The early 1990’s was known as the Special Period in Cuba, an economic crisis caused primarily by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. During that time my mother in law and I had an opportunity to visit Cuba with a California teachers’ union. The group itinerary included visiting schools, hearing educators speak, etc.
We also experienced one extremely sad and moving visit to a health facility which was treating the children of the Chernobyl Disaster, a nuclear accident that occurred in 1986 in Ukraine. These beautiful children looked the picture of health as they frolicked in the waves and sunbathed in the tropical light. It was pretty obvious though that nothing the caring Cuban doctors and nurses could offer would make much difference in their outcomes.
One day we, along with a couple of other women in our group, decided to get a taxi to Cojimar where Ernest Hemingway had lived. A bust of Hemingway sits on a pedestal by the sea there. Locals told us how to get to the house he owned from 1939 to 1960, called Finca Vigia, which at the time of our visit was boarded up. The house now is a museum owned by the Cuban government and one of the most popular sites in Cuba.
As we peered into the windows of the then-shabby building, a local came up and told us in Spanish that we couldn’t enter the house but could visit Hemingway’s boat captain, Gregorio Fuentes, and led us to his home. We were warmly welcomed into the simple residence by his wife and took our places on the few chairs and on the floor as we listened to the stories of his days steering Hemingway’s boat, the Pilar, through many hair-raising adventures. With a portrait of him and Hemingway as a backdrop, this gentleman, the inspiration of Hemingway’s popular book The Old Man and the Sea, spun his tales until we regrettably said it was time for us to go. We pulled some simple gifts of soap, toothbrushes, and small shampoo bottles out of our bags and offered them to our hosts as we thanked them profusely.
Twenty years later I read that Gregorio Fuentes had died in Cojimar at 104 and thought back to that wonderful afternoon when I, along with a small group of other women, had had a private audience with a man who had experienced so much history for over an entire century.