Los últimos carboneros
After the revolution in 1959 Fidel Castro went to spend his first Christmas with these people in Cienaga de Zapata, the most inhospitable part of the country.
Shocked by the conditions the “Swamp People” had to endure, Fidel Castro started to improve their quality of life, bringing roads, schools, hospitals and electricity to the area.
In 1961, these anonymous heroes used their extensive knowledge of the swamps to help the revolutionary armed forces repel the anti-Castro invasion in the Bay of Pigs, secretly supported by the USA. Today, this is probably the last generation of men and women who perform the same ritual in order to perpetuate this slow metamorphosis of wood into charcoal.
