Half a century, half a wheel, or simply 50 years are said to be easy, but living them fully dedicated to a profession is not so easy.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- "Fiftieth anniversary has 14 letters (in Spanish)," Andrés Rodríguez Almaguer says, who along with Emilio Sosa Oro is proud to be a worker who has spent precisely that time in the sector of Communications.
The luck of Andrés and Emilio has been united since long before this guild was founded in the distant decade of the 70s. Their common path dates back to Primary Education, the days in the Sierra Maestra during the first Population and Housing Census of the revolutionary stage, or cutting cane in two sugar harvests in a row, including the “Ten-Million Harvest.”
While Emilio, 72 years old, remained in the same department (Technical Maintenance Center); Andrés, two years younger, has moved through several. Now, both work as Telematics technicians in the Territorial Division of the Telecommunications Company of Cuba S.A. (ETECSA).
“It's a sense of belonging”, Emilio sums up the secret of his permanence. Meanwhile, Andrés evokes the difficult stage that followed the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, when inventiveness and the setting up of workshops with whatever was available to maintain the service were the order of the day. He dwells on how he faced everyday life back then. "I kept repeating to myself: you have to be upfront, that's your battlefield," he recalls. "And so we will continue," he says.
Emilio will never forget the continuous trips to all corners of the province, in the rain, taking off his clothes to cover and protect the equipment. Perhaps now, he comments, there is no need to do something the same; but, he reaffirms, the example of not giving up remains.
They look optimistically at the future of Communications. Andrés even assures that a lot will come from artificial intelligence in the equipment and systems that are installed from now on to the next half-century; perhaps earlier, he predicts.
With a swear word of affection or the memory of an embarrassing anecdote from the time of living together in student residences, Andrés and Emilio maintain daily contact. They do not see themselves as friends, but as brothers; and share the pride of being fifty-year-olds among the communications workers, who celebrate their Day this February 24.
