THE other remarkable woman I met was the landlady of my comrades from Karnataka who were in Cuba with me.  They had no idea of her history and thought that she was just a very nice, thoughtful old lady who was very hospitable and generous.  One morning, one of them saw her taking something out of a box and looking at it.  When she saw that he was looking at her, she quickly put it away.  He asked her what it was and she wouldn’t answer, just brushing away his question but when he insisted she told him that it was a medal that had been given to her by Fidel.

When I heard about this, I was very keen to interview her and asked her permission – through my comrades.  She was quite surprised at all this interest being shown but she agreed.

Natalia Rodes Leon who is 86 years old lives with her sister, Juana, who is 79.  They both live in the flat in which they rent out rooms for short periods of time to foreign tourists and students.  They keep the flat which is full of beautiful, old wooden furniture very clean and neat.  Natalia looks younger than her sister.  She is extremely articulate and does a lot of work in the house.  They gave their guests breakfast which is unusual and they take a lot of trouble to see that the eggs, toast and coffee are all very well made.  I saw Natalia insisting that the comrades who were staying there ate well before they left the flat for the day.  She was like an affectionate aunt or grandmother!

Natalia was born in Bajamo Province.  Her father a white man hailing from Galicia in Spain was a big landlord who grew sugarcane and reared cattle.  Her mother was coloured, a mulatto.   Natalia had four sisters and three brothers of whom three sisters and one brother are still alive.  While Natalia was quite young, her parents divorced and she came to live with her mother.  Her father did nothing to help them and they had a hard life.  Natalia said that racial discrimination was very prevalent at the time and her mother was mistreated by her father because she was a mulatto. Natalia went to school but could not complete her studies.  She also learnt some secretarial work.

Natalia said that the Batista era promoted inequality of every kind.  Women were treated very badly, specially black women.  All schools, including the one she went to, were segregated.

After l957, she became quite active in her area and knew a lot about what has happening in the nearby mountains of Sierra Maestra where Fidel and his band of revolutionaries had established a base.  At the end of 1957, she left her home and went to the Sierra Maestra to join the revolutionaries.  She had gone with the intention of taking up teaching work there but the situation did not permit that and she received First Aid training and also learnt, as she says, ‘to deal with different kinds of situations’.  This certainly included arms training.

Natalia worked in a camp that was part of the First Front and, while the leader of the front was away fighting the Batista troops, she did different kinds of work in the camp.  As a result, she was not in the group that entered, victorious, into Havana in 1959.  She remembers that her mother was very happy and welcomed the Revolution.  All her siblings were also supporters.  She had not contact with her father but she is sure that he did not support what was happening. After this, a school was constructed by Comrade Cienfuegos in the Sierra Maestra for the children there.  Natalia started working there. She says there was nothing there and they had to construct a camp in which there were 100 people, half of them women.  She remembers that people in the area had never seen a school or a doctor.

A year after this, she returned to her hometown where she met a revolutionary leader, Celia Sanchez Mandelai who told her that the war has ended but our work has just begun.  She asked her to come to Havana because Fidel wanted women activists to come there to help create a new society. 

As a result, Natalia came to Havana and started working in the Palais de Revoluzione where Fidel had his headquarters. 

Interestingly, she says that she did not know what Communism was but she learnt its lessons from her own experience.  When the Communist Party was started, she joined it and remains a member till today.  She is very careful to attend Party meetings and renew her membership after paying her levy every year.  Her sister, Juana, said that she is a sympathiser.

While she was working, she helped to organise the Federation of Cuban Women and was an active member.  Along with other members she was part of the incredible literacy programme that brought education to all Cuban women and children.  She was also the secretary of her Party branch for a long time. 

Natalia married a Communist Party member who had been with Raul Castro in the Second Front.  They were married in Havana.  Later, he became a diplomat and was the first Cuban Consul in Canada.  He now lives in the US.  Both her sons also live in the US but visit Cuba every year and want to come back and live there.  It is not easy.  They have one son each.  The children were educated in Cuba and lived here for many years.

Natalia says that she does not need help from any of her family members.  She owns her flat which she was allotted as a tenant in 1963.  She had to pay 11 pesos a month towards buying it since the government did not want to ‘insult’ people by giving them free homes.  She says she finished paying for it ten years ago. 

Natalia, rather shyly, ended our conversation by bringing out her medals which are kept very carefully and seem to be polished regularly.  The medal she is most proud of was the ‘Medal For A fighter in the Clandestine War’  given to her by Fidel himself.  She also showed us her party membership card in which there was a picture of her as a young woman. 

It was a privilege and an inspiration to meet and speak with this woman who was proud of her country and the Revolution that she had been part of.  She did not speak of craving for any recognition or any reward for what she had done.  Even her medals were kept hidden, to be taken out, looked at and polished away from the eyes of others. 

(Concluded)