ciadoncha; ¡cuántos recuerdos - Webpages at SCU - Santa Clara ...

Children playing in front of the school in the 70s.
Photo provided by Federico Varona
After the rural departure, Ciadoncha was like the magnet that reunited the family.
This is where cousins joined together while their parents worked the land. The
participants remember with a certain nostalgia how there where so many children on the
streets and how happy they were of the town.
Esther, Estela and Elisa Varona in Ciadoncha with Peluso, the house dog.
Photo provided by Federico Varona
Before the mechanization of the agriculture, the children also helped with the
work from the time they were very young. The girls began very early on helping with the
house chores and caring for their younger siblings. The boys also had to lend a hand to
the adults in times of the crop and when looking for grass for the animals. The majority
of the people admit that they would enjoy it a lot.
At the age of seven they would begin to go to school and to catechism. They had
to prepare for their First Communion. The First Communion was a great event. The girls
wore a white dress and the boys went dressed as sailors. “What excitement that day
brought with it!” various people told me.
Everyone remembered the capones (a hit on the head with one’s knuckles) that
father Antonio gave them when they did not remember all of the questions from
catechism. “We have changed so much, even with that!” others commented other, upon
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