Mariza and her parents' ashes in Che Guevara's land

ARTEMISA, Cuba, Jun 14 (ACN) Her parents loved Cuba, a feeling they instilled in Mariza Rodriguez Barrero and her brother, born in the Spanish province of Leon and brought up to learn about the Caribbean island, its heroes, struggles, Fidel, Che Guevara…

“They were always communists. My mother admired Fidel Castro very much and used to say that every country needed one. She equally devoted to Che Guevara,” says Mariza, who joined the communist leagues of Spain and France and returned to her country when the Spanish Communist Party was legalized in 1977) and where she graduated in French Philology.

Mariza's parents passed away without fulfilling their wish of visiting the country they told her so much about. However, their children did it in their stead: Mariza traveled to Cuba in February this year as a member of the Spanish solidarity project Hormigas Solidarias, an initiative promoted by Cuban émigrés opposed to the U.S. blockade of Cuba since the inception of COVID-19.

The Spanish friends, on behalf of many people who have put their hearts above the blockade, brought a little more than a ton of supplies and powdered milk for Cuban hospitals and visited sites like the community Las Terrazas—which Mariza described as ‘a wonderful place’—and the monument to the Heroic Guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara in the city of Santa Clara.

The latter gave her a chance to fulfill a singular and personal wish: after a tour around the premises where Guevara’s objects are in display and his remains are kept, Mariza placed part of her mother's ashes at the base of a small palm tree, right on the same spot where her brother had placed their dad’s years earlier.

Mariza managed to hold back her tears when she turned her eyes to the clear skies of that day and the traces of seven decades of life faded from her face. She calmly climbed the Capiro hill, a strategic location attacked by Guevara's troops during the Battle of Santa Clara in 1959, and walked cheerfully, alongside Spanish and Cuban friends and relatives, among the wagons that make up the Monument to the Taking of the Armored Train.

Mariza returned to her homeland with a special sense of pride after having honored the memory of her parents and gaining first-hand knowledge about Cuba, where she brought solidarity relief, respect and hope. ‘I will return,’ she assured, as she left new friends here and because the struggle for peace continues.