Sports commentator Yasel Porto returns to Cuba and celebrates the occasion of visiting Juana Bacallao's tomb

The Cuban sports journalist and commentatorYasel Porto This Saturday he shared the experience he had upon returning to Havana and fulfilling the debt of visiting the grave ofJuana Bacallao, popular Cuban artist who died last Saturday, February 24, at the age of ninety-eight.

“Since I found out about the death of Juana Bacallao, that popular and unique figure of Cuban culture, I made a promise to myself that when I returned to Cuba I would pass by the place where her remains rest in the Colón Cemetery,” Porto said in a post on the social networkFacebook.

He assured in his message that it was a debt he owed for “the admiration I always had for him, for what he was and because there was a somewhat familiar feeling because that particular last name is directly related to my maternal family.”

He confessed that he did not have much difficulty identifying the place where Juana's remains rest, although he stated that the video of her funeral and the knowledge he has of theNecropolis of Havana, were decisive in their meeting.

That, for him, was a good part, which also allowed him to see the tombs where two other outstanding personalities of Cuban culture are buried:Adalberto Alvarez andJosé Luis Cortés, “El Tosco”.

According to Porto, these two tombs are well identified, but the same is not true of Juana's. “I don't know if anyone who didn't go to the funeral will have found where she is, but without help I find it difficult,” he said.

Porto recommended pointing out the place. “I think the least that can be done is that, like Adalberto and Cortés, so that every person who passes by knows that there lies one of the most special figures of Cuban culture.. A woman without equal, with her defects and above all, with that great amount of virtues and mystique that made her an extremely popular and loved person for Cubans and even foreigners," he added.

Likewise, he added that “that detail doesn't cost much.It is about respect and gratitude towards someone who no one should doubt that she earned it as an artist and as a Cuban.”.

The mortal remains of Juana Bacallao were buried in the Pantheon of Culture of the Colón Cemetery on the morning of Sunday, February 25., in the presence of the Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso Grau and a few dozen people, in a funeral that took place in a rather discreet manner.

Images of the artist's funeral events They raised the indignation of many Cubans and artists living abroad, due to the loneliness that was observed both at the funeral held on Calzada and K, in El Vedado, and at the transfer of the coffin.

Since that date, the digital portalCuban Diary, had indicated that the place where Juana rests is quite austere, and on it there is no tombstone or inscription dedicated to her memory.

Days before,upon the news of his emergency admission to the “Carlos Juan Finlay” Military Hospital in Havana., as a result of a widespread infection, an anonymous source told the siteCubanet that in recent years no Culture official was in charge of inquiring into the state of health or basic needs of Bacallao, who "has been in a situation of abandonment," he emphasized.