By 7 o'clock, they are at the rolling benches, turning out the first of the day's hand-rolled premium cigars. Don Rolando is already on hand, giving instructions, checking quality and supervising the packaging of a shipment to be sent out that afternoon. At his side is his son, who has flown down from New Jersey for the event. Housed in what was once a motel, and for a time a Catholic convent, it is decidedly bare-bones and no frills. Inside, a series of rooms open onto a central courtyard.
Production takes place in what was once the dining room.
Most of the other, smaller rooms hold stores of tobacco. In the courtyard, bicycles and picnic tables crowd together beneath giant rubber tree and bamboo plants. Chickens and ducks wander about pecking the bare earth. Over a PA system comes the voice of a reader, who sits on a central dais in the rolling room, reading the news of the day and selections from novels, to entertain and educate the workers. This is a little corner of old Cuba.