In the midst of the worst migration crisis in the history of Cuba, where almost 200,000 people have arrived in the United States in recent months and thousands of others have gone to Europe to Canada, stories of overcoming and sacrifice of Cuban migrants emerge. Like many others, they leave the “comfort” of a professional job on the island and start from scratch far away.
This is the case of this Cuban migrant, Zucel Osiowy, to whom the Canadian press has dedicated a report, for being one of the women farmers in a rural area, near Abernethy in Canada.
When she arrived in that country, the Cuban went to the city, to Regina, but she knew that she would have to start from scratch in a job that was very far from her and that she knew nothing about. She was a physics teacher in Cuba, but 14 years ago she worked on a Canadian farm planting crops year after year.
“It’s a learning process, every day you learn something,” he said. Osiowy has been on the farm for 14 years. He has relied on other farm wives to help him adapt to this new life and they have advised him how to learn some skills to help.
“I have a friend, she told me, ‘don’t learn everything on the farm. I say ‘why’, she says, ‘because then you have to do everything,’” explained the Cuban woman who has a daughter living with her.
CUBAN IS A FARMER IN CANADA, HOW SHE DID IT
The Cuban learned to handle a combination. She sat in the passenger seat and watched her husband, until one day she took the wheel by herself and took over the reins of the heavy machinery.
“If you know the farmers, they just want you to go, go, go. I just take it easy and try to do the best I can, just to help him get the crop off.” he pointed.
When she’s not on a harvesting machine, she’s busy cooking for the family. The Osiowy family grows canola, wheat and flax on 2.5 quarters of the farm’s land.