And, without mentioning names, I will state that we were also mistreated by a lot of teachers and deputy directors.
Starting at five in the afternoon, a school with hundreds and hundreds of teenagers and very few staff on duty, was a hive of hormones. I think we were pretty good. I like to think that it is that we did not have the criteria, knowledge and tools of today’s youth. Also the share of irreverence of today’s youth, or the Internet…
(Photo: Kaloian / OnCuba)
I imagine the protests that would have been armed in front of the dining room, on the third day of serving rice (little, medium and stinky and hard), water upstairs, little balls of peas in the back and one or two boiled eggs per diner. And the night an owl’s head ball was spilled in the soup… Epic.
We didn’t protest, whether or not we went to the dining room, with those aluminum trays that later became plastic, help me God! to eat that. I still close my eyes and retain in my nose the characteristic smell of a school canteen. And if I had to clean the tables on the day of the operation…
In contrast, I treasure wonderful moments with my professor Braulio, from Chemistry, an adorable old man from Bolondrón, who prepared me for the contests and told me about his childhood behind a warehouse counter; or my teacher Carmita, recently deceased due to the awful Covid and the negligence of some. And my Geography teacher, Carlos Jesús, from whom I think I inherited the taste for cacti. I think of my school library and of the Jules Verne books that I devoured there, with twice the hunger that Onelio Jorge Cardoso spoke of.
Those memories come and go, accompanied by the time my entire hostel had to line up to wash the towel for the dorm manager. Someone had put it in the sanitary cup, a well served school cup… and we all paid the consequences.
Speaking of consequences. I still have the mark, near the elbow on my left arm, inward, from the iron burn K gave me. It all happened in seconds. I remember waking up with a start on the top bunk, with a lot of heat in her hand and her, laughing heartily in the hallway at such a joke, with the instrument of murder in her hand.
It was ninth grade and I, I was a point of seventh. She was a huge brunette with big tits and we were terrified of her. I never remember talking to her if it wasn’t with my eyes lowered. Well, I didn’t talk to her, she shouted orders at us so that the barracks should clean the hostel with a lot, a lot of water, loaded in buckets from the first floor to the third.
I never told my parents about this. It seemed like personal cowardice to me. Today I still think so, but it was also a lot of collective bullying. Didn’t any adult know that this kind of harassment was happening? Or did they turn a blind eye? We had to be there, it was the way to study. There was no other option. I had no family in Matanzas to go to the urban high school. He had to survive at all costs. The homeland, the historical moment, cara…
Another short film from the UNFORGETTABLE folder. We didn’t have a pass that weekend. Eleven days to go and the headache or the perennial cold from the cold showers would not give me the vote to be at home. Ah, a little friend convalescing from conjunctivitis in the infirmary was the answer to all my worries. The handkerchief, previously rubbed on her eyes, barely touched mine and on Thursday night my father had to go look for me, in a borrowed motor, because the director called him urgently.
How did the story of my green and then red eyes end? Fifteen precious days of vacation at the Pediatric Hospital. A book keratitis. Oh, please, if my dad asks you, don’t tell him that I made such a confession: at this point he still goes and gives me retroactive penance.
Of course I keep other succulent stories, but a friend recommended that I fictionalize them to write a novel. I don’t know if I can, I swear before God that this is the first time in my life that I write about BECA. I have never written a poem about this.
I would like, as someone else recommended, to collect interviews, testimonials from students and teachers. Because a topic like that is too small for me with fiction. And I would go out to look for data, statistics, results of the various stages of scholarship schools in Cuba. Is there research on the subject? Fortunately, my children will not have to live similar experiences. At least not one of these (even if they don’t eat oranges). Nor the children of so many others who survived the scholarships.
(Photo: Observe Cuba)
What a turn of the wheel: those schools today are family homes, offices or nature has taken them by storm.
The final balance?: first ranking of grades, many youthful readings, the holes from “above” in the ears and the eternal friendship with Yanelys Sotolongo. Our older children are also friends, despite the geographical distances. I didn’t learn to dance casino: I postponed that lesson for high school.
And the pre scholarship? Ah, that’s another story, within so many other stories.
