Bayamo, a positive 500th anniversary
• A construction campaign contributes to rejuvenating the city

Dilbert Reyes Rodríguez

BAYAMO is celebrating its 500th anniversary beyond nostalgia and historical memories. The immense historic and cultural crucible which is the second settlement founded by Spanish colonizers in Cuba has stirred within its people a pride in their city which was 500 years old on November 5.

Its sons and daughters have not confined themselves to sentiment or spiritual reverence, but have converted their city into an active movement of edification, rejuvenation, renovation.

Accompanied by a cultural program which honored the city in the spiritual and creative context throughout this year, outstanding is the accelerated construction work undertaken to reanimate it, based entirely on local economic revenue and extreme care in managing the budget.

More than 200 works in this city of monuments give an idea of the colossal collective effort, thanks to which museums, parks, monuments, plazas, schools, hospitals, cultural entities, sports spaces, streets and businesses have all received attention.

Precisely because the history of the region is so rich in relation to epic and foundational events, this has been the first and greatest of the motives for promoting construction.

Thus, now to be seen at their finest are the Provincial Museum, the house where Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, known as the Father of the Homeland, was born; the former Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Garrison, attacked in conjunction with the Moncada Garrison by the revolutionary forces in 1953; and the Plaza de la Revolución itself, the first area to be liberated from the Spanish yoke.

Places of significant heritage value, many of them associated with pro-independence actions, were also prioritized in the rehabilitation works. These include dozens of monuments, ancestral homes, schools whose walls recount glorious lives and undertakings, the local cemetery, statues, or the revered tombs of heroes placed in public places, such as those of the poet José Joaquín Palma, or the patrician Francisco Vicente Aguilera.

In recent months, various parks have been rescued from obscurity and deterioration, with new lights, benches, artistic and garden motifs. A new one has even appeared on the scene, small and backing onto one of Bayamo’s most emblematic institutions, but which, given its name and the occasion, is a symbol of the constructive effort: the 500 Aniversario Park.

Also resulting from the renovating drive in the city, five schools have been rebuilt – two of elevated heritage value – as well as the centennial General Milanés Pediatric Hospital; while in the sports and community recreation context, dozens of new areas have been created in the form of brand new multiuse gymnasiums for general health or for training in specific disciplines such as judo, fencing, boxing, table tennis or chess, this last restored to its traditional space in the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Academy.

Widely recognized in Cuba, Bayamo could not neglect its privileged gastronomic sites and accordingly, dozens of facilities including restaurants, ice-cream parlors, cafes, bars and markets were prioritized for attention.

Albeit to a lesser degree, the capital city of Granma province also took advantage of the early stages of the reconstruction of the city’s aqueduct – beginning with the Camilo Cienfuegos district – by modernizing the central Juan Clemente Zenea Street and securing water supplied by PVC conduits. Some of the water networks in part of this long central avenue have been totally rehabilitated.

Thus Bayamo, using its own resources and its own people, broke through the inertia which often accompanies old memories. In its condition as an original settlement or villa, it was not deterred by the calm of old books gathering dust in archives, or the rust of time, or nostalgic sadness.