Cuban fishing village made famous by Hemingway busy with recovery efforts
COJIMAR, Cuba — Juan Carlos Cordero stares at two walls and a staircase to nowhere — all that remains of a seaside home that he was renovating.
The walls he built with his own hands came tumbling down when Hurricane Irma pushed a mountain of water into the waterfront homes in this fishing village made famous in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” Cordero lives with his in-laws and the Cojímar house was going to be the first home he and his wife had ever owned.
But less than a month after Irma unleashed angry seas on this village just east of Havana, the memorial that houses a bust of Hemingway cast from melted-down boat propellers contributed by local fishermen has been repainted a sky blue, the Hemingway park has been replanted, foundations have been laid to replace portions of the seawall that crumbled in the storm, and La Terraza, the bar where Hemingway used to linger for a drink, is open for business.
Although Hemingway didn’t live in Cojímar, he kept his fishing boat Pilar in the village, and it was the home of Gregorio Fuentes, the fisherman believed to have inspired the famous Hemingway novel about an epic battle to catch a huge marlin. Fuentes died in 2002.
The touristy part of town, which is a requisite stop for Hemingway aficionados, is just about ready for prime-time. But further along the coast on C Street, the homes that faced the sea took a beating.
Dalay Menéndez and her husband Juan Manuel Doncel watched from the upper level of a friend’s house as the water entered their one-story home. It broke the lock and door frame of the front door, rushed through the bathroom, breaking the fixtures and depositing a concrete block in the washing machine. The wall surrounding the house collapsed and the garage door is now warped and ragged.
On a recent day, the inside walls of the home were mildewed and the clothes still in the closet were showing spots. The couple returned the day after Irma passed to clean up the waterlogged mess and they’ve been living in the house ever since.
“Everything will have to be repainted, but this place is a palace compared to what it was just after Irma,” Menéndez said. After evaluating damages, the local People’s Council decided the couple was entitled to free cement, two exterior doors, an interior door and new bathroom fixtures.
But the new bathroom fixtures and the exterior doors aren’t available yet so the couple is making due with a temporary door and a loaner toilet and sink supplied by a neighbor.
The hurricane dumped concrete blocks, tiles, boulders and seaweed on the streets. But all that has been cleaned up, and electricity was back within a week.
Outside Menéndez’s home, the street buzzed with activity. Government work brigades rebuilt sidewalks and walls. Men staggered under the weight of sacks of cement, toted boards, and repaired cracks in foundations and patios as a radio blasted salsa music, and an elderly couple climbed a rickety ladder to make repairs on their roof. Few complained. “There’s nothing else to do. What else are we going to do except try to fix things?“asked Menéndez, who teared up for the first time since she began showing a reporter her damaged home.
Along one of the side streets the government has set up a tent that sells cleaning products, another selling food at highly subsidized prices, a tent selling cookies and other sweets.
Asked if she thought the government was doing enough to help people, Menéndez just rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t know what to tell you.” She said she and her husband are considering moving away.
Meanwhile, Cordero, 48, thought of the people in Puerto Rico and their direct hit from Hurricane Maria.
“This hurricane didn’t even directly hit Cojímar,” Cordero said. “If it had, I imagine at this point we’d be able to see all the way to Miami. There would be nothing left.”