They commented to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the much work they have done, and the one that still lies ahead, while paying attention to the activities that several of their colleagues were carrying out at the top of the poles.
Coming from Havana and Matanzas, they arrived in the westernmost of the Cuban provinces a few days ago to support anywhere that is needed, as Luz del Carmen, the woman who directs the troop of linemen who works in that section, said.
In the Aguas Claras constituency, located about 8 kilometers from the city of Pinar del Río, the work teams that have been restoring lines from Viñales were present this Thursday morning.
A few meters from them we find the house of the delegate, in whose patio construction materials are temporarily stored and sold to the population of the area. It is a temporary solution, they explained to the President of the Republic, but in the meantime the sale to those who are already in a position to acquire them is not stopped.
According to the information offered minutes before to the Head of State by the highest authorities of the territory, at the headquarters of the Provincial Committee of the Party, the electricity service has been restored to 61.99% of the clients, in both the more than 100,000 homes that suffered some type of affectation, only 1,945 have been recovered.
In detail, the president was interested in the different recovery fronts, and insisted on the need to certify as soon as possible all the effects that are recorded in the homes, in order to advance faster in their solution.
After learning about the entry of more than 100,000 roofs to the province and other actions carried out to support the delivery of materials, the President of the National Defense Council also inquired about the technical state of the aggregate mills, since they have a essential role at this time.
Precisely as far as the Pons quarry —which owes its name to the town in the municipality of Minas de Matahambre where it is located— the President arrived before heading to Minas. With the sand, granite and gravel that are produced here, six municipalities in the province are supplied, mainly those in the mountain area. 6,000 cubic meters of fine aggregate are processed monthly.
BEYOND RECOVERY, WATER
This Thursday’s is the sixth visit made by the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, to Pinar del Río since last September 27, when Ian’s hurricane winds raged in the province.
Many are the recovery tasks that have been carried out since then in the territory and many others still remain to be carried out. Along with them, here we work to also solve other problems that are of concern to the population and occupy their top leaders.
Minas de Matahambre is the municipality with the longest water supply cycles in the country, explained to the Head of State the president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, Antonio Rodríguez Rodríguez, while detailing, on the hood of a car, plans through, the investment that has been planned in the territory to improve this sensitive situation for the population of the area.
Precisely in the place where the pumping works are being carried out and at the moment topographers and other specialists are working, Rodríguez Rodríguez specified that the total investment is intended to rehabilitate the conductor and the water supply networks, although in a first stage they will only be able to benefit three of the most affected circuits, of the 11 planned.
The aqueduct that currently works here is more than 100 years old and its hydraulic networks are in very poor condition, he pointed out. Added to these complexities is the fact that some 2,000 people must be supplied by pipes, in the midst of a very complex topography for transit and also to find sources of water supply.
Even though more than 40% of the municipality’s housing fund was damaged by Ian and only 66.77% of the electricity service has been restored, the water problem continues to be the one that most worries the residents of Minas de Matahambre.
The concept, explained Díaz-Canel to the neighbors who came to meet him in one of the streets of the main town, is that everything we do after the passage of the hurricane is better than it was before. This is how Minas de Matahambre works to solve the water problem, he asserted.
Accompanied by the highest authorities of the Party and the Government in the province and the municipality, as well as by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, national coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the President of the Republic spoke to the people about the investment that is being made and the benefits that it will bring.
They are accumulated problems that have nothing to do with the cyclone, and we have the will to solve them, he assured. A large number of the population must improve their situation before the end of the year, he said, but the work is complex and requires resources.
We need you —he asked the people— not only to know the real situation of the actions that are being carried out, but also to participate in the popular control of everything that is being done and that responds to dissatisfactions that we know exist here.
Of efforts, concerns and responses he dialogued with the people; also of the importance of listening and doing, doing constantly, to know how to find solutions, which we often have within reach, and we are not always able to elucidate in the midst of complexities.
“President, thank you for helping to fix my little school!” the pioneer told Díaz-Canel, and from her short stature and her few years, the tenderness with which she pronounced those words remained like a breath of hope in the midst of many damage that is still evident when walking the streets of Minas.
“Were the books damaged?” the president wanted to know. “None, President!” assured Gladys Valdés Díaz, the 27-year-old girl, who for one year has directed the Ramón González Coro elementary school with a skill and sensitivity that everyone in the community admires.
Today, when the school materials have been put in a safe place in the classrooms while the builders advance in the rehabilitation of the building, Gladys told the President with pride everything that they have been able to do and how “beautiful the school will be, much more than before”.
This is also the Cuba that is reborn in the midst of adversity, and makes life grow, precisely in the midst of those adversities.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel returns to Pinar del Río for the sixth time: Minas de Matahambre