Fidel Greets Venezuelans from Solidarity Flight

Granma daily reported on a recent meeting held by leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro, with Venezuelan youths at the Educational Complex Vilma Espin Guillois in Havana.

The report, titled Casual and unforgettable meeting with Fidel was first posted by daily Juventud Rebelde signed by journalist Alina Perera Robbio and reproduced today by Granma daily.

Prensa Latina reproduces the whole text of this report.

Fidel Castro Talks with Venezuelan Youths

The most emotional feeling that a group of 33 Venezuelan youths take with them back to their country moved by solidarity, will be the unexpected nor included in any agenda casual meeting with Fidel Castro, the hour and a half conversation with the historical leader of the Revolution, who stamped in the memory of the protagonists, so they tell me, two intense impressions, the big hand that for hours shaked many other hands, slowly and strongly, and the lucidity of the interlocutor, attentive to multiple details of the Venezuelan reality, especially now that the great nation has become target of the imperial voracity. The friends arrived last March 27 to the island as part of the Flight of Solidarity Bolivar-Marti: Bridge from people to people.

Those who could talk with Fidel on March 30 belong to the group of 155 Venezuelans who have had as hosts the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (ICAP) and its travel agency, Amistur. The group will be among us until April 5 after complying with a wide program of “Trips” to multiple experiences in Cuba.

The day of that unexpected confluence, the 155 friends were divided into four groups to visit schools located in Havana. And one of the groups had as its destination, in the Siboney neighborhood, the Educational Complex Vilma Espin Guillois (denominated complex because it comprises from the pre-school years to sixth grade).

That school was inaugurated by Fidel in the year 2013, because he had noticed when passing by the neighborhood streets, the long distances students had to walk in the mornings to reach their schools, a place to shorten those long walks was needed.

And on Monday, day of the unexpected meeting, while the thirty-so brothers from the land of Bolivar visited the Educational Complex, Fidel again passed by the new school.

The children were the first to see the cars they very well know. They were the ones to first say: Fidel is coming. Fidel is coming. And from that moment on, the visitors joined the students to share slogans and hellos. The Comandante, for his part, decided to enter the school, and once there, he talked with the school director and the organizers of the visit.

He saluted one by one, with no hurry at all, the Venezuelans. He began asking them about the reality of that country that gave us that immense friend called Hugo Chavez. He commented on topics allusive to the National Assembly of Venezuela, about the work of youth, the work in agriculture. He inspired admiration by the way in which he remembered the names of deputies, governors and persons he had known during the many times he exchanged with people of the nation of Bolivar..

Fidel had been as always, he who we know so well, he did not say goodbye without talking before on the most urgent topic. He showed special worry for the battle that now engages the South American nation, that its sovereignty and integrity be respected. He talked about its nature that is intense and measures time in its precise measure, he called to work fast, add many signatures destined to President Obama so that Venezuela ceases to be described as a threat to the national security of the United States. Speed is needed because what is at stake is the balance of the world.

Fidel is full of vitality. They affirm that is the most frequent definition inside the group of friends who has seen him and talked with him. Fidel is Alive, they affirm with happiness, from their unexpected condition of invaluable witnesses of these hours of urgency for the destiny of humanity.