‘I prefer goats to English’
By Aurelio Pedroso
Havana-dweller Edelsio Gijón Hernández, 53, got a college degree in English in 1986. After the language school where he worked closed, two years ago, he devoted himself body and soul to raising goats.
Whether he bid farewell to his students in his fluent English, I didn’t ask. Nor did I ask if he spoke in Spanish to his herd, which welcomed him joyously as their benefactor.
Such spectacular and almost surrealistic attitude (Frenchman André Breton would have been fascinated) is understandable, because for more than a quarter of a century Edelsio has paid singular attention to the caprine species. You need only know him for a couple of days to understand that this man lives, enjoys and suffers such a peculiar option.
Don’t think that he raises goats because of the profit motive, like the pig farmers do, because this good man is not interested in commercializing the flesh of his little animals. And none of his breeds are local, either. His herd (about 50 heads) is composed of Nubian, Saanen, Toggenburg, Alpine and French Alpine goats, animals designed by nature for the high mountains but living a few hundred meters from the Cuban beaches at Guanabo.
The reason for his choice of breeds is the milk, necessary for children who can’t tolerate cow milk. In a good month, he makes about 2,500 or 3,000 Cuban pesos – US$104 or $125 at the current rate of exchange. Daily production ranges between 50 and 80 liters [13.2 and 21 gallons].
That’s not much money, at least in this geographic zone, but he tells me (with great sincerity) that he hasn’t great expectations and considers his earnings “sufficient” if they allow him to go to a refreshment stand on the beach and buy a couple of beers. Well, I’ll be darned. This man has the values of a saint.
I’ve been told more that several Santeros have offered him 50 dollars cash for one of his pets (for religious sacrifices) and Edelsio has shoved them all out of his home.
A widower for little more than a year, our university graduate lives in his mother-in-law’s comfortable chalet with a terrace that looks onto the beachfront and is, in a word, priceless. “I spend my whole day with my does,” he says. “And his whole night, too,” his mother-in-law adds.
Udders produce points
Edelsio Gijón’s productive scheme would confound a 21st-Century Nobel laureate in economics. When it comes to milking goats, money doesn’t count, doesn’t exist. Edelsio is a Middle Ages milkman. The more milk he produces, the more credit points he earns. Fifty liters of milk [13.2 gallons] earns him one point, which is worth one convertible peso (CUC) or 80 U.S. cents at the company store.
This system is very similar to the much criticized scheme used for sugar-cane cutters in the past. For their daily production, they were issued chits to buy food in the company store, which was owned by the owner of the sugar mill, the cart and the oxen. It was one way to keep the money at home.
So, as Gijón explains to me, when he goes to the state-owned store, he can buy a file for one point, a machete for 2 or 3 points, and a pair of boots for 4.
Gijón is a member of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) and the Cuban Association of Animal Production (ACPA) and has been Provincial Leader for more than eight years. That means he is Havana province’s top goat-milk producer.
The ANAP never shows up at his farm. In olden days, when life was good, the ACPA furnished him with veterinary medicine and various goods at very low prices. But the present situation is different: he gets nothing.
The reason his mother-in-law said that he works “the whole night, too,” is because Gijón works as a veterinarian, “comadrón” (he helps deliver baby animals) and even specialist in genetics. And now they’re trying to take away his goats, his field and his dreams.
“They” are not ordinary criminals or the so-called competition in other forms of production. They are government institutions, run by people who apparently think that they’re the owners and masters of the land covered by rocks and marabú weed that characterize the Havana resort called Guanabo.
Though he’s protected by Resolution No. 421 and Law 259 (which grants idle land in usufruct to anyone who offers to make them productive), Edelsio has found several times that, as in the days of the American Old West, his land has been fenced off with wire.
After much struggle, he was granted 5 hectares of the 10 or 12 he needs to keep his herd. The rest of the land remains the property of the state-owned Forestal Company.
Unless a favorable solution comes from the top levels of management, perhaps from the president’s office, this hapless fellow will have no option other than giving away, selling or slaughtering half his herd.
Edelsio Gijón Hernández is sharpening his pencil to make an urgent plea. He will write it in Spanish, not in English, because for the past two years he prefers goats to the language of Shakespeare, whose writings are fraught with tragedy. Besides Edelsio’s tragic situation has nothing to do with the embargo or blockade imposed on the island. His story must be told in the language of Cervantes.
Aurelio Pedroso, a Cuban journalist, is a member of the Progreso Weekly team.
