Farmers of Cuba
La Picadora.
To get to this small communal farm in central Cuba, you first drive three hours on the sad A1 national highway, a 1950s concrete highway built by the Russians and only intermittently maintained. It now resembles an endless runway more than a highway. When you get to Sancti Spiritus, you turn onto a state highway, maybe 2-3 lanes wide that you also share with people walking, riding bicycles or horses, other cars, horse-drawn buggies, motorized carts, and delivery trucks full of either workers or vegetables. At Yaguajay you turn south and are now within about 10km of the ocean, but you will never see it as you will now slowly drive into communities nestled against the dense jungle that covers most of the mountains in Cuba. After 45 minutes, you arrive at La Picadora, “donde suenos desperteran” or “Where dreams are realized.”
This is a visual documentary of the farmers supporting Cuba’s complicated agricultural system. The farmers in this project exemplify how Cuba imagined agriculture could exist to support a social economy. However, it also shows how the people doing the work and the impact of their work on their lives versus the government is a contrast to the spirit of Socialism and they know it.
Coming from varieties of backgrounds, children of Santeria priests who grew up in a home deep in the mountainside, university educated economists, men small businesses thanks to their ability to work around the system, men who take whatever work someone needs done, a mechanic who has cattle that he supports by fixing basically anything from an ancient lawn mower to tractors or bulldozers. Yet, for six to seven hours a morning, from just before sunrise to the beginning of the relentless afternoon sun and heat, these men work together in the communal fields of La Picadora. In between the work and sleep is the essence of a collective community where people support each other, enjoy each other’s company, and handle the challenges of living in Cuba with grace, humor, and solidarity.
