Thanks to the work of Cosme Navarro Rojas and many like him, several trucks continue to supply sugarcane to the Majibacoa sugar mill.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- Faced with the complicated panorama of the current harvest in Las Tunas, for various reasons, it is when the economy most appreciates productive achievements such as those that make Cosme the most famous of the punch men who, in the Transportation and Mechanization Services (TRANZMEC) Base Business Unit (UEB), prevent the stoppage of a large group of trucks due to lack of tires.

“In truth, all that we do in terms of compensating or recognizing the tremendous effort, with exceptional results, of this force in all our bases, especially in Majibacoa, seems little to us,” Amauris Tomás Otaño Guisao, the director of the entity, commented moments before boarding the transport that would take us to that municipality, to meet Cosme.

There, in the community of Gastón, headquarters of the TRANZMEC establishment that provides service for the “Majibacoa” and where he was born 58 years ago and still lives, we find, totally immersed in the task, the tire repairman who is making history in this harvest.

He is a man of rather medium height, with a strong physical constitution, serious character and, at the same time, good-natured. His long fingers seem ideal to me for the performance of such rude work.

Although he is a man of few words, when we comment on how challenging this campaign has been, especially for the mechanized harvest and transportation of sugarcane, he is encouraged and says:

“Listen to me, here we are doing our best for the harvest, working by heart, with a level of wear in many tires that they seem to flat just look at them. “They are flats after flats, day by day. Days of putting two to three patches on the wheels of the same truck. "Look, this KAMAZ who just arrived with a damaged tire was already here in the morning for the same reason," he said, while he reached into his overall pocket and took out a sheet of white paper, wrinkled and with some grease stains on its edges. He read: “repaired flats so far this harvest: 2,140, with an average of 22 per day… You see, I had never achieved that in the 14 years that I have been in the activity.”

At this point, Reynaldo Hernández Rodríguez, director of the Majibacoa truck base, requested permission to coin what Cosme said with the following data: “Of the 567 tires available for the truck park in the harvest, 184 are in good condition, 212 classify as regular and the remaining 171 keep rolling thanks to his significant performance and that of the other five repairmen in the unit.”

With this caveat, it should be noted that Cosme's work goes beyond putting patches since there are already 26 tires that circulate with inner tube protectors made by him from nylon bags, while another 90 has been extended their useful life by using the re-engraving technique - deepen the original trace of the worn tread pattern.

"I have never been afraid of work, of helping in whatever I can, much less in these moments when the economy and the harvest need the contribution of each one of us," he resolutely affirmed.

Perhaps that is why it is common to see him, at any time of day or night, "rolled up" with a large truck tire, either with a helper or alone.