Reinaldo Cedeño
Pineda
One day I no
longer had anything to cook with, or where to look for firewood. Maria Cureaux
moved around her apartment. Her mambi ancestors, her French-Haitian ancestors
moved. The board appeared as a lifeline. The next morning, she looked slyly at
a chair that was loose. Wood looked good…
At the makeshift kitchen with two bricks and
a small balcony on the third floor, the whole dining set, and the bed burned
and she even emptied the bookcase. The Decameron and The Lady of the Camellias
served to soften the peas.
Two little cans of rice, twice as much water
and the effect of the miracle of getting steam fill the pot. It was an
emergency procedure known as microjet rice. Maria Cureaux Savigne says it with
an overwhelmed smile. Now she can, but in the early nineties; with four
children to care for and a husband working away, she was in no mood for some
hilarity.
The so-called “special period” came at the
time after the fall of the socialist bloc and the disintegration of the Soviet Union . The economy bottomed out. Cuban ingenuity
shot sky-high.
Maria Cureaux became an expert. When there
were no shoes, she found a few pieces of inner tubes that cut and seeped to
measure. Upon returning from her night shift, she washed her face and sat at
her Singer sewing machine. Faithful and undefeated. From there came footwear
for the family … and for others.
She had to take advantage of sunlight. The
only bulb at home was moved from the kitchen to the living room to the bedroom:
a two-way journey. It became little more than a cult. It was worth admiring the
delicacy with which she removed and turned to tighten; but everything started
to become useless in the long blackouts.
The allergy of the children complicated
everything, but Maria Cureaux did not know how to surrender. She skipped the
log line to get kerosene, and had to cope with a honeycomb made candles, burners fed with some edible oil, castor oil, glitter hair,
anything she could lay her hands on.
Like many others, she rediscovered the
maguey. The plant came out of humility to stardom. Its fleshy leaves and
whitish substance replaced the soap … until one evening when Maria´s hands got
swollen.
There is still time to explain how she
seasoned the grounded beef with banana skin, how she turned the curtains into
dresses, how…
Maria Cureaux lives in the Rajayoga
neighborhood in Santiago de Cuba
Article in Spanish: El Año en que nos comimos los muebles
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