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Once a Rafter, Always a Rafter: Iliana Hernandez Runs for Her Life
Iliana Hernandez 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 1 August 2014 – A Cuban balsera, a rafter, has set herself a new challenge. This time it’s not about escaping Cuban on a fragile craft, but rather crossing the Sahara desert. Iliana Hernandez will cross 144 miles of sand dunes, luging food, water and a sleeping bag, over seven long days. The Marathon des Sables will hold its next event from April 3-12, 2015. This intrepid Guantanameran will be the only Cuban put to the test, although before her another compatriot tried it in 2008
Iliana Hernandez
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 1 August 2014 – A Cuban balsera, a rafter, has set herself a new challenge. This time it’s not about escaping Cuban on a fragile craft, but rather crossing the Sahara desert. Iliana Hernandez will cross 144 miles of sand dunes, luging food, water and a sleeping bag, over seven long days.
The Marathon des Sables will hold its next event from April 3-12, 2015. This intrepid Guantanameran will be the only Cuban put to the test, although before her another compatriot tried it in 2008. To overcome exhaustion and physical pain, Iliana is counting on her will, an impressive physical preparation and the experience of having been a Cuban rafter.
In the midst of her hard training the young woman took a few minutes to share the challenge that awaits her with the readers of 14ymedio.
Question: The Marathon des Sables has a long tradition and is considered one of the toughest races in the world. Can you tell us more about your organization, requirements and concept?
Answer: It started in 1985 and is indeed one of the most demanding races in the world. It constitutes a great challenge for many elite athletes as well as for others who, without possessing excellent physical form, want to prove themselves in a fight where the most important thing is not the legs but the will.
The contest lasts for seven days during which there are six stages. It takes place in the Moroccan Sahara. Each runner must be self-sufficient in terms of their own food and everything they need along the 144 miles. Backpack, sleeping bag and other things for survival become your inseparable allies for one week. The contest is divided into six stages that range from 12 to 48 miles. The terrain is desert with many stones, areas of ancient dry lakes and sand dunes. And if that’s not enough, the runners must suffer temperatures that reach 120°F.
Patrick Bauer is the godfather of the event, its creator and director. He crossed the Sahara desert solo 30 years ago. His experience is reflected in an organization that dedicates the funds it raises to the villages located in the vicinity of the race.
Atlantide Organisation Internationale is like a small traveling town with 400 people who spread out to work each day. Fifty physicians supervise and care for runners, two helicopters fly over the route, 120 of the organization’s vehicles stay close to the participants, one team is in charge of assembling and dismantling the camp and there is even an incinerator garbage truck following along the competition to ensure that the desert is back to normal after the marathon is over.
Among the inescapable requirements each participant must have are the desire the willingness to perform this challenge, besides the money to pay the fee.
Q: Running along the desert with a backpack in tow requires intense physical training and also requires a strong will. What motivations and thoughts will it evoke when the heat, thirst and exhaustion make you feel your strength is giving out?
A: I’ll think about that girl who tried to leave Cuba once via the Guantanamo Naval Base. That was a very hard time and I spent more than three days without water, food, drifting, without doctors. Considering that, I can cross the desert, at least this time I will have water, food and medical attention. I will go back to that time when I craved liberty above all and, substituting the finish line for those dreams, I will be able to reach it.
We Cubans have tremendous willpower, having been born in the country where survival is constant, it is harder to withstand the strategies of 55 year dictatorship than six days in the desert. I will take with me, in my heart, the true desire of all Cubans. Of those of us who fought for the freedom of our country and those who–although fear holds them back–also desire it.
Q: So from rafter to a marathoner! Can you tell me more details of that frustrated escape?
A: It was a lot like the experience of the desert. I left the city of Guantánamo with 16 people, we went with a guide who knew the area. We arrived near the sea and waited for nightfall to launch ourselves into the water. We were a few miles from our final destination which was the Guantanamo Naval Base. We knew we were risking our lives but our dream was stronger than that.
When the sun fell we stripped away everything we had and slipped into the sea to get to the base. Together we headed for the barrier. The waves were high and at one point a very strong wave knocked me over. I banged my head and I thought it was all over, but I managed to come to the surface and see that I was alive.
Some of us decided to go out to see to avoid the dangers of the rocks but it was worse, we were swimming against the current. We spent the whole night swimming, but when we stopped to rest the current took us back to the starting point. It was a losing battle. At dawn, a friend and I made it to shore but it wasn’t the base.
I was willing to wait for nightfall to launch ourselves again, but he didn’t want to and we decided to go back and try another time. The return was without water or food, barefoot and half naked. We returned under a blazing sun in a semi-desert terrain full of thorns. We spent two days and night, walking, exhausted, resting only when exhaustion wouldn’t let us take another step.
We arrive in the vicinity of the town of Guantanamo, and as almost always happens, a snitch gave the alarm and the police arrested us. The first thing we did was ask for water. I was in jail for 37 days.
Fortunately, the penalties for illegal departure weren’t as strict then and I was sentenced to three years probation. Seven of us managed to make it, those who continued along the rocks. Some Spanish friends felt sorry for my failed attempts and helped me to leave Cuba. The third time was a charm and I boarded a plane direct to Madrid.
Q: Do you think we should expect the Cuban flag to wave on the podium of the winners of the Marathon des Sables ?
A: I’m training to win and make it to the podium. I am putting all my effort into it, but to reach it it would be ideal to be able to undertake the specific training this competition requires. That is, training on sandy soils, similar to those that will occur in the race. Right now I still don’t have sponsorships and I need to pay the fees out of my own pocket. This limits me a lot and I can’t travel to specific areas. My great desire now is to train on desert-like sites.
If I resolve my economic situation and I can dedicate myself fully to proper training, I can ensure that the Cuban flag will fly on the Marathon des Sables podium, and I dare say at the top.
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Once a Rafter, Always a Rafter: Iliana Hernandez Runs for Her Life
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L’organisation internationale contre la torture lance une « intervention d’urgence » pour José Daniel Ferrer
MIAMI, États-Unis.- L’Observatoire pour la protection des défenseurs des droits humains (OPDDH), a lancé ce vendredi une campagne d' »Interventions urgentes » en faveur du prisonnier politique et de conscience cubain José Daniel Ferrer García, leader de l’Union patriotique de Cuba (UNPACU), selon une note de Radio Televisión Martí.
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Who Is Filling Cuba’s University Classrooms?
New students at the University of Havana (14ymedio) Born during the Special Period, they have grown up trapped in the dual currency system, and when they get their degrees Raul Castro will no longer be in power. They are the more than 100,000 young people just starting college throughout the country. Their brief biographies include educational experiments, battles of ideas, and the emergence of new technologies They know more about X-Men than about Elpidio Valdés, and only remember Fidel Castro from old photos and archived documentaries. They are the Wi-Fi kids with their pirate networks, raised with the « packets » of copied shows and illegal satellite dishes
New students at the University of Havana (14ymedio)
Born during the Special Period, they have grown up trapped in the dual currency system, and when they get their degrees Raul Castro will no longer be in power. They are the more than 100,000 young people just starting college throughout the country. Their brief biographies include educational experiments, battles of ideas, and the emergence of new technologies They know more about X-Men than about Elpidio Valdés, and only remember Fidel Castro from old photos and archived documentaries.
They are the Wi-Fi kids with their pirate networks, raised with the « packets » of copied shows and illegal satellite dishes. Some nights they would connect through routers and play strategy video games that made them feel powerful and free. Whoever wants to know them should know that they’ve had « emerging teachers » since elementary school and were taught grammar, math and ideology via television screens. However, they ended up being the least ideological of the Cubans who today inhabit this Island, the most cosmopolitan and with the greatest vision of the future.
On arriving at junior high school they played at throwing around around the obligatory snack of bread while their parents furtively passed their lunches through the school gate. They have a special physical ability, an adaptation that has allowed them to survive the environment; they don’t hear what doesn’t interest them, they close their ears to the harangues of morning assemblies and politicians. They seem lazier than other generations and in reality they are, but in their case this apathy acts like an evolutionary advantage. They’re better than us and will live in a country that has nothing to do with what we were promised.
A few months ago, these same young people, starred in the best known case of school fraud uncovered publicly. Some of those hoping to earn a place in higher education bought the answers to an admissions test. They were used to paying for approval, because they had to turn to private tutors to teach them what they should have learned in the classroom. Many of those who recently enrolled in the university had private teachers starting in elementary school. They are the children of a new emerging class that has used its resources so that their children can reach a desk at the right hand — or the left — of the alma mater.
These young people dressed in uniforms in their earlier grades, but they struggled to differentiate themselves through the length of a shirt, a fringe of bleached hair, or through pants sagging below their hips. They are the children of those who barely had a change of underwear in the nineties, so their parents tried to make sure they didn’t « go through the same thing, » and turned to the black market for their clothes and shoes. They mock the false austerity and, not wanting to look like militants, they love bright shiny colors and name brand outfits.
Yesterday, with the start of the school year, they received a lecture about the attempts of « imperialism to undermine the revolution through its youth. » It was like a faint drizzle running over an impervious surface. The government is right to be worried; these young people who have entered the university will never become good soldiers or fanatics. The clay from which they are made cannot be molded.
Excerpt from:
Who Is Filling Cuba’s University Classrooms?
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A Caricature of a Cuban Woman
Woman drinking (14ymedio) 14yMEDIO, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 August 2014 — A woman on national television said that her husband « helps » her with some household chores. To many, the phrase may sound like the highest aspiration of every woman. Another lady asserts that her husband behaves like a « Federated man, » an allusion to the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which today is celebrating its 54th anniversary. As for me, on this side of the screen, I feel sorry for them in the face of such meekness
14yMEDIO, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 August 2014 — A woman on national television said that her husband « helps » her with some household chores. To many, the phrase may sound like the highest aspiration of every woman. Another lady asserts that her husband behaves like a « Federated man, » an allusion to the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which today is celebrating its 54th anniversary. As for me, on this side of the screen, I feel sorry for them in the face of such meekness. Instead of the urgent demands they should mention, all I hear is this appreciation directed to a power as manly as it is deaf.
It’s not about « helping » to wash a plate or watch the kids, nor tiny illusory gender quotas that hide so much discrimination like a slap. The problem is that economic and political power remains mainly in masculine hands. What percentage of car owners are women? How many acres of land are owned or leased by women. How many Cuban ambassadors on missions abroad wear skirts? Can anyone recite the number of men who request paternity leave to take care of their newborns? How many young men are stopped by the police each day to warn them they can’t walk with a tourist? Who mostly attends the parent meetings at the schools?
Please, don’t try to « put us to sleep » with figures in the style of, « 65 percent of our cadres and 50 percent of our grassroots leaders are women. » The only thing this statistic means is that more responsibility falls on our shoulders, which means neither a high decision-making level nor greater rights. At least such a triumphalist phrase clarifies that there are « grassroots leaders, » because we know that decisions at the highest level are made by men who grew up under the precepts that we women are beautiful ornaments to have at hand… always and as long as we keep our mouths shut.
I feel sorry for the docile and timid feminist movement that exists in my country. Ashamed for those ladies with their ridiculous necklaces and abundant makeup who appear in the official media to tell us that « the Cuban woman has been the greatest ally of the Revolution. » Words spoken at the same moment when a company director is sexually harassing his secretary, when a beaten woman can’t get a restraining order against her abusive husband, when a policeman tells the victim of a sexual assault, « Well, with that skirt you’re wearing… » and the government recruits shock troops for an act of repudiation against the Ladies in White.
Women are the sector of the population that has the most reason to shout their displeasure. Because half a century after the founding of the caricature of an organization that is the Federation of Cuban Women, we are neither more free, nor more powerful, nor even more independent.
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A Caricature of a Cuban Woman
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