The Last Monkey Is the One Who Drowns: Autobiography of Antonio Manolo De León as Told to D. E. Ellis

By D.E. Ellis

A member of the Cuban Resistance, Antonio de León was arrested on the day of the Bay of Pigs invasion and imprisoned in the fort of El Morro. He escaped execution and immigrated to the US, only to return to try and rescue his family from Cuba. When his boat ran out of fuel in the Atlantic, he was buffeted for hours in high waves in the open ocean, and Antonio was picked up by a Russian freighter. At this time, he had no idea that his life was being protected by an all powerful God who would later totally transform his life and send him as a missionary into the dangerous Guatemalan jungle in the midst of the civil war. Through a series of miracles, God used Antonio to start churches in remote jungle villages. This is a compelling story of grace, providence, protection, and transformation.

“Antonio Manolo de León might be the most fascinating man I’ve ever met and, now, you can meet him too. We like to read stories of daring adventurers not just because they enthrall us, but also because they make us dream. What else might God have for me to do right here, right now? I’ve personally witnessed Antonio’s passion for Christ and seen the power of God at work in and through him. You’ll be nourished by his story and inspired toward new adventures with God.”
—Alan D. Wright, lead pastor of Reynolda Church,
nationally broadcast radio teacher and author of five books,
including the newly released, The Power to Bless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664220591

D.E. Ellis

D.E. Ellis was born in a small Midwest town and grew up beside a cornfield, but her heart longed to explore the world and immerse herself in foreign cultures and peoples. She has been blessed that her life’s work has taken her to twenty-two different countries on three continents and given her a diversity of experiences. She brings this insight to help Señor de León to tell his life story with accuracy and authenticity. In the research for this book, she travelled to the places in his story: Cuba, Guatemala, Canary Islands, and Florida, and she gained lifelong, treasured friends.

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The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2058-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2057-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2059-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021901111

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/18/2021

CONTENTS

Foreword

Prologue

Part 1: CUBA AND BEYOND

Chapter 1 Paradise

Chapter 2 Our Outer Banks Home

Chapter 3 Something Is Wrong with the Sea

Chapter 4 The Sawmill

Chapter 5 Grown-Up Lessons

Chapter 6 Commercial Fisherman

Chapter 7 To Havana

Chapter 8 At the Clinic

Chapter 9 Revolution

Chapter 10 Government Takeover

Chapter 11 In the Resistance

Chapter 12 Capture

Chapter 13 Changes

Chapter 14 A New Country

Chapter 15 Stranded at Sea: The Camarioca Exodus

Chapter 16 Betrayal

Chapter 17 A New Citizen

Part 2: A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

Chapter 18 Early Introduction to Churchgoers

Chapter 19 Transformation

Chapter 20 A New Calling

Chapter 21 Look What Kind of Mess You Have Made

Chapter 22 Gifts of the Spirit

Chapter 23 Trailer Park Ministry

Part 3: MISSIONARY TO GUATEMALA

Chapter 24 Welcome to Guatemala

Chapter 25 Petén

Chapter 26 The Two Olives

Chapter 27 Elías

Chapter 28 Complications

Chapter 29 The Priest

Chapter 30 Held at Gunpoint

Chapter 31 Jeremias

Chapter 32 No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Chapter 33 Tragedy

Chapter 34 God’s Provision

Chapter 35 Lasting Friendships

Chapter 36 In the Jungle

Chapter 37 Sanitary Facilities

Chapter 38 The Voice of God

Chapter 39 Tropical Diseases and Creatures

Chapter 40 El Pozo

Chapter 41 Tribal Conflicts

Chapter 42 Another Trip through Mexico

Chapter 43 Oversight from Afar

Chapter 44 Yermo

Chapter 45 Post-Guatemalan Life

Chapter 46 Final Thoughts

Bibliography

FOREWORD

I met Antonio Manolo de León several years ago when he came to be a guest speaker at my church. There was intensity in his eyes and love in every word he spoke. Through the years, we became friends, and he learned to trust me. One day he decided to open up and share his story with me. Prior to this time, he had not spoken of his imprisonment in Cuba and the struggles he faced for years after coming to the United States. It was a chapter of his life he had tried to bury deep inside his soul so the pain would no longer affect him. I encouraged him not to keep it to himself. I felt his story was one that needed to be shared with the world.

Antonio claims he is just an ordinary man. I believe anyone who reads this book will find him and his story far from ordinary. The reader will be captivated and mesmerized by his depth of passion and humor.

My purpose in writing this book is twofold: to share with the world the story of a remarkable man and, through his eyes, to give perspective on world affairs. The events in his story take place in a powerful time in history that often has been misunderstood, misreported, or euphemized. This book tells of the good, bad, miraculous, and horrible events that have happened in our hemisphere within our lifetimes. It shows how God can work, even when the world looks the darkest. This is a firsthand account of events that happened in Cuba and Guatemala and of Antonio’s fresh start in the United States.

The story of his imprisonment in Cuba especially needs to be told, as I have not found any other eyewitness accounts written by people who were held in El Morro after the Bay of Pigs invasion. This part of history should not be lost.

I encourage the reader to approach this book with an open mind and heart.

D. E. Ellis

PROLOGUE

The unrelenting Cuban sun beat down on our tanned, sweaty bodies. All around me were faces: eyes filled with fear, despair, and resignation. Overhead, I occasionally saw a flash of sunlight reflect off the butt of a machine gun. No one could escape the steep and impenetrably thick stone walls. Our captors were stationed above, watching our every move like vultures, waiting for death to strike.

We were inside the courtyard in the heart of El Morro. The Spanish conquistadors knew how to build a fortress. Just days before, El Morro had been a national monument—a historic landmark, a source of pride for my people. Now it was my prison.

On the day of my arrest, over thirteen thousand antirevolutionaries had been in my group. My wife had been ripped from my arms and dragged onto a bus with the other women. I had no way of knowing her fate. The men had been bused to El Morro. Once inside, we were shoved down the stairs, penned like animals, packing the prison’s pit way beyond its capacity. Now more than a third of the men were gone.

Names were called, interrogations were conducted, and the familiar rat-tat-tat of the firing squads signaled that one wasn’t coming back. Others simply succumbed to exposure, dehydration, disease, or desperation. Guards carried them out. The older men were the most vulnerable.

As far as I knew, the only liberation from captivity came by way of death. There was no way to mitigate the nauseating stench. It permeated the air and clung to the hairs in my nostrils.

I looked around at the suffering of my fellow countrymen and the wanton abuse of human rights. Castro’s revolutionaries were men who said they were improving our country. How do you improve people by executing them?

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Fidel Castro might have imprisoned my body, but in that pit, he could not imprison my thoughts. I had been born into a country where people were free to express their beliefs. How had we come to the point where people were imprisoned and executed simply for voicing disagreement with a political viewpoint? What kind of tyrant would feel so threatened by his political opposition that he felt the need to torture and execute anyone who did not meet his standard of loyalty? What kind of evil dismisses people as being disposable? What kind of system refuses to treat people with dignity and compassion?

My anger was matched only by my determination. He was not going to conquer me. I was not going to be part of his revolution. This is what the so-called revolution brought: sorrow and misery, death and destruction, cruelty and torture.

I saw some men around me praying that God would deliver them. That was unlikely! There could not be a God. No good God would tolerate this kind of cruelty.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me go back to the beginning.

PART 1

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Cuba and Beyond

CHAPTER 1

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Paradise

I was born in paradise. At least to a young boy, growing up on a tropical island was an endless source of joy. The brilliant azure-blue ocean of Cuba’s northern coastline was at my doorstep. I could swim, fish, navigate my little boat through the turquoise water, or pretend I was drowning so my concerned dog, Duke, would leap into the water and drag me back to shore. I could climb the sharp, jagged rocks that protruded by the shore and leap into the water. Fish, lobsters, crabs, sharks, and seafood were plentiful, and I gathered them daily to bring home to my mother to help her feed our family. Ripe golden bananas, juicy orange mangoes, sickly sweet guavas, and tangy lemons and limes grew wild and were readily available. I could wander into the ubiquitous sugarcane fields and cut a piece of cane for a snack, hindered only by the local bull who protested at being disturbed as I violated his territory. I often had a pocketful of salt, which was handy for dipping a freshly harvested carrot from our garden. The island was richly verdant, with soil so fertile that every dropped seed seemed to sprout immediately, springing up as if it had wings carrying it straight toward heaven.

My father, Manolo de León, was a reluctant immigrant. He was born January 1, 1900, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. It is remarkable that he was born at all. His mother, Isadora Maria, was pregnant twenty-three times but was able to carry to term only four babies.

Like me, my dad was born on a tropical island, a beautiful place, but his childhood and youth occurred during an unstable time in Spanish history. The Spanish-American War had ended two years before his birth, and Spain was no longer an empire. Spanish politics became fractured as new waves of political thought came in from the European continent and beyond. There were those who favored a republican form of government. There were the labor parties and factions demanding rights and reforms. The Liberal and Conservative parties that had been in control were in disarray. Then came World War I.

Although Spain was neutral, some Spaniards who sympathized with the Allies volunteered to help the French Foreign Legion. Allied sympathizers tended to be Catalans, Republicans, and some of the Socialists. The upper class, aristocracy, church officials, and Spanish Army tended to side with the Germans. This rift in sympathies made it wise for Spain not to become aligned. The war had a great effect on the Spanish economy, however. At the beginning of the war, Spanish industry benefitted by selling goods to both warring sides, especially steel and food.

Increased demand for these commodities was not sustainable, and by 1915, a country-wide crisis developed from a shortage of necessary goods, called the crisis de subsistencias. Food riots broke out in major cities, and the government resigned. Figueroa and his Liberal government came into power. This did not stop the general unrest. By 1916, two labor unions were putting pressure on the new government: the Unión General de Trabadores, which was Socialist, and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, which was anarchist. By March 1917, these unions were trying to organize a general strike throughout the country and propagate their ideologies.

The Canary Islands is a remote location located off the west coast of Africa. The closest point of mainland Spain to the closest island is roughly a thousand kilometers, or 621 miles. The primary method of transporting goods to and from the islands is shipping. German U-boat campaigns were ruling the seas, and Spain had lost sixty-six ships and more than one hundred sailors to the attacks. This multiplied the economic hardships, both on mainland Spain and in the islands. Unfortunately, the islands were not remote enough to remain isolated from the political pressures happening within Spain.

Russia was succumbing to the Bolshevik Revolution, and the melding of Socialism into Communism was birthing a stronghold within Spain as well. The Communists took advantage of the declining economic situation and pressured young people to join them. My father was decidedly not a follower of Communist ideology, so in 1917, he decided to escape the turmoil in Spain by cramming his six-foot-three frame into a small crevice and hiding as a stowaway in a vessel bound for Cuba.

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I, Antonio Manolo de León, was born in a small village on the northern coast of Cuba on my father’s thirty-eighth birthday: January 1, 1938. I suppose it was destiny that I share my father’s name, birth date, and eschewal of Communist ideologies. I too eventually became an immigrant fleeing Communism, this time from Cuba to the United States of America. The changes that came into my life as a result of that decision, and the unexpected intervention of God at crucial points in my life, brought me to places and circumstances I would have never thought possible.

El último mono es el que se ahoga (The last monkey is the one who drowns). This is an idiom used in Cuba to express dismay that while some seem to come out of circumstances unscathed, for others, circumstances seem to always turn out in the worst possible manner. In fact, if monkeys cross a river by placing one monkey in a tree near the river and forming a monkey chain, the one in the tree who helped the others does not usually have the strength to get across the river by himself. Thus, he pays the ultimate price for his sacrifice. My life experience has contained many instances wherein monkeys were in grave danger of drowning, but my monkey had guardian angels to keep his head above water. This is my story.

My parents, Manolo and Alejandra, were devoted to one another and to the family. They brought ten children into the world. I was number seven. My parents faced an additional challenge in that four of my siblings were born deaf and mute: Alonzo, Gregorio, Carisa, and Adelia. Isidora was the oldest child, followed by Francisco, Alonzo, Mario, Alejandrina, Adelia, myself, Angelina, Gregorio, and Carisa. Besides our immediate family, we also had extended family who lived with us, including my mother’s parents, Abuelo Guido and Abuela Adelia; my mother’s sister Tia Clarissa; her husband, Tio Santiago; and their children, Estefan and Dulce.

My father, Manolo, was a master carpenter and a shipbuilder. Both in the village where I was born and later at our new home on the outer banks, he always had a handcrafted wooden boat for a client under some stage of construction inside or beside our house. I have never known a man who was more intelligent and innovative at problem solving than my papi. As a child, I would scrutinize his every move so I could learn to be just like him.

After we moved to the Cuban outer banks, we lived right on the shore of the Atlantic. I saw him one day as he prepared to start building a boat, and he kept glancing at the ocean and then back at his project.

What are you doing, Papi?

I’m making sure the boat is level.

But I don’t see a level anywhere.

Look, Son. See the line where the sea meets the sky? Our boat will be in line with that.

At that time in Cuba, most women stayed at home and took care of their families, and the men went outside the home to work. My oldest sister, Isidora, was expected to help my mother with the household duties, and she was also caretaker for her younger siblings. She liked to sew and crochet. She was in charge of sewing clothes for the family and patching the inevitable holes or tears that came along.

Isidora, whom we called Nena, was my protector. Anytime I got into trouble, I would hide behind her skirt, keeping her body between me and the person who wanted to spank me. Whatever transgression I had committed, she promised my punisher I would not do it again. Then she made me promise I would be better. She was much older than I, so she married Jairo Juárez and started a family of her own while I was still young.

Francisco was next, known to us as Cisco. As a young child, he suffered from polio. Although he was not totally crippled, the damage to his extremities was permanent. That never stopped him. He worked as a carpenter with my dad at the shipyard after we moved to the outer banks. Since Papi was in charge and Francisco was under him, my dad required Cisco to work longer and harder than any of the other workers. This was evident whenever there was a vessel to be pulled out of the water and into the dry dock for repair. It was a major event in the village. The railroad tracks ran down into the water, and the dockworkers prepared a bed on a cart that was set on the tracks. They rolled the bed down into the water under the vessel. The towboat would give a push from the ocean side to shove the boat onto the bed. Papi had Cisco on the front lines to secure the vessel. He preferred to use his son first. There was a trust between the two of them.

The process was demanding and incredibly archaic. Cisco wore an upside-down galvanized bucket on his head with a window in the front. It was weighted with leaded shoulder pads. An air hose was attached to the top so he could breathe. There was no oxygen, just a lifeline that reached to the surface of the water. Sometimes he would spend up to thirty minutes below the water, checking every place that needed to be fastened to make sure it was secured. If only the boat’s propeller needed repair, he used the bucket apparatus to fix it underwater so they did not have to pull the vessel all the way onto shore. I think the task was too much to be expected of my brother, but he always performed his job without complaint.

For a boat that had more serious issues and needed to come out of the water onto the dock, the workers gradually built a frame around the boat as they brought it out from the water a little at a time, to prevent it from tipping. When all was set and stable, they hauled the heavy craft completely onto the shore with a huge chain and a cable, rolling it onto the railroad tracks.

My brother Alonzo was the first in our family to be born with the handicap of being deaf and mute. He was a creative individual—an artist who was talented at painting, needlework, and tailoring of clothes. Alonzo was a sensitive individual, and he was neat and particular about his own clothing. My other brothers mercilessly took advantage of him. They would borrow Alonzo’s freshly laundered and starched shirts without permission, and when they returned them, the shirts were soiled, stained, and wrinkled. They looked great at Alonzo’s expense. Alonzo soon solved the situation. He saved his money and bought a wardrobe with a lock. As a teenager, Alonzo earned money by doing laundry and ironing for the rich people of the village.

My older brother did not allow his deafness to hinder his joy or his lifestyle. He frequently attended movies and dances. Although he could not hear anything, Alonzo could feel vibrations. He was a marvelous dancer. I never quite knew how he could feel the beat without listening to the music, but I delighted in watching his feet pulse to the rhythms.

Our local school only had classes through sixth grade. Further education required paying a teacher for lessons in the main village. My father chose my brother Mario for that honor. He was a handsome young man; with his hair the color of café con leche and his green eyes, he always had girls swooning over him. Papi felt Mario was smart and capable, a good candidate for an education. Isidora was a girl, so he felt she needed to learn to keep house. Alonzo was deaf, so he couldn’t even attend elementary school. But Mario had potential. My father worked extra jobs and sacrificed at home to be able to pay a schoolmaster in the main village so Mario could further his education.

Mario, however, was not interested in learning. Unbeknownst to my father, he skipped school and went to play baseball or chase girls. On one of his trips to the main village, Papi happened to encounter the teacher. The teacher thanked him for his payments but informed my father that the only time he saw Mario was on the day he was to be paid. Mario would bring him the money and then disappear. My father’s sense of betrayal resulted in none of the rest of his children getting the chance for further education.

My sister Alejandrina, whom we called Aleja, usually helped Mamá. After Isidora got married, Mamá needed her to help with the daily chores. Since she was older, she also had to help take care of me. That was not always easy! Occasionally, she threw off her responsibilities and slipped away to play with me.

One memorable day, Aleja and I went to the backyard to play war by the mango tree. The mangoes were about the size of walnuts, and the tree had shed many of them. They made perfect ammunition for a mango fight. Like opposing soldiers in a hand-grenade battle, we took our positions, I behind the mango tree and Aleja behind the banana tree, and lobbed our fruity bombs without mercy. I ran out of mangoes, so I reached down and picked up the next best thing: a stone. Whap! It struck her squarely in the forehead. She still has the scar.

We did not have electricity or gas for our cooking. Our family relied on vegetable charcoal. Acquiring the charcoal was not a matter of going to the store and buying a charcoal bag; we had to make it. Francisco, Mario, Tio Santiago, Papi, and I took turns in the production. There were several different kinds of wood that were possibilities; llana was the best. It was a type of mangrove wood. It took only four days to produce charcoal with llana. Júcaro wood was the most plentiful. It is a very hard wood, and it was the wood used most at the sawmill. The railroad ties were made from júcaro because the wood was so durable. The sawmill would give us their castoffs, so it was easiest to procure. The drawback was that it was the longest wood to process. It could take ten days for júcaro to become charcoal. The most exciting wood for me, as a child, was another type of mangrove called llava. It was a yellowish tree. Llava was challenging because it was hard to catch it on fire, but it was fun because it often exploded during the process.

Each year, before the wintertime came, our family would make a big batch of charcoal. The wood was laid on the ground. It was made into about a twelve-by-fourteen-foot rectangle, and wood pieces were stacked to form a pyramid or tent shape. Holes were left at the bottom, every three to four feet on the sides, and at the ends for air circulation. On the peak, there were three places where holes were left to be stuffed with easily combustible material: rags soaked in kerosene. The entire mass, with the exception of the holes, was covered in hay or grass and then buried in sand or dirt. The kerosene holes were lit, and the fire began. Air was sucked in through the holes in the bottom, and it lit the entire pile. It was not an immediate blaze. It would take an entire day for the whole pile to catch fire, and we had to assure all of it was smoldering.

Making charcoal is a finicky operation. The wood must not burn too quickly, or the fire will consume the wood rather than cooking it. If too much of the wood turns to ash, part of the structure can collapse; then one must plug the proper vent and use dirt to damp the fire. Our family set watchmen to tend the flame day and night; if the watchman fell asleep, the wood could all be burned, and several days’ work would be in vain. When we saw the smoke coming out blue instead of white, and after much