Love blooms among mountains

Attached to their peasant roots, they vowed eternal love at the foot of the mountains that rise, with all their greenery, in the province of Ciego de Avila, under a clear blue sky, right where their work also benefits various thriving crops.

Rincón Los Hondones, a landscape-oriented school-farm, in the massif of Bamburanao, is an epicenter of happiness where Dayana Libet Gómez Guerra and José Raúl Rojas Vera tie the knot in a peculiar and harmonious bond with the environment.

On horseback and hand in hand with her father, the splendorous bride walks along the slope of the hills to the shade of an almond tree, a spot exquisitely decorated with sunflowers lined up on the lawn to mark her route toward the future husband, accompanied by the notary, family, friends and neighbors.

No one denies the significance of the much-awaited dream come true, but the oath of loyalty, the placing of the rings and the kiss that seals the official act are mere formalities to seal the love, trust and respect they have shared for six years since its inception in their classroom at the University of Medical Sciences, where their eyes met for the first time and when José Raúl decided to court her after she accepted an invitation to eat pizza.

Medicine does not take them away from their vocation for agricultural work, so whenever the demanding profession allows it, they plant, treat and harvest different crops, for working the land ennobles them and reveals their ability to develop in different environments, they say.

It was the distinctive values of the Cuban peasantry that drove them to join the fight against COVID-19, which he did in March 2019 as a specialist in Integrated General Medicine as a frontline worker in various isolation centers in the province.

At the beginning, there was a lot of fear for lack of knowledge about the disease and the risk of contagion. Many people refused to work in medical centers, so at some point he and his colleagues took over cooking, cleaning and other tasks in the midst of that turmoil. The experience he gained then helps him now to perform his duties as Head of the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology in a municipal health center.

Dayana, on her end, graduated last July and went to the Roberto Rodriguez Provincial General Teaching Hospital in the town of Morón, where she provided care to suspected and infected infants as a Pediatric resident, just when the epidemic reached a peak.

Thus, inspired by each other, they contributed to the fight against a disease that showed its most aggressive side in these lands. And despite the distancing imposed by both their duties and the epidemiological situation, they knew how to maintain closeness and cultivate love.
Now, enjoying the calm to which they also contributed, they rediscover themselves in that paradisiacal environment, united in a marriage that they plan to strengthen and make flourish until it bears fruit in the form of many children.