Elvira Ricardo met Fidel in the Central Act for the 25 years of the Popular Camping. The activity took place in Havana, in La Laguna. That day, when she kissed the Commander in Chief, she fulfilled what had been one of her most beautiful wishes since she was a child.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- She was warned, minutes before, that it was not wise to touch him. And she accepted, ready to comply with all the necessary protocol to receive, from his hands, the Recognition that congratulated her for being the founder of the Popular Camping in Las Tunas and staying in the sector during that quarter of a century. She was the third of the four Cubans with such a great honor that day.
The person who passed before her came back crying, with excitement, and that made Elvira the hardest thing and stirred her nerves, especially because she noticed that the meeting was very fast, Fidel greeted, handed over the diploma, smiled, and the next. And there she went, with all her agitation contained in her throat.
Only the experience was different. The leader looked at her and blurted out the unexpected: "But don't tell me that you're not going to kiss me?" He disarmed her. Elvira found herself for about 10 minutes talking with Fidel, just like lifelong friends, with his hand on her shoulder and that voice that was like a whisper and you had to be very attentive to listen to everything he said.
She recalls it now for 26 and her gaze is lost somewhere, nosing into her own memories. “And then he asked me how I had managed to found the camping sites and stay so young and so pretty. He said things that I didn't even hear because of how softly he spoke. He gives me the Recognition and when I turned around he tells me: 'I'm not done, I need two more things; the first, to be very careful of the beaches of Las Tunas and the second, to take great care of Popular Camping', and he gave me another kiss.”
“When I got out I had everyone behind me because he didn't speak to anyone else, and they all wanted to know what Fidel had told me. It was the only time I was close to him.
Yadira, her daughter, assures that the Diploma presides over the wall of the living room of the house and that it is pampered as one more member of the family. And Elvira does not make an effort to hide it because, for her, it is a great pride. It encloses the greeting with Fidel, yes, but also her entire life that already takes root in the dilemmas of the Popular Camping.
There she began at the age of 21, as a desk clerk, at the time when they worked in a tiny office and provided services in tents. A lot of time has passed since.
She vigorously defends the six facilities of this type in Las Tunas, but if someone asks her to talk about one, thinking a lot and without desecrating anyone, she stays with Aguada de Vázquez, perhaps, deep down, because of what it was the first of this province and marked the path of all the others.
For 10 years she has been the commercial director of the company, she has gone through various responsibilities to get there. And she never forgets her dialogue with Fidel. That is why she takes care of the beaches, works tirelessly, and defends Popular Camping, part of the best of her life.
