{"id":286637,"date":"2023-08-11T19:07:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T23:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=286637"},"modified":"2023-08-13T06:27:02","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T10:27:02","slug":"omaris-valentina-keeper-of-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/people\/omaris-valentina-keeper-of-promises\/","title":{"rendered":"Omaris Valentina, keeper of promises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before her father died, he asked her not to leave her mother alone. But his last words were: \u201cValentina, don\u2019t sell Panch\u00f3n.\u201d By then, she had been assuming the tasks of \u201cthe man of the house\u201d for more than ten years: driving, carrying water, fixing electrical problems, taking care of the animals, cutting grass, soldering an iron, making a hole…. She knew that, somehow, her father had been preparing her for this moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry, go where you have to go, even if I have to beg with a can, I\u2019m not selling that car,\u201d she reassured him.<\/span><\/p>\n

The promise of being an artist she made to her sister Givenchy of hers. They say that she was a very happy person, very cheerful, very much in love. She loved watching Valentina sing and they had a great connection, even though Valentina was more than twenty years her junior.<\/span><\/p>\n

If one of them cried, the other cried too; if one was happy, the other was too. \u201cI\u2019m sure that, if she could walk, she would have been an artist, dancer, singer, actress\u2026,\u201d says Valentina.<\/span><\/p>\n

A bad polio candy had caused her older sister a prolonged coma and cerebral palsy that left her bedridden since she was a year and a half old, and for her entire life. Her mother, only 16 years old, traumatized by the situation, decided to have another baby shortly after following the advice of a psychologist.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is how Jianny arrived, Mar\u00eda Elena\u2019s second child, with a man who abandoned the family shortly after it was confirmed that her daughter would never recover. But life takes and gives: Omar appeared, El Guajiro, a teacher from the Ceiba 4 school in the countryside who fell in love with that woman and his two children who, forever, would also be his.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to Omar, they moved to the San Jos\u00e9 farm, based on the well-being of Givenchy and, after a few years, Omaris Valentina was born when her mother was 40 years old and her father was 43.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since she was a child, she witnessed the love between the two, her mother\u2019s immense dedication to the care of her sick sister. When Givenchy was 14 years old, the doctors said that she would die if they did not perform a colostomy, as the curved spine had affected her organs and her digestive system was not working properly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Omaris proudly recounts how her mother told the doctors: \u201cI\u2019m not going to have my daughter cut,\u201d and every four days she performed a manual feces extraction procedure. Givenchy lived 38 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom kept her alive, also thanks to Public Health, which provided us with all the resources at that time. We had everything here. The room in this house was an ER, as people say\u2026,\u201d Valentina recalls.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was 12 years old when her sister died. They were both lying on the bed. She ebbed away next to Valentina, little by little.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cImagine, the curiosity of a 12-year-old girl. I was touching and feeling how the body was getting cold and rigid. I was in the whole process because my mom couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She tells it while she shows me the photos of her sister and smiles, with a sweetness that doesn\u2019t match the terribleness of the story. Omaris Valentina is like that, incredibly cheerful and generous.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThose things harden you for life, make you stronger and make you value the people you have next to you.\u201d She knows that her family has given her everything, because, in many ways, she is what Givenchy could not be.<\/span><\/p>\n

To show me how happy her sister was, she tells me that she always wanted to get married. Her mother did the makeup for the brides and made the floral arrangements and her father took them in the car to go around El Rancho, a nearby town. There\u2019s a large statue of Antonio Maceo there and it is a tradition that the brides place their bouquet there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Givenchy grew up watching weddings and the rituals that went with them. \u201cImagine, a girl in that state, how was she going to get married? But my mom dressed my brother in a suit and got them married.\u201d She put on a wedding dress and took the bouquet to the Maceo statue, there was cake and whistle blowing throughout the town.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
She cherishes the memory of her older sister. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Omaris Valentina Mirabal Requejo, 26 years old, born and raised in Ceiba del Agua, Artemisa, 5 kilometers from the town center, did not come from artist parents; but fame is in her blood. Her mother, Mar\u00eda Elena, was the waitress at the small Coppelia ice cream parlor in Pueblo Nuevo. She worked for fifteen years there, with her girl in her wheelchair next to her thanks to the fact that Social Welfare allowed her to.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a while that was the only place that sold something to eat in the area. There was a huge poverty, for children who today are men and women, Mar\u00eda Elena eased their hunger by giving them bread, soft drinks, and ice cream. When they go out together, people greet her mom more than her, who is on national television every week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her mother\u2019s reputation in the town is only matched by her father\u2019s. Valentina is used to strangers approaching her and asking her: \u201cIsn\u2019t that Huevo Frito\u2019s car?\u201d The neighbors called her father El Guajiro and the students at the school where he taught for many years called him Omar El Calvo and Huevo Frito, because her mother brought him bread with fried eggs for lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n

El Wacho\u2019s car, as some also nicknamed him, is unmistakable and when they see it go by everyone wants to say hello to their teacher\u2019s daughter, the man who made their lives easier. \u201cMy dad was a thinking brain. Every time a farmer had a problem, he would come here and he would solve it for him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Omaris feels happy because the years have passed and nobody forgets her mother and her father.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
She has not let go of the wheel since she learned to drive at the age of 13. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Omaris Valentina seems to have come into the world to keep promises and pay off debts. Her paternal grandmother did not approve of her parents\u2019 love. She couldn\u2019t understand how her son, a university graduate, a teacher, was going to be with a divorced woman, with two children and, to top it off, an invalid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her father lived through a constant war until she was born, with two teeth like her grandmother was born. \u201cHe appeared at the hospital with a little painting that they had made for him years ago, with a gold frame and everything, so that my mother could see that I was her granddaughter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Valentina was always very attached to her father and, therefore, attached to Panch\u00f3n. He said that when her feet reached the pedals he was going to teach her how to drive. The excited girl came every day from school and sat in the car; but her little feet dangled.<\/span><\/p>\n

One day she arrived from junior high school and touched the accelerator with her feet. Her father took her to the orange loading area of the old C\u00edtrico Ceiba enterprise and taught her go back and forward. The second day, she returned home driving. She was 13 years old and she did not suspect that having the wheel in her hands would be her destiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within a few months, her father lost half of his vision due to diabetes. He could never drive again. Valentina, the daughter of old people, began driving clandestinely at the age of 13 throughout the town. She went as far as the 100 bridge and did not go into the city so as not to be discovered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to the fact that he taught me to drive, I have been able to have a career and solve all the problems at home. Because everything is far away: the grocery store, the polyclinic, the shops\u2026 everything,\u201d she says with accumulated relief.<\/span><\/p>\n

When her father got sick, she took care of everyone. At that moment she knew how difficult it was to run a home and all the sacrifices he had made for his family. In this way, she was able to extend the life of her father by about ten years, after the doctors said that his heart could not take it anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

When she had to take charge of the house, she appreciated her father\u2019s orders more than ever: \u201cValentina, you have to learn to be a mechanic!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Nobody knows Panch\u00f3n like her, who learned from her father. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She knows how to fix a flat tire, cancel a brake line, she knows everything a driver needs to know. But caring for Panch\u00f3n is not easy. It is a car with all its original parts that her grandfather bought more than fifty years ago for 5,000 Cuban pesos. Today it costs a fortune to keep it in good condition.<\/span><\/p>\n

His father, from the age of 21 until his death at 68, dedicated himself to maintaining it as a jewel and adapted the engine to oil himself. After he died, every time it breaks, no one steps forward to fix Panch\u00f3n, because many internal mechanisms of the car were designed by Omar, only her uncle Felito knows how to fix it.<\/span><\/p>\n

When she is alone, she desperately invokes her father: \u201cIf you are there, come help me with this. Please, come down, come to me spirit of light, we are in need here.\u201d Omaris laughs out loud when she recites the prayer for me, and she tells me that what she has done for Panch\u00f3n she doesn\u2019t do for anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

She loves animals. She adores dogs and on her farm, they have had up to fifteen at the same time; among them, a Doberman who lived 18 years. They have always had pigs and that is one of the great sentimental dilemmas of her life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now they have two sows and two little pigs that eat grass, avocado and mango. One was to eat it and the other to get the money and the car\u2019s bodywork. They have had to sell them, but they have not been able to: every time she\u2019s had an opportunity to complete the deal, Valentina begins to cry inconsolably.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Valentina with one of her sows and her opera singer outfit. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pigs have lost weight because there isn\u2019t much food to feed them, but Valentina doesn\u2019t want to kill them. She never forgets the time she had to sell the mother of the sows, in the middle of the pandemic, to buy two tires for her car.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went crying behind the cart that was taking away the pig, I weighed the sow crying and I was crying for a whole week.\u201d She only does that for Panch\u00f3n, because that sow was historic and she was also the mother of Beb\u00e9, a semi-invalid little pig that grew up inside the house. Thanks to a lot of care, it managed to recover the strength of its hind legs and walked well. When it was about 200 pounds it started limping again because of the weight.<\/span><\/p>\n

One December when there was nothing to eat, her parents took advantage that Valentina was in Havana and killed Beb\u00e9. At that time she also spent days crying and reproaching them, but after fifteen days she was so hungry that she had to eat her dear pig.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have to sell a pig or eat it, that is horrible. For me, it is the latter. I prefer to eat just rice than kill one of those pigs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
With guitar. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When she was 7 years old she danced in the morning meetings at school and in all the activities. But in high school, she stopped doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was no longer the pretty chubby girl who danced well; they used to say: \u2018What is that fat woman doing dancing?\u2019\u201d That has marked her to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

One day at a pioneer festival, Ernesto Tejera, the boy who, in the past, brought the croquettes to the bar when her mother worked at the small Coppelia ice cream parlor and who, at that time, was an art instructor specializing in music, saw her dancing. He went to see his old co-worker and told her: \u201cBuy the girl a guitar, that, with what she dances…if she sang, we have a complete show.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone was excited about the proposal, but they had no money. They waited a whole year and sold a crop of avocados to buy the guitar. Omaris Valentina spent five years taking classes with the croquettes boy, her first music teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

With him, she learned to play the guitar on the right while being left-handed and to sing Mexican folk songs. Her mother made her the best mariachi outfit out of recycled clothing. \u201cI keep it to this day as a treasure. The first time I stood on stage as a singer was with it on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Since she was 12 years old, she has been singing Mexican folk songs. She learned all the songs from \u201cLa hija del Mariachi\u201d to please Givenchy, who was in love with Francisco Lara, the leading man in that soap opera.<\/span><\/p>\n

Omaris toured the entire town dressed as a mariachi until a friend of hers told her mother that she should find a better path within music because if not, she was going to stay singing those songs for the rest of her life.<\/span><\/p>\n

She went to see Juan Espinosa, one of the most important pianists in Cuba, who has accompanied great musical figures such as Rosita Forn\u00e9s and who has involved many young people in the world of opera.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had the nerve to sing a Mexican folk song for that man with his record. Espinosa was able to catch a glimpse of her good voice and recommended her to an opera singing teacher; although she yelled: \u201cScrap, scrap!\u201d referring to the song that Valentina had just sung to her with all the intensity that a mariachi carries in her voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mariachi singing to her countryside. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For six years, every Saturday she covered the 53 kilometers that separate her farm in Ceiba del Agua from El Vedado, to go to Marta Cardona Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s house to receive singing classes. She would go out in the car driving, picked up her brother in El Guayabal and they would exchange Panch\u00f3n\u2019s wheel to make the trip to Havana.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her brother doesn\u2019t sing because he doesn\u2019t have her talent, but went to all the classes with her, as her companion and her protector. When it came time for her to take the ISA tests, she failed for reasons unrelated to her musical talents.<\/span><\/p>\n

She became depressed and very sad until her teacher told her that she could take the Opera Theater<\/a> aptitude tests. After a close competition, Valentina approved with number 13 of the 20 that they selected that year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today she is a graduate of Intermediate Level Opera Singing and also a high school graduate in Ceiba because her father always told her: \u201cYou bring me a high school degree and then dance and sing and everything you want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the good things Omaris has is being grateful. She, an opera singer who appears on television and is studying at the University of the Arts, remembers how many people helped her to get to where she is.<\/span><\/p>\n

She thanks Marta Lidia Rodr\u00edguez Pita, the art instructor who gave her dance classes and the first person who helped her see herself as an artist. To her first teacher, the Mexican folk song one. To Rey Reyes, and his mother Odalis, who works in the Ceiba polyclinic and was a friend of her mother and guided her to place her in opera singing. She is immensely grateful to Roberto Chorens, the director of the Opera Theater, who began by telling her: \u201cI\u2019m going to see, you are so fat, what are you going to do…\u201d and ended up nicknaming her \u201cthe deep one\u201d for how she interpreted the Romance of the farewell, by Fernando Mulens.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI won him over with that song; although the other students had an elementary level of music and I came from a high school and singing Mexican folk songs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Omaris with her mother Mar\u00eda Elena, her brother Jianny, and Bruno. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During her stay at the Opera Theater, she met Mait\u00e9 Galv\u00e1n, with whom she had a special connection and helped her a lot during the four years of school. From the moment she saw her, she told her: \u201cYou will be here singing, but you are an actress.\u201d Later another teacher, Yuniel Hern\u00e1ndez, told her the same thing and, as in the days of the Mexican folk songs in her town, he sent her with someone to \u201csee her.\u201d And another teacher came into her life, this time acting: Ariel Bouza. Thanks to the guidance given by the actor and director, who is a benchmark in Cuban theater, Omaris fulfilled her dream of entering ISA. And there she is, after a whole week of exams and a lot of stress. She studies the second year of acting in the course for workers.<\/span><\/p>\n

At ISA she met Anita Rojas, who recommended her for a television program. And there she went, Valentina, without knowing anything about that. Ra\u00fal Daniel Rodr\u00edguez Solano, the director of the Das M\u00e1s youth program, on Canal Educativo, gave her a chance despite being chubby and a country girl, despite the fact that she arrived dressed with all the bombast of an opera singer.<\/span><\/p>\n

She went with her best clothes and her best shoes, but she was out of tune; however, she had a sensational debut on the test program and for eight months she has been the host of the space.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was quite an event in the town and her family mobilized to see it on television. In her program, she milks a cow, rolls a cigar, drives a tractor, cooks, and cuts cane.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis program shows you another face of Cuban youth. And I can be that other face. I feel that I can be the voice of those young people who are hidden and are afraid to show themselves as they are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Omaris continues to be the breadwinner at home. Her mother goes everywhere with her on Panch\u00f3n\u2019s beautiful seats. They fend for themselves with the farm and make trips to Old Havana to the Opera Theater where Omaris is part of the chorus. She would like to be able to improve herself so that, in the future, she can become a soloist with the company. She dreams of doing a Carmen, a Tosca, an Amalia Batista, a Cecilia Vald\u00e9s. She would also like to play a negative character in a telenovela and participate in a P\u00e1lpito Theater play directed by Ariel Bouza. She sings opera, sings Mexican folk songs, traditional Cuban music and Spanish folk songs. \u201cAs long as it\u2019s on stage singing, dancing, or acting, I\u2019m up for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Every time she goes on stage, she remembers her sister telling her: \u201cSing, Valentina, sing for me.\u201d That makes her very happy.<\/span><\/p>\n

When she\u2019s had a hard day in Havana all she thinks of is getting home. Although they have tried to sell the farm to get closer to Omaris\u2019s professional world, she does not want to leave her countryside. It\u2019s difficult to finish a recording or a theater performance in El Vedado or Old Havana and have to leave for Ceiba at that time. It\u2019s 2,000 pesos in oil, round trip. Although her mother is always with her, she is a little afraid of traveling at night.<\/span><\/p>\n

She knows that one day they will have to leave Ceiba del Agua because of her career and because her mother doesn\u2019t like the countryside. But not from Cuba. She doesn\u2019t want to leave Cuba. If she was given the opportunity to work abroad for a few months, she would gladly accept it; but only for a short time, because she dies of sadness without her dogs and her pigs. \u201cAnd for me to leave here I would have to take Panch\u00f3n with me. Even if they drop a bomb, I\u2019ll stay here with Panch\u00f3n.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Valentina is very sentimental, very rooted. She is and will always be a country girl and chubby because she likes the countryside and food. \u201cI prefer to be fat with a happy heart than skinny with a crushed heart.\u201d She would like to have children and she asks God and everything that exists that she be a girl so that she can be a good Valkyrie and be able to teach her everything she knows. \u201cI have to find a good heir for Panch\u00f3n because I\u2019m not going to be eternal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
She with Panch\u00f3n through thick and thin. Photo: Jorge Ricardo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Omaris Valentina has been told no many times; especially in her province, in her municipality. But one day she arrived in Havana and there was someone who said yes. With that yes she goes through life between the green of her countryside and the blue of her car, thanking and remembering everyone who gave her a little push. She continues crying for her father, but she has Panch\u00f3n as the perfect amulet to protect her and take her a long way. After each show or recording, she and her mother get in the car and go back to the farm. Valentina happily keeps her three promises and takes them wherever she goes.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She\u2019s been singing Mexican folk songs since she was 12 years old; today she combines them with opera singing, acting, a farm and her father\u2019s almendr\u00f3n that she\u2019s been driving since she was 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3134,"featured_media":286639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23196],"tags":[15244,11639,19889,19256],"ppma_author":[15052],"class_list":["post-286637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-cuban-artists","tag-cuban-countryside","tag-cuban-women","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOmaris Valentina, keeper of promises | OnCubaNews English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Omaris sings Mexican folk songs since she was 12; today she combines them with opera singing, acting, a farm and her father\u2019s almendr\u00f3n.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/people\/omaris-valentina-keeper-of-promises\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Omaris Valentina, keeper of promises | OnCubaNews English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Omaris sings Mexican folk songs since she was 12; 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