The Taste of Perseverance

By Kamil Kenders

HAVANA TIMES – There’s a Guava tree in Miguel’s yard. It’s not an extraordinary tree – it’s not as tall as those in the large orchards, nor does it offer the deep shade of an old mango tree. A person walking by the house might not even notice it.

But to Miguel, that tree means much more than quite a few fruits. It signifies the possibility of getting ahead.

His home is in the municipality of Marianao, in Havana. It’s small and modest, and like so many others, its inhabitants have learned to live with the power outages. Miguel doesn’t have any cooking gas but usually depends on burning a little charcoal in the backyard to prepare his food.

Right there, amid the smoke and heat, Miguel also makes jam. He slowly stirs the guava fruits with sugar, while the charcoal does the work that a stove used to do.

Sugar has also become a luxury that costs more every day, and he’s had to raise the price of the jam. Not because he wants to make more money, but simply because he can no longer make it at the same cost.

He also makes juice from the guavas. When there’s electricity, he chills it; when there isn’t, he sells it as is. The neighbors already know this, but they buy it anyway—because the heat is intense, and also because they know the story behind every glass.

Little by little, acquaintances of acquaintances began to show up to buy jam and drink juice. And without any advertising, the small business grew a little.  Not enough for him to stop worrying, but enough to continue helping his mother, who’s sick and depends heavily on that daily effort.

There’s something about Miguel that always moves me. When he’s made a new batch of jam, he almost always stops by my house, even though we live far apart. He borrows his neighbor’s bike—since he doesn’t have one of his own—and rides about fifteen kilometers to bring me a jar.

He never arrives looking like he’s making a sacrifice. He arrives smiling, as if bringing me that jam were simply a visit to a friend.

Every time I see him coming back down the same street, I think that, in reality, he isn’t just bringing me some guava jam. He’s bringing me hours of work under the sun, the smoke from the charcoal, the cost of sugar… His worries about his mother.

The effort of pedaling fifteen kilometers.

And, above all, a silent lesson. We live in times when many people talk about what’s lacking. Miguel, on the other hand, talks about what can still be done.

He has a tree, hands ready to work, and a mother who makes the continued effort worthwhile. And he also has the rare custom of sharing the fruit of that effort with others.

Perhaps that’s why, every time I open one of those jars of jam, I feel like I’m tasting more than just guava and sugar.

I’m savoring the taste of perseverance.

Read more from Kamil Kenders’s diary here at Havana Times.