My Brigadista Year

By the next night, we had three Acostas with us at the table.

Daniel hung around outside the door, but he was secretly listening to the activity inside. Finally, I think he realized that if he didn’t have his own pencil and workbook, he would never be able to write his name like the rest of his family — and how embarrassing would that be? Everyone, including his wife and his old mother, able to sign their names, while he would have to put his thumb on the ink pad and make a print? That wouldn’t do at all.

I loved detailing these triumphs in my diary. Each week, I could hardly wait for Sunday to come so I could share my students’ progress with the rest of the squad. Since Maria and I were the closest neighbors, I would go by her house and we would go together to our meetings at the base camp. I didn’t try to share my life with her on the way because she was too full of talk about Enrico, how he was paying her special attention. I enjoyed being in on her romance, but, actually, I had never seen Enrico speak to Maria beyond a casual hello. When I ventured to say so, she assured me that was because he was not only dedicated to his work but adorably shy.

“Bring your camera next week,” she said. “I know if I ask him to have his picture taken with me, he’ll jump at the chance.” I wasn’t so sure, but I brought my camera anyhow. I only had a few shots left, and I wanted to send off the roll of film with Esteban when he made his next trip into Gavilanes, which was our nearest town. I was eager to share the pictures of my farm family with my family in Havana.

I asked Esteban to make sure they gave me two copies of every print. I needed to give Luis a picture of himself standing beside his name.

As much as I grew to love my family and the Acostas, our Sunday gatherings at the base camp were a treat. Esteban didn’t want us walking through the forest after dark, so he insisted we start home long before sundown. There were no songs around the fire. But we still had music. Carlos brought his guitar every Sunday, and Lilian was not above cutting off an Esteban lecture in midsentence to announce that it was time for a break.

Carlos always played cheerful songs, and Maria and Isora would jump up to start the dancing. At first, I just watched. Dancing in the firelight during those first nights at base camp had been one thing, but now I was a bit shy about dancing in the bright daylight. Everyone seemed to be a better dancer than I was. But Maria wouldn’t let me sit there watching for long. She pulled me to my feet. “You must dance,” she said. So I did. And a minute later, Carlos shouted across to me, “That’s more like it, Lorita!” I’m sure my face turned the color of a ripe strawberry, but, of course, I was thrilled. It felt so good to be a part of a crowd of friends and not a lonely someone looking in longingly from the outside.

I began to spend a day each week working at the Acostas’. They didn’t need me as much as the Santanas, as they had four capable adults to do the chores, whereas at my house there were only two. But Luis felt strongly that I should spend some daylight time with the neighbors. He was right, of course. Chopping corn together, we got to know each other better, and though Daniel never really apologized for his earlier rudeness to me, he made a real effort to listen carefully during the lessons and work hard.

The Acostas were always glad to see me when I came to their farm, and it eased the initial awkwardness of their studying with me. One day Daniel and I had a race to see who could fill a basket of beans first.

“You lose!” he crowed.

“No fair,” I said. “Your arms are longer.”

“What do long arms have to do with it? It’s skill.”

“Well. You’ve been picking longer — years longer.”

“Can I help it if all you’ve done is read books?”

I had to laugh. Not because anything was so terribly funny, but because sour-faced Daniel and I were actually having fun together.

One day he had fetched the Santanas’ oxen for plowing, as the two families shared their use. When it was time for me to go home, Daniel asked me to drive the pair home and save him the round-trip. I was very honored that he would trust me with this errand.

Having all four Acostas in the class made everything more lively. However, teaching Joaquin how to write his name became something of a challenge. He looked at what I had written on the slate and said, “That’s not my name.”

“Yes, it is,” I said. “J-o-a-q-u-i-n. That is the way to spell Joaquin.”

“No,” he protested. “It should be J-o-a-c-i-n. You taught us ca, ce, ci, co, cu. It should be ci, like you taught us.”

“No, Joaquin, I’m sorry. I didn’t teach you that. I told you it’s ca, co, cu, but the c before i and e is pronounced like an s sound. C-i is pronounced ‘si.’ You wouldn’t want to pronounce Joaquin ‘Joasin,’ would you? Of course not. So the proper spelling of your name is J-o-a-q-u-i-n.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why,” I said. “I didn’t decide it. Maybe somebody long ago in Spain decided on this funny way to write it. It’s strange, but that’s the way it is. And if you want someone to look at what you’ve written and read ‘Joaquin,’ this is the way you will have to spell it.”

He shook his head. “It makes no sense,” he grumbled.

“No, it doesn’t, and I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s just the way it is.”

“When I write my letter, I will tell Fidel it is wrong and tell him to change it. We won our freedom from Spain many years ago. Those stupid imperialists have no right to tell us how to write our own names.”

On Sunday when I read this story aloud from my diary, all my friends laughed with delight. “He’s perfectly right,” Lilian said. “You must encourage Joaquin to write Fidel and tell him so.”

Writing a letter to Fidel was not a joke. It was part of the final exam for those who had completed the primer. There were three tests. The first test required students to write their full names and addresses. Then they were required to read and write six simple words, three simple sentences, and a short paragraph. For the intermediate test, the words and sentences to be read were harder. The final test consisted of a paragraph with quite difficult words. In English it went something like: “The revolutionary government wants to turn Cuba into an industrialized society. Many industries will be started. Many people will have jobs. There will be no more unemployment.”

After the paragraph was read, the student was required to write out answers to several questions related to the paragraph. Then he or she had to turn the paper over and write out the paragraph as the teacher dictated it.

Finally, the student was to write a letter to Dr. Fidel Castro. When our leader announced the literacy campaign, he said that he wanted every student who completed the primer to write him a letter. So the letter became part of the final test.

Every night I looked at my students, their heads bent over their workbooks, the bright light of the lantern shining on their hair, and wondered if any of them would pass the final test before the end of the year. Was it an impossible goal? They were trying so hard. We were all trying so hard, and they could all, at last, write their own names, but it was the middle of the summer before my best students, Luis and Nancy, passed the first test.