14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus, July 24, 2024 — “Not a hand raised,” is how the attendees at a meeting of an entity linked to the Ministry of Agriculture in the city of Sancti Spíritus reacted on Monday when its directors inquired about the willingness to participate in the official event on July 26. The justifications for evading the commitment ranged from the obligation to care for children and the elderly to anxiety over the Oropouche virus.
“We were summoned to the auditorium to organize everything this Friday,” an employee who prefers to remain anonymous tells 14ymedio. “They told us that our company had been assigned ten chairs for the event, and they read us some organizational details, such as that you have to be in the Plaza [Mayor General Serafín Sánchez Valdivia] at one in the morning, and you can’t carry anything in your hands – no bags, no backpacks or water bottles.”
After reading the requirements, the managers of the company inquired about the willingness of the workers to attend, but the first response was “silence, not a sound; people were just looking at the floor.” The Ministry worker explains that the leaders of the Communist Party and the Union then began to summon the employees one by one, but they all had a justification for not participating.
“There are people who have small children and can’t leave them alone, and I also have co-workers who care for elderly parents and, although they have family who can help, can’t come that early in the morning,” he tells this newspaper. “Others said they had just gotten over Covid or Oropouche and can’t be outside at dawn.”
“Others said they had just gotten over Covid or Oropouche and can’t be outside at dawn”
The practice of going to the celebration very early, when the sun is just com
