“You always have to count on Cuban women. And, in these times more than ever because without the support of a woman a man is nothing in a house, let alone on a farm.”

Las Tunas, Cuba.- Those words are followed by a laugh shared between Osmeidis Rigueira Odelín and her daughter, there in Buena Vista, in the Hermanos Mayo area, in the municipality of Las Tunas, the place where she took root out of love from almost three decades ago. She lived in Los Reynaldos, Santiago's Songo La Maya municipality; but a young man knocked on her doors and she decided to follow him.

“He was a worker in a Basic Unit of Cooperative Production and we decided to request land in usufruct. I did it about 13 years ago and they gave me more than 13 hectares. Since then we have been associated with the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes credit and services cooperative.

“I am a producer of small cattle, with 78 large specimens, and I have some cows. Now none of them is farrowing and that is why I am not delivering milk, but I want to increase the herd. We are also planting various crops such as root vegetables, beets, tomatoes, and carrots.”

Their birds seem restless and it is that the biological clock already indicates to them the hour of the food. As she feeds them, she speaks proudly of her two children, male and female, and her granddaughter, barely 2 years old.

“We all live together and work the land like the family that we are. We raise some animals for consumption and we make our lives change from the economic point of view since a few years are collecting the fruit of our effort.

“We want to sow, which is what the country needs. The situation is difficult and it is necessary to produce more to have the food of each day.”
For Osmeidis, there are no free moments, each of her hours is occupied; very few to rest and the others for many activities.

“Being a woman does not limit me to be a producer. I like to sow, to see that the land produces and that the animals grow. That makes me happy.

“My daughter and I make plans. One makes lunch and housework, while the other goes to the farm. We work there like any man, we sow, and we pluck grass, or whatever has to be done.

"That is our life and we do not change it."