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The curse of the gypsy

According to orality, one day the Santa Gertrudis batey was visited by a gypsy. She asked the villagers for some food, water and several coins to continue her journey, but everything she asked for was denied. Annoyed by the attitude of men and women, she stopped at the start of the batey and said:

_ From now on, for each step of advance that you take, you will take two later; the batey's natural riches and beauties will gradually disappear; and there will be no source of economic income here.

After a time, a series of misfortunes occurred that the residents attributed to the gypsy's curse. For example: the water in the batey was contaminated and a Chinese lost all his breeding animals. On February 2, 1948, Candlemas Day, part of the town was burned to the ground by a fire that started in the winery and spread to the Travadelo hotel, to the black and white high schools, and to the Post Office. In 1969, the Revolution started a rice drying room, closed in later years by a sharp drop in the water table.

Although the inhabitants of Santa Gertrudis have enjoyed free health and education services, security and social assistance, and other achievements of the Revolution since 1959, their geographical remoteness from other towns and the absence of industries have influenced their minority emigration to areas urban and neighboring nations to search for new horizons of life, mainly young people. Therefore, when something bad happens there or socioeconomic dissatisfactions of the batey are debated, there are still people who remember the curse of that gypsy.

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