2023-07-12 14:00:00
I believe in the history that beats and survives even if the years are diffuse. The human connection of the past with the present and the future is an indescribable agreement that lasts over time. It forces us to know their essences and instead to honor them. That is the magical meaning of preserving what is no longer there, but lies in memories and extraordinary, valuable and sometimes, sadly, unrecognized desires.
The first time I spoke with Reinaldo Barbón Rodríguez I understood the meaning of humility. From Úrsula Lambert’s restored house, in the ruins of the old Angerona Coffee Plantation, he welcomed me with open arms after asking him to meet. He was full of written notes, many of them on the stones and corners of the place, and on top of his novel that, days ago, I used to read in my spare time.
The virtue of silence: oak, coffee and love was my first discovery of the most important coffee plantation in Cuba in the 19th century. Reinaldo, who wrote his chapters inside the old house of Don Cornelio Souchay, Úrsula Lambert’s room, the traces -almost intact- of the majestic aqueduct or the tomb of its German owner, presents us from his singularity, the culture itself. He captivates with descriptions ranging from slave customs, wealth, geology, geography, and powerful legends.
The book tells the story and recreates the fiction, but I would say – without fear of being wrong – that the life of a human being fully delivered is also reflected in its pages. We can no longer talk about tours without Barbón because he goes to everyone tirelessly, he always tells us a new detail or is seen touching wood and stone in what he defines as his second home.
Now it is up to him to write a new chapter: that of his retirement; and although the days are no longer dyed by the singing of birds or the beautiful view, he continues to be from there, as in his years as guardian, under rain, intense heat, or coldness.
“My first time in Angerona is unforgettable. It was in the year 1972 when he was still a student. That day I came with friends and I felt, in the midst of the sensations that the place provoked, a noise in the background. They were peasants destroying a tower to build their houses. I requested them because I felt that this was a terrible act. They threatened me, so we decided to continue the tour so as not to get into trouble”, recalls Reinaldo.
“Once in the ruins of what was once the slave town, a stone was moved. I cleaned the place with my brother and found the trousseau of a mayoral. Under that stone was a rotten piece of leather, a revolver, the end of the whip, and the four keys to the barracks. Wonderful surprise that we later delivered to the Artemis museum.
“The ruins marked me, and we even wrote a review for Bohemia magazine in order to avoid the vandal acts of destruction that took place there. In my study periods as a geologist, I visited the coffee plantation when I could and that connection made me fall in love. In 2011 they proposed me to attend Angerona as a technical guide, and I felt satisfied; I wanted to end my working life in this place.
“We were honored by important visitors from all continents, even a Vietnamese couple chose Angerona for their wedding. It is the place for photos and quotes for inspiration. Diplomats, ministers and personalities from the history of Cuba have come this far.
“Children accompanied by their parents or teachers are received throughout the year, interested in knowing the legends and passages of the place. It is satisfying to see them listen very attentively about the glorious past that was lived here.
“It is time to retire, it is a necessary process. The next few years will be no different, I believe that I will live them with the same tranquility, the same that the ruins of the coffee plantation gave me.
“Today I receive letters from personalities and heirs of coffee planters. I write my geological investigations, about Angerona and coffee plantations in the Sierra del Rosario, I spend time with my grandchildren and tend to the bees of the earth that I have at home, but when they tell me to come to this place I never refuse. “Angerona was never a job, it is my second home and also my life, daily inspiration to search in archives, among its trees and under its ground”, he concludes excitedly.
With the same smell of coffee and oak that greets us after crossing an extensive path lined with palm trees, the ruins of the old Angerona Cafetal are alive. Time will pass and memory will last, but the work of Reinaldo Barbón Rodríguez, an extraordinary man, who recounted between vicissitudes and dreams, the spirituality of a surprising site, a National Monument, to which we always need to return, will never have been in vain.
#guardian #Angerona #Artemis #Diary