El Purio: The Welcome (Part 1) Walking in, Sitting down, Shaking hands

Walking into town, the spewing smokestack of the Central Perucho Figueredo dominates the skyline. This is the Central, known then as El Purio, where Esteban first worked as a free worker, selling his labor for room and board, hard work and something resembling a wage.
The work and working conditions hadn’t changed much from his slave days and the mentality of his brothers in sugar hadn’t changed much either, according to Esteban. Being now free-men did not change their habits, honed and developed under the lash and the yoke. They were accustomed to life holed up in the barrancones, “that’s why they didn’t go out to eat. When lunchtime came, they went into their rooms with their women and ate lunch. The same at dinnertime. They didn’t go out at night. They were afraid of people; said they were going to get lost. They were convinced of that” (47).

The old slave mentality kept most workers shackled to the life in the barrancones; they did not explore the towns or the wide world now available to them. Esteban rebelled against the old habits and the old slave mentality even as he performed the same old jobs he had performed as a slave. His life as a cimarrón had freed his mind. He could find his way around this new world easily enough. Many times as a cimarron he did not know where he was. Had no clue…