CITY COLLEGE STUDENT FINDS NEW LIFE AFTER SURVIVING HARDSHIPS IN CUBA
BY MARTHA VALLEJO
STAFF WRITER

Carlos Perez uses the knowledge he learned to frame his future. STEPHEN LAM/ GUARDSMAN

In Spanish, “arroz con carne” means rice with beef. To City College student Carlos Perez, it means “burnt rice with worms.”

In Cuba, students are forced to work 45 days in the so-called “escuela al campo,” a school in the fields, from age eleven through college. Perez ate this dish for what seemed to be forever.

“The cost of education in Cuba is not free,” Perez said.

Separated from his family at the age of eleven, he had to work cultivating tobacco, strawberries, coffee and avocados.

“The escuela al campo looks like a concentration camp,” Perez said. “The living quarters, called ‘barracas,’ are rat-infested. The beds are made from pieces of metal with a jute sac as a mattress. The restrooms, ‘letrinas,’ are holes in the floor where you could see and hear the snakes swishing in the feces while relieving yourself.

“We got up at five a.m. and sang communist hymns. For breakfast we had burnt or smoked milk and that was it. Then we would walk for miles and miles to our designated field and start working without any instruction, but holding the tools and proceeded to work.”

Without drinking water, students worked until midday then go back to the barracas and ate arroz con carne. Afterward, they work until 6:00 p.m., walk back and take group showers with cold, filthy water.

“Later we would have dinner similar to lunch,” Perez said. “Then we would get our luggage, a box made of wood with a lock, that was filled with nonperishable foods like cookies, sponge rusk (hard bread) and condensed milk. We would eat to help us feel full and stay alive. At that age, one is so hungry because one is still developing.”

Students took painful steps to get away from working in the fields and to return to their families. “I helped many friends to create a medical condition so they could go back home,” Perez said. “I would wrap my friend arm in a wet towel for the whole night, the bones would get soft and fragile, and in the morning with a knock I would break my arm. Kids would do that.”

“One year, I put my left foot in water all night and, with the bed, I scratched it until it started bleeding so I wouldn’t have to work,” Perez said. “And when it started to heal, I would do it again, which gave me a fungus for so many years that it just finally healed a few months ago.”

Appearances can be deceiving. At 43, Perez’s demeanor is calm and he has a great sense of humor. He looks more European than Latino. By looking at him, one couldn't guess the kind of life he has led.

After living in Chile, Germany, Miami and New York, the events of Sept. 11 brought Perez and his boyfriend to San Francisco.

Attracted to art, Perez has worked as an advertising art director in Chile, a senior designer for Ernst & Young’s creative department in New York and as a photography art director at Macy’s West.

Perez graduated from Fort Lauderdale’s Art Institute in Florida in Advertising Design in the 1980s. He plans to transfer to San Francisco State University to pursue a bachelor’s in film. He hopes to express his experiences in Cuba with this medium.

e-mail:mvallejo@theguardsman.com