Photo: Orlando Durán Hernández /AdelantePhoto: Orlando Durán Hernández /AdelanteVERTIENTES, CAMAGÜEY. - Mercedes insists that this is a written history at four hands, because if it was not for her Raúl, her husband during almost two decades and a half, she could not have the excellent results that she shows in the production of milk of kid.

From Granma, although of places and different dates, the two came for the community Palmarito, belonging to the Vertiente´s Popular Council Manantiales. In Camagüey´s grounds this Granma´s love was sheltered then.

“We share everything. I clean the corrals, the canoes, if some baby has problems I feed it, in addition to attending to the chores of the house. He is who milks and shepherds. He walks very much every day, approximately 15 kilometers between the pasture of the morning and that of the evening because we have no grounds; to feed the animals we walk long distances. Right here there are idle grounds of the UBPC; I already requested them, but they have not given me yet an answer”.

Mercedes Fonseca Fuentes remembers when a good day they decided to stop raising rams and the opportune suggestion of a friend, who advised them to devote herself to the goats. “We begin with two Creole kids and I hired the milk with the Company of Dairy products of the municipality. It was delivering to him the carter and then he was looking for the check.

“At the age of three the same company associated me with the Credit and Services Cooperative (CCS) April 4. Ten years have passed and we already have more than 70 animals, of them 50 are kids, and in milking there is 30. They are of breed, with crossing of Nubia, Samy and now we buy a specimen Mancha, this way we achieve more resistance to the illnesses. We had more; the cyclone Irma killed a few, like thirty, that one was terrible but here we are going forward.

“We deliver to the cooling point between 12 and 17 liters of milk per day. To extract this quantity there are like two hours of milking every morning. Last year we contribute to the industry 8 886 liters, and in this one we want to overcome it.

“This milk unites with that of cow because here we do not have the conditions to gather it separated. One day or so they send us three six liters knobs to send them to the children of the municipality who have intolerance to that of cow. It is necessary to work very much, but together it is easier; also, we see the results, and with this money we are arranging little by little the small house”.

She is a humble, simple woman, who does not understand that her determinations have nothing of extraordinary. Perhaps that's why she does not tell us that in 2017 she was the best producer of kid milk in the province and that in the first trimester of 2018 she kept in the vanguard; she did not also say to us that she is always ready to help the others, and when the sugar cane harvest comes she prepares coffee and takes it to the boys of the squad.

It does not turn out to be "free" that the people of the community admire her and love her, one of her neighbors warned it to us: "Somewhere here everything would be better if there were a lot of Mercedes”.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez