Nuevitas, 2025.-“When Fidel called on April 20, 1960 to carry out the Literacy Campaign, I stepped forward and went to the Sierra Maestra,” said Rafaela Hernández Olano, a woman from Nuevitas who started as a brigadista at the age of thirteen and joined the Manuel Ascunce Domenech brigade.
FROM EDUCATION TO POETRY
In September 1978, she was working at the school for adults who opted to pass the ninth grade, but when her mother became ill, she left teaching to take care of her.
“On May 10 - close to Mother's Day - I sat down on one of those cans that were sold with cookies and on a chair I put my notebook and pencil, and I made my first décima, entitled A mi madre enferma (To my ill mother)”.
Likewise, Hernández Olano recalls the announcement made by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro in his speech on July 26, 1994 for all those who had family abroad could be in contact with them.
“Since my father was Spanish, I began to look for my family, so I found it and went to the Canary Islands and then returned to Cuba. There I was discovered as a poet and I was interviewed on television and radio”.
Rafaela feels fortunate “poetry has taken a lot of suffering out of my heart. And inspired by the story of my father who came here at the age of fourteen and never returned to his homeland, I wrote the décima “Cuba mi patria querida (Cuba my beloved homeland)”.
The dictionary has been her main means of improvement in literature.
“This is how I wrote a book dedicated to the five heroes who served long sentences in U.S. prisons, I wrote many décimas to Fidel that I have kept, and I have also written plays for children's theater with various themes; who would have thought that I would have this labor history after being illiterate when the Revolution triumphed in 1959?
When Rafaela Hernández Olano is asked what she is proud of, her answer is simple: “I am proud to be Cuban”.
