How was the Master Ramón Rodríguez saved?

“I went out hiding from my mom and dad, and I went to the doctor Javier’s house, who is a neighbor of ours. I told him: doctor, operate on my teacher because he is very sick. He goes to class with a hose hanging from his back. Save him, he is very good”.

In a deep sob that seems to come from somewhere else beyond the heart, the words of little Gabriela Perez Gonzalez burst out, and she opens her eyes wide as if to be understood better. Emotions barely let her tell the first lines of a singular story.

Students and parents of the Fifth B group of the Serafín Sánchez Valdivia elementary school, in Sancti Spíritus, decided to save teacher Ramón Rodríguez Pérez, who had been suffering from a complex kidney disease for five years and had already undergone three open surgeries. Even so, he traveled from La Esperanza, near Guayos, to the capital city, and never missed classes. In the eyes of his students, he was their Cid Campeador and they wanted him in front of the blackboard every day.