Los Gavilanes… (The Hawks)

Lost right at the bottom of the belly of that alligator shaped island that is Cuba, there was this little patch of land…

Just there, right where the belly of that mythical beast would be scratching Mother Earth, east of the Bay of Cienfuegos and half way to the town of Trinidad, just about half a mile on the right side of the main road there was a little hill, a “colina” and, sitting at the top of that little hill, there was and old country house, Worden walls and floor, open to the breezes of the countryside.

But the most beautiful detail of this old house was the wrap-around porch; one of those you see in the old manor homes in the south of the US and in many countryside homes around the world. Especially in warm climates. This was the late afternoon and evening meeting ground, a place from which the green countryside, the hills, the blue skies and the shape forming clouds could be seen and enjoyed, where early evening stories, after the sun would hide behind the mountains, were told in the light and shadows of candles and kerosene lamps made the easing into night a little better.

Escambray, as seen from the farmhouse

From the front of the house you could see Sierra del Escambray, (The Escambray Mountain range, in the south-middle of the island) the (in)famous second front of the revolution which would deeply sink this beautiful country into decades of dictatorship. Where perhaps the only decent leader of this epic fraud, Camilo Cienfuegos (nothing to do with the city where I was born) made his presence known. From the back of the house, a veritable mansion to my child’s eyes, you could see as far as… well, as far as the eye could see. Green campiña (countryside) fading into a gorgeous sky blue, skies which you can probably only see in the Caribbean…  Ok…Ok… I am partial to this part of the world… can’t hide it…

But… from this backside of the house you could also let your eyes wonder down the hillside, following the green pastures and watching all the inhabitants of the same… horses, cows, bulls, calves resting their weary bodies while quietly munching on well served grass. As you followed this line of sight into the horizon, your eyes would come upon a deeper blue, a blue which was different that the lighter, limpid sky blue… the blue of the Caribbean seas… a unique blue.

This was my summer refuge; a refuge which allowed me to get away (at the early age of 9) from everyone and everything. “Los Gavilanes” was the farm which belonged to my stepfather’s family and where I would spend at least one month every summer. No, it wasn’t a refuge for a “rich boy”… this was an active and working farm and where I had to earn my stay. There I learned to get up at 4am in order to milk the cows we had rounded up the night before. I remember my eyes would, until they became used to these “excesses”, complain loudly about the early morning routine. There I learned to ride horses, to make cheese, and also to manage a small Fergusson tractor which was so old it probably was an early prototype. I learned to respect the animals on which we depended for our daily nourishment and which provided a living for those who managed the farm.  

An inlet, much like the one we enjoyed

There was this small field-house where the riding equipment was kept. This too had a porch, smaller by comparison, but under a zinc roof. On those lazy rainy afternoons which are wont to happen in these latitudes, there was this hammock which hung diagonally across the porch… and in those moments, after lunch, I would lie down on the hammock and listen to the rain’s patter on the zinc roof… to a seeming beat of cha-cha-cha and rumba… and I would drift off for a grand nap…

On other occasions, alter finishing the day’s work (since we started at 4am, we were often finished by 2pm) and before the early evening roundup, the young working folk who inhabited the farm (meaning myself and the 3 children of Paco, the farm administrator) would get on our horses and head off to the seashore we could see from the top of the hill… it was some 2 miles through the meandering ways amongst grass, trees and wild fruit groves.

The old road by the farmhouse

By the time we got to the shore, our faces would be dripping with the juices of the different fruits we’d pick up right from the horse, without breaking a stride. I remember guava Groves, bananas, mangoes and, closer to the shore, there were some “mamoncillo” trees (being a regional name, not sure what they are in English… smallish round fruits with a green hardish peel, where the off white, sweet pulp would be wrapped around a good sized round seed). Our private beach was a horseshoe shaped inlet, about 20 meters wide and with incredibly clear water over sparkling white sand, which never went much above our waist. We would spend a couple of hours there swimming and then drying in the very balmy breeze coming in from the water, while we finished whatever fruits which had not been devoured by then.

Shoreline at dusk.

Our return would be in the late afternoon after truly enjoying what was, unbeknownst to us then, a true idyllic mini-paradise. On those nights which followed these outings, sweet, warm and tranquil sleep was easy to come by. I have yet to experience again that kind of truly, fully relaxing and restorative sleep.

Many friends ask me how, after more than 50 years, I still remember those times with such vivid memories. How could I not remember them? Those moments were, along with many other such “stills” and old time reel films (mental, that is) the moments and experiences which formed the person, the moments that establish those “not open to negotiation” roots which are dug deeply and surely; those are “me” in the forming moments of my life.                                                                              

I gladly share these precious moments with you; I don’t really want them lost in time and space. But they are also shared in the hope you, in reading them, will also bring forward and remember with fondness your own moments of memories and childhood. They may be “only” memories at this time, but they are your memories, as these are mine. They are and will remain beautiful.

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

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