Cuban students: Crossing the lake to get to school

HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 6 (ACN) For more than 50 years, residents in the mountains of Villa Clara around Lake Hanabanilla use a boat to cross the water to reach schools, transport their crops, and in election time it becomes a floating electoral college.

On September 4, more than a dozen children arrived at Mariana Grajales Elementary School, after sailing through the attractive waters of the only lake among mountains in Cuba.

All of them reside in the lands affiliated to the cooperatives, Tomás Niebla and Reynaldo Richie, very intricate in the mountain and have that boat as the only means of transport to reach Hanabanilla, nearest town, where the school is located.

Fifth grader Reikel Rojas resides in Naranjito, the most distant point of the lake, so he is always the first to board the boat, the little one told ACN that he enjoys the tour because he talks and plays with his friends.

The student added that he gets up before dawn because he has to walk a long way to the berth.
Ketty Gonzalez, who accompanies her son to school, commented that this different way of going to study is already part of the tradition of the place, as it was done by her parents and grandparents.

She acknowledged that many years ago the boat was more rudimentary, now it is a spacious boat with all the necessary additions for that work.

The young mother added that when they reach the final port one of the educators waits for the children to take them to the classroom.

Eliecer Curbelo is the person that has the noble mission of each day, starting at five thirty in the morning he takes the motorboat to the different docks to bring the children acroos the lake to school..

We start early because the distances are great and we must reach the final point before seven-thirty so we avoid being late to the classroom, he explained.

The boat is in optimum condition and the crew know how to sail quite well, we also have the necessary resources to help us in case of accidents such as sirens, radio, among other means, he said.

In the afternoon, the trip is carried out in reverse, after four-thirty, when the school closes, Siguanea fills his deck with the cheerful and mischievous faces of the children who return home.

The parents wait for them at the docks, in the distance the siren warns that the ship is approaching; then with skill and rapidity the crew loosens the moorings, they tie the ship and the small ones jump to solid ground, from there in mules or on foot they finish the way back to their homes.

The next day he resumed the noble mission of leading the Serranos children over the waters of Lake Hanabanilla to guarantee them instruction and wisdom.