Fidel, tell us what else we have to do

After six decades, Rosa Durán Velázquez's ears still hear the phrase chanted by an army of literacy educators at the rally where Cuba was declared an Illiteracy Free Territory on December 22, 1961: “Fidel, tell us what else we have to do”, premonitory words of the Cuban people's decision to wage epic battles against injustice and inequality and, for many of the participants, the beginning of a life dedicated to teaching. That’s how this 75-year-old educator feels about it.

Retired and reinstated at the Ernesto Guevara Pre-University Institute of Exact Sciences, where she has worked for 43 years, she recalls the 14-year-old girl from the city of Santa Clara who decided to join the Conrado Benítez brigades.

Together with her sister, she filled out the forms and soon found herself at Varadero Beach, wearing olive green pants and a gray shirt and carrying a lantern as she received instructions about the primer and the manual, because despite every counterrevolutionary threat the brigadistas stood their ground, she assures.

Near today’s Heriberto Duquesne sugar mill, in central Cuba, she witnessed the joy of the peasants who welcomed them and learned of the existence of bandits who wanted to stop the National Literacy Campaign. She also experienced the unassuming and hospitable nature of these people in the countryside who could not read or write, who called the brigadistas teachers even if they were still teenagers, and everything they did to protect them.

She taught several of them to read and write, whereas others only managed to trace their first and last names. These were very exciting moments that shaped her future profession.

“I know that at some point I will have to leave the classroom, but my students are my life,” she said. “I get along with them, despite the age differences, and for as long as I have the strength I will be faithful to the commitments we made on December 22, 1961.”