“Does anyone know where we’re going?” one of the older boys asked. The rest of us shook our heads. “Then I guess there is nothing to do but wait.”
At first it felt good to stand and move about after the long bumpy ride, but eventually we began to settle down. There was a fallen tree across the narrow path. The older girls claimed the log, and the older boys lounged against trees or found a rock to perch on. The rest of us put our rucksacks on the ground and sat on them. It was well past noon before we gave up straining our necks toward the path, looking for someone to appear. No one dared start a song. Who might be out there, just beyond earshot, in that dark forest?
We barely whispered to one another as we nibbled our lunch like rabbits. I suppose I should have been comforted by the knowledge that I wasn’t alone in my fear, but I wasn’t. I wanted the older ones to be brave. I wanted my comrades to say to me that there was nothing to be afraid of.
Across the narrow path, a lizard poked its head out from under a rock. It seemed to study us, and, satisfied that we were harmless, slid out and climbed the rock to a patch of sunlight on top. It sat with its head still and erect, but it curled and uncurled its little striped tail as though making the most of the warmth. I don’t especially like reptiles, but that little curly-tailed lizard reminded me of home. They are everywhere — even in Havana. For a few minutes, it made those woods seem less alien.
“Shh,” said Carlos, one of the older boys, even though we were being very quiet. He had seen someone coming down the path. “He has a gun.”
We sat in frozen silence as an armed man came into view. And then we saw that he was being followed along the path by a young man and a young woman. They were both wearing the uniform and badges of the Conrado Benítez Brigade. We all began to laugh out of sheer nervous relief. The soldier was one of our own, protecting the pair who were to be our squad leaders, Esteban, our jefe, or commander, and Lilian, his assistant. We jumped to our feet, eager to follow them into our new life.
I don’t think we hiked more than two or three kilometers before we came to a settlement of sorts. Esteban told us this was our base. The thirty of us would be scattered about at various farms in the area, but on Sundays we were to return to base. “You will report your successes and your failures, and we will try to help one another become better teachers,” he explained.
“And we’ll have fun together, too,” said Lilian. “It won’t be all work.”
I felt a little annoyed when she said that. I had come to work with the campesinos, not to play with other brigadistas.
The thirty of us, ten boys and twenty girls, were divided into neighborhood teams. Esteban carefully parceled out the boys so that each team would have one boy. Juan was the boy in my team, Maria the other girl.
I had watched Maria at lunch, while she sat on the log, eating her sandwich. I guess I always notice the pretty one. She had bright eyes; long, black, glossy hair; and the kind of skin my mother would have gushed over — she was the sort of girl the older boys would notice as well. I guessed she must be a couple of years older than I, and as it turned out she had recently turned sixteen.
Juan was shorter than I was, although he looked to be about my age. His cheeks were pimply, and he had a cockiness about him, but that might have just been to make up for his height. He seemed disappointed that the boys had been separated and that he would have two girls to work with. But he shook his head, as if to say, Oh, well, it can’t be helped, and gave us a grin as he walked over to get acquainted.
When we were all standing about in our little teams, Esteban said, “Look carefully at these two people. Your team members will be the brigadistas you will know best and depend on most.”
Esteban and Lilian began our orientation by sharing some of their own experiences. We knew they had been chosen to be our squad leaders because they had already proven themselves to be excellent teachers, so we listened as they reminded us that we must be respectful of our students, that we must write to our parents — and bring our letters on Sunday so that they could be posted — that we must take good care of the materials that we were given, and that we must keep a diary of our observations, our successes, and our failures.
“With so much that’s new, it will be easy to forget important things,” Lilian said. “You must write them down the day they happen.”
And the same lessons we had been taught in Varadero were repeated in the mountains, step by step.
Step One: Conversation. Look at the photograph in the student book and find out what the students know about the picture. Encourage them to talk and or ask questions about the picture and figure out the meaning of the picture.
Step Two: The Reading. First, the teacher will slowly and clearly read the text beside the picture. Then the teacher and student will read the text together. Finally the student will read the text alone.
Step Three: Practice and Exercise. Seek recognition of a phrase or sentence. Break up each phrase or sentence into syllables. Examine each syllable within an exercise.
The first image in the primer was a picture of a number of men in suits and dark ties conferring together. And the word to be learned was OEA, which is not a word at all but three vowels that in Spanish stand for the Organización de los Estados Americanos, or as it’s known in English, the OAS, the Organization of American States. When I first saw that page in Varadero, I wondered what those initials would mean to a poor farmer in a remote mountainous area of Cuba, but once the master teacher explained it, it seemed quite obvious.
After our successful revolution, the United States began to put pressure on the governments in the OEA (or OAS) that had been allies of our former dictator to oppose our new government. We needed the campesinos in the remote areas to understand that because of this situation, we were unable to import many needed goods, including medicine, tools, and machinery, even trucks and tractors. These outsiders were determined to ensure that our revolution would fail, so that the old order could return in triumph.
The initials OEA, our teacher said, were a good way not only to convey a political lesson, but also to introduce three vowels to people who had never heard either of the OEA or the concept of a vowel. So, ironically, our enemies proved a great help to the literacy campaign, without even knowing it.
Step-by-step, students then would move from learning vowels and consonants to learning words, short phrases, then sentences. At the same time, the lessons would help our students understand about our country after the revolution — about land reform, cooperative stores, the conversion of buildings that once belonged to the rich into homes and schools for the poor.
But our primary goal was literacy. Our leaders knew, and we knew, that in order to become a strong nation, we needed strong citizens. And to be a responsible citizen, you must know how to read and write.
We learned a lot in those three days. Although I never got to know Juan as well as Esteban had predicted, my friendship with Maria began that first night at base camp. In the late afternoon, Esteban gave us hooks and told us to find a place to hang our hammocks outdoors. There wouldn’t be room for thirty of us to sleep in the small houses surrounding the clearing.
“C’mon,” said Maria. “There aren’t that many good places, but I scouted out a spot earlier, and if we hurry, we can grab it.” Maria’s place was at the edge of the woods. Two giant ceiba trees stood side by side, about a hammock’s distance apart. There were no blossoms yet. It was too early, but the foliage, even the thorns, was magnificent.
“Perfect, don’t you think?”
“Perfect for one hammock,” I said. “A
s long as you avoid the thorns.”
“No worries. I’ll make it work. You hand me the hooks.” She found a safe spot and screwed a hook into one of the ceiba trees. Then I handed her a second hook and she screwed that in the other ceiba. “Now, give me your hammock.”