One Family’s Journey from Cuba to the UWI St Augustine Campus
In 2009, five-year old Dayana Miranda Ortega said a tearful goodbye to her mother Daymara, a surgical nurse from Cuba who had responded to a call from the Cuban Nursing Council to work in Trinidad and Tobago for two years. Little Dayana would later follow her mother and, as a young adult, attend classes at UWI.
Daymara, vividly recalls the “well-organised” English for Medical Purposes programme which she and her colleagues completed upon their arrival. Between August 2009 and February 2010, three cohorts of Cuban medical personnel from 14 diverse specialities received 60 hours of English language training at The UWI’s Centre for Language Learning (CLL), before they assumed duty at local hospitals and health centres.
She had acquired only “basic” English at high school. Despite having commissioned the services of a private tutor, she regarded the training provided at UWI St Augustine as a necessity. Daymara was impressed by the wide range of subjects, the strategic scheduling of evaluations, and she highly commended the incorporation of self-guided pronunciation.
Following a period of observation at health centres across the country, the Cuban nurse was assigned to Mount Hope Hospital at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, home of UWI’s Faculty of Medical Sciences. She served as an operating theatre nurse until 2011 when it was time to return home.
Back in Cuba, Daymara longed to return to Trinidad and Tobago. She applied for a position with the Ministry of Health and resumed work at Mount Hope. That decision to return paved the way for her daughter, ten-year old Dayana, to make her own journey to T&T.
Dayana arrived in Trinidad with, she says, “just a few words” of English. Years of hard work followed as she became increasingly proficient in English with the help of a private tutor from the St Augustine campus who charted out a complete immersion experience for her.
Her tutor would later guide her through preparatory school, and at the end of three years, the school acknowledged that Dayana was ready for secondary school. In 2025, Dayana had her high school certificate in hand. Her tutor pointed her to UWI.
Dayana is currently pursuing a suite of courses in the Certificate in Humanities Programme which will, after one year, ready her for an undergraduate degree in the humanities.
Today, as she traverses campus, she is surrounded by close friends and supportive teachers. She finds UWI to be a welcoming place, where she can be herself, and where her Cuban culture is valued. She speaks excitedly of the day when, on the third floor of the Alma Jordan library, she caught sight of the emblematic bust of José Martí and immediately snapped a photo for her mother. This bust forms part of the library’s “Héroes de la Patria” collection dedicated to heroes of the Caribbean nations.
“Our Apostle! ...At UWI!” Daymara exclaims with pride. José Martí is revered as the Apostle of Cuban Independence. He was also a philosopher, essayist and poet, whose 172nd birth and 130th death in battle anniversaries were commemorated in grand style last year.
Daymara and Dayana hold their Cuban culture close. One of Martí’s books of poems, a cherished item, travelled from Cuba to T&T with them. They speak of dishes like cassava, or yuca, with mojito—a garlic citrus sauce. But they also speak of pelau. Dayana was introduced to this quintessential Trini meal in her Food and Nutrition class in high school. When her mother tasted a sample, Dayana says, “...she fell in love with it!”
Today, Daymara works in neo-natal care, but she smiles and explains that, whenever she is needed, she works in the operating theatres. Mount Hope is like her home.
“Everybody knows me,” she says.
Dayana’s father, a medical doctor in Cuba, wants her to be a doctor as well. She isn’t so keen on the idea, expressing an interest in law. She is also thinking of interpreting or perhaps even teaching. However, what she knows for sure is that her favourite course is LARS0110: A Diasporic History of the Caribbean. She is fascinated by history.
The Certificate in Humanities programme will, no doubt, be her launch pad. In Martí’s words, “To educate is to give man the keys to the world, which are independence and love, and to give him strength to journey on his own, light of step, a spontaneous and free being.”
