University Graduation

July 19, 2001 Dear friends,     I want to share with you what I lived yesterday night.     Yesterday we had the graduation of our University.  It was held in the new "Tribuna Anti-imperialista José Martí" which I`m sure you have heard about.  There were 6 Universities together of the 61 that we have all around the country.  There were a little more than 2000 graduates, our of a grand total of 15,500 students in the whole 61 university centers.  Fidel was present at the graduation.     The ceremony was very pretty and very emotional principally for all the graduates. I had the opportunity to sit in the row behind the best graduates of our University. When they received their diplomas and began to take photos and greet each other, Fidel was around five meters from them and two of them called him "Fidel come here to take some photos with us." Fidel came, he was around three meters from me. He took photos with all of them, kissed the girls, hugged the boys, asked them many things, talked a while with them. What a graduation for these new professionals!

Law students at the University of Havana

I want you to know that all of them received their diploma together with a working position, they do not have to go look for a job.  As every year all our University graduates recieve their working position together with their diplomas.     This is the Revolution and the leader we have. Julián

Revolution in the Countryside

July 18, 2000 Dear friends,     Last Saturday I was looking at the TV the weekly rally against the Cuban Adjustment Act and the blockade. This time it was held in the municipality of Maisi. This municipality is located in the most eastern part of Cuba. At night when the heaven is clear you can see the lights of Haiti. To get to there you have to travel through the mountains and many people don`t like to go by road because they are afraid. In this municipality there live 29,000 people.  In 1962 my wife was there picking coffee as part of a mobilization of the young people of Havana to help in that distant part of the island.  So she knows what Maisi was like at that time and now she was surprised of what she was seeing now of Maisi.

After that I thought, I have to share my feelings with my friends.      Every time the achievements of the Revolution in Health, Education, Sports, and in scientific developments are mentioned, but it is rarer to hear about the achievements in social justice, in developing all the country and not only the principal cities or the capital.  When you sit down and see these rallies that have taken place in different municipalities of the country, even ones like Maisi, you can watch the people of these places talking, doctors, teachers, students, or dancing a ballet, or playing in an orchestra, singing in a chorus, or doing different cultural activities. You can ask yourself,  "Who is going to come here to Cuba and take their Revolution out of the hands of these people?"   The question is not here in Havana but in those places where before the Revolution they didn`t have anything  and now they have everything that is needed to live.     Dear friends every Saturday I confirm myself that the Revolution is very strong in its bases. Julián

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Text (c) 2000, 2001 J. Gutierrez Photos (c) 2000 C. O'Hara