Did Leonor and Mariano know that on January 28, 1853, the most beloved of all Cubans was being born? This May 19, 128 years after his departure, we visited the Los Pasos community to pay tribute to his memory.
Los Pasos, Contramaestre.- The residents love the history that makes them great, there are more than 100 children in the community, and there were more than 60 with us, they recited Martí's poems.
Abdiel Arias Chacón and Elisa Mendoza, troubadours with the freshness of adolescence, performed a beautiful song and we saw Elvira Skourtis follow their voices with discretion. Then she took the guitar to interpret Lo Feo (Ugly Things), by Teresita Fernández. Her interpretation and spontaneous confabulation with the children gave us one of the most sensitive moments of the Orígenes Literary Conference and possibly of our lives. The children had only her and the sweetness of her voice.
Talking about the Los Pasos settlement was necessary to sort out all those springs that make that community a true jewel of Cuban Culture. We walked to the Los Pasos railroad bridge, built from 1905 to 1910, where the first passenger train passed. Osmel Peña cleaned the grass and told us about the thousands of important people who have visited the area to get closer to Martí's history.
The area is rich, with endemic flora and fauna. In addition, according to historian Arnoldo Fernandez, a route traveled by Eduardo Chibás, Jorge Mañach, and all those who have tried to make Martí's thought a shield.
And the fact is that in these parts everyone is helpful and communicative, we saw it before with Yoandra in front of the big stove, with Gustavo chopping dozens of coconuts, with Jorge Benitez, the descendant of a family with historical tradition.
Just at noon, we started the walk towards the town of Remanganaguas, and at a point of the river we met José Antonio Fajardo, a native of the place he gave me a piece of information that may be obvious, but I had not internalized, where the Contramaestre river joins with El Cauto, is the area of Dos Ríos, the point where the Master was killed.
There we went along the path that leads to the river, we saw the entrance to the farm La Manuela, property of the commander Manuel Benítez who is said to have given liquor with gunpowder to his soldiers so that they could endure more in combat.
Meters further up we reach the cemetery, a small site that received in 1870 the first burials. It was exposed for many decades to all kinds of predators and mistreatment until 2014 when it was restored and protected with a perimeter fence and in 2003 it was declared a National Monument.
There, in what constituted its initial nucleus, Martí was buried. Jiménez Sandoval, at the head of the party, chose to bury him under another corpse of the Spanish army, perhaps to protect his body or simply to disappear it.
A few days after his burial, the body was extracted and the skeleton was moved. It is said that his essence, his organs and fluids, and his heart remained there. Later the exact site was marked with a bottle containing the hero's data, located by Enrique Loynaz del Castillo.
The inhabitants of the place come to the site to pay homage to the Apostle; as good Cubans, we put our ears to the ground, to listen to the heartbeat or to tell him, in any way, you are in us.
Already under the carob tree, Arnoldo Fernandez brought to light testimonies about the death and burial of Marti, the existence of a handkerchief, the image of Maria Mantilla hanging on his chest and the significance of the site as a historical space.
Poets and troubadours tell their feelings through art, we also heard the poetry José Martí, by Juan Carlos García Guridi, who from a distance wanted to be present through a very similar aesthetic.
Elvira Skourtis closes with the piece Romance Anónimo. As we left, I saw the maestro with his hat resting on the left side of his chest, a happy smile on his face and he raised his hand to say goodbye. "Young people do not forget me," he said to himself. There he left the heart of the homeland beating.
