The Sugar Company brought to Manatí an emporium of resources still lingering inside the pine-wood and tin-roofed houses. In the heat of years gone by, of generations that are no longer here and of a culture as rich as it is tangible, the community project “Del Caribe Soy” writes in the land of Barbarito Diez, that it is forbidden to ignore traditions.
The dialogue with Julia Griffith Benet, cultural promoter and manatiense to the bone, even though her Jamaican heritage is also in her blood, is a sort of remembrance of what the little sugar-producing town was like last century. It is also a beacon of traditions, an essence that is transmitted to the children and watched over with affection.
“Tuto”, as she is known to her friends, takes us there. “This project was born out of the history of Manatí. It has Anglo-Caribbean and Franco-Caribbean roots. To make it last, we managed to unite children, youth, adults, and, fortunately for us, also the elderly.
“Each meeting is a reminder of where we come from. Therefore, we show the typical hairstyles of black women and men with pride, the food, and the dances, we celebrate with the community, and there is always pride for the raciality, for the heritages that brought us to Cuba and founded a multiracial home.
“Imagine, I was born in the Jamaica neighborhood, one day it burned, but the roots remained alive and are transmitted from generation to generation. In this same place, now with the name Orlando Canals Street, we make a march that ends at the Episcopal church, the temple where our ancestors made their prayers.
“Manatí was an ajiaco. It had a heterogeneous population of emigrants from Grenada, St. Vincent, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. Each person came with customs, with the richness of their identity, and deposited them in one place.
“My mom used to tell me a lot about those early days. Where cricket was played, people danced at night at the Jamaica Club, and significant orchestras like La Aragon came, who sang “el agua de clavelito” more than twice because of the requests of the audience.
“They came to work at Central also as carpenters, cooks, and the women did a little of everything. Now we teach the children that heritage: handicrafts, dances, songs, and English.
Talking to the promoter is a journey between the past and present. She bets on achieving a small headquarters where she can bring together the work with the new generations, away from the danger of the streets, where today they transmit their knowledge.
Together with Tuto, other people, moved by their debt to culture, also watch over this imprint without the intention of material gain. A party is an emporium of joy with vivid colors and multiple languages, it is an invitation of succulent dishes and distant smells, it is a debt and a promise with our best traditions.
