Odyssey in the Caribbean sea: a Novel About the Dreams of a Better Life

By Fernando Castillo

As human beings, we are all creatures with dreams to fulfill, and we struggle to achieve them. The sea has always been the protagonist of dreams, like Columbus sailing the waters to discover and invade other lands; according to documents, the Chinese, 200 years earlier, had done the same, Although the official story tells the story of the Spaniards.

Since always, seeking to materialize dreams has demanded an effort and a lot of adrenaline, but let's not only talk about those who seek to explore other lands, let's also remember the illegal travelers, who have no other way out but to cast themselves into the sea, pray to their God and pray to reach a safe harbor with better opportunities.

We have seen it all too often, whether it is with those who try to cross the southern border of the United States daily, the struggles of Africans trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to reach Spanish soil, or the storms that Dominicans must endure when they must cross the Mona Passage through Puerto Rico to reach American soil.

These show us just a small fraction of the struggle that many have to take on in order to achieve their dreams or flee from what imprisons them in their native lands.

Odyssey in the Caribbean Sea, is about that and more, although as a backdrop we will see the sufferings of some mortals, immigration, which increases exorbitantly, countries that are targeted by illegals trying to hold back the avalanche of people who just want a chance to live better.

This novel, composed of endearing characters, with the sea as the ubiquitous protagonist throughout the story, with adventures and misadventures, dangers and beautiful landscapes, has the protagonists of this story looking for a new opportunity, finding themselves again, maturing, understanding each other better and even falling in love.

Without a doubt, you will be able to feel the landscapes through the reading, the saltpetre on your skin, the smell of the sea, the calm or stormy waters, the boat working or not... you will feel the tension of the characters leaving a port and reading page by page hoping that the next port will be the one where the sea will allow them to meet their dreams. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fernando Castillo
• Release date: Mar 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201029166

Fernando Castillo

Pasó parte de su juventud trabajando como vendedor para varias empresas, entre las cuales se puede destacar: Difusora Cultural, donde se desempeñó como asesor cultural por varios años, fue allí donde nació su gran pasión por la lectura y escritura. Vivió hasta los 45 años en la Rep.Dom, mayormente en las ciudades de: Barahona, Santiago y Santo Domingo, luego con mucho pesar dejó la República, para pasar a vivir en la ciudad de Miami, EE. UU, después de varios años de residir en la ciudad floridiana, pasó a residir en la ciudad de Houston Texas, donde sigue actualmente. Investigador: diplomado en criminalística: Universidad Nacional Pedro Enríquez Ureña, (UNPHU). Trabajó para Diligence International Group LLC, como analista de riesgos, para todo el caribe, llevando a cabo importantes misiones en: República Dominicana, Haití, Cuba, Venezuela etc. de igual forma, se desempeñó como director de operaciones de Delta Detectives, llevando esta responsabilidad por mas de 15 años, actualmente se encuentra en retiro del mundillo de las investigaciones y se dedica más de lleno a la escritura.

Book preview

Index

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Prologue

Rarely does one find a book where the author casts the fishing net to lure us into an adventure, I could call it a road trip, but in this case it would be a sea trip, which helps to take us on a boat that is not the best in the world in terms of technology and health, but is undoubtedly full of hope, courage and determination.

Jaimito is the character who plays the leading role, but I would dare to say that Brunilda, his wife, shares that leading role and at times carries the rhythm of the story, because she becomes the anchor in the soul of this man who is guided by a desire that is born from deep inside him, he may make mistakes that luck, providence or destiny helps them to overcome and move forward in a story that is far from predictable.

The book, to tell the truth, does not follow any of the orthodox literary school traditions; it is as free as the sea and therein lays its beauty. Reading its story I could not help but feel the smell of saltpeter on my face, even though I have not been to the sea in years, I felt I was in the middle of nowhere, with waters that at times were turbulent and at times calm and beautiful like the most incredible paradise and with no land in sight anywhere.

I felt fear, but I also felt my heart shrink as I watched the starry sky without any light pollution, which was a sight I will never forget.

Brunilda and Jaimito are not the only characters, there is another pair that could serve as antagonists, but who also despite their flaws (which we all have) are pursuing their dreams and living a series of adventures. These characters are solid, at times you will surely be angry with them, you will want to have an argument with them for doing what they do, but at other times, you will be on their side and you will want them to achieve what they are doing at that very moment. Not just any writer can do this, only the good ones can do it.

Also, along the way, on the sea trip we will stop in various paradises and some of them will have unfriendly people with whom we will have our differences and where we will learn a little of that culture that still remains today and that seems not to go hand in hand with the progress

of the world.

The whole story is framed by a historical event that happens in the Dominican Republic and that Jaimito sums up in a very typical way that damned revolution. It all begins in 1963, when President Juan Bosch had been overthrown and a series of acts in the country led to the intervention by the United States.

While this was happening in the country, more and more peasants were setting out to defend their homeland, that revolutionary vein that has a talent for overthrowing national idiosyncrasies and founding their own, Jaimito, flees or gets out from his soul something he had years pending to do and so we are immersed in a story where we will gradually get to know these characters and practically the whole story we will live at sea, in specific stops and in the desire to reach the destination.

If you like stories where the characters are always moving geographically, but also their inner self is changing and they are transforming and letting themselves be known little by little and you live many emotions with them, do not stop reading this book, I promise you, it will remain forever present in your memory and hardly when you hear the word fisherman you will be able to avoid thinking of Jaimito, that man who at first seems too serious, but at the bottom lies the soul of a noble and honest man who only wants good for all and who lives a revolution, but inside him and will drag not only his wife, but us as readers to live the experience of his life.

Chapter 1

September 25, 1963

President Juan Bosch had been overthrown as constitutional president of the Republic. A triumvirate was elected to govern the country temporarily.

In mid—April, men and women were moving from all parts of the country to join a revolution that had begun and was being brewed for several days. The flame of the revolution was burning at its highest expression, men and women, who fought in favor of the Constitution, which they considered had been violated with the recent coup d'état in the Republic. They demanded loudly the restitution of President Juan Bosch, they were constitutionalists, but at the same time they were guerrillas, called Frogmen stationed in every corner and every street of the colonial zone and the upper part of the city.

They were taking the city of Santo Domingo by force of arms. Around this time, a group of military and politicians considered it necessary for the United States to intervene; this was the ace in their sleeve. They planned to contact Washington and ask for a military intervention to reestablish institutional order in the Republic. The excuse was that these guerrillas were a communist bastion and that they were trying to establish a dictatorial government in the Republic.

In the east of the Republic, there is a region bathed by the waters of the Caribbean Sea. Not far away, just a few steps from the sea, Jaimito Santos and Brunilda Rosario live, they are a peasant couple, who live in the daily routine of the island. Jaimito is a fisherman, who dedicates seven days a week to fishing, in the sea he finds peace, tranquility, and at the same time, he earns the livelihood for his family. He is a tall, slender man, with a white complexion battered by the sun's rays, his hair is just as lucky, suffering from the salt spray of the sea, and his eyes are light-colored. He is a man tailor—made for the sea, while Brunilda is a woman who is not very tall, with a fair complexion, black hair, big eyes, and a gentle temperament.

Living so far away from the capital city, they regularly get information from a small battery-powered radio that they keep in their house. On the radio they can listen to weather reports, and certain information that comes in over the Hertzian waves. They live in a small house, built on a plot of land of about 500 square meters, but the house has only about 100 meters of construction. It has two rooms, a modest kitchen, a small living room, and a huge courtyard where they grow some tubers or other vegetables that they use for their daily sustenance. There is also a leafy Framboy tree that rises where the yard falls.

In the front part of the house, there is a small garden, where roses, bromeliads, tulips, and some West Indian jasmines embellish the space, giving an air of beauty to that remote place. In the midst of the daily life of the couple, they live surrounded by precariousness and challenges, Brunilda works as a seamstress for the few people who live in the area, although one house is far from the other, they all know each other in the community, in her activity, she spends long hours sewing and knitting for her valued customers, there she dreams of continuing to live a life, without riches, but happy.

Her most faithful companion when Jaimito is not around is her dog Juancho, friendly, brown and skinny as a vermin, but tough when it comes to face and take care of his masters' property. At dusk Jaimito, has left the boat and begins to return to his house where she awaits him with a succulent lunch, based on bananas, cassava, and a few fish, moves down a steep path that reaches the beach from his house. There, with a couple of bundles of fish in his hands, and before going home, he must cross to a small fish market improvised by a man named Marcial Feliz, who buys them and after collecting a certain amount, sends them to the capital to market them.

Jaimito stops there.

—Hi, Marcial how was your day today?

—Well, it hasn't been very good, but at least someone is coming up with a good catch. —Marcial answers.

— All this is what I got, —said Jaimito—, a couple of soldier fish, a couple of parrot fish, and among other little fish that I was able to bring here.

—Well —answered Marcial—, that’s something at least, it’s something, brother. Go ahead.

Jaimito graciously handed him the