by Cindy Jaquith A contingent of Cuban internationalist volunteers has been serving on the island of Grenada since October, helping restore electric power to towns, homes, and other buildings severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in September of this year. The storm destroyed or devastated 90 percent of buildings on the Caribbean island, including 70 percent of hotel rooms, vital to the country’s economy. Thirty-nine people died. “The Cubans have made a tremendous difference,” Terry Marryshow told the Militant in a November 17 telephone interview from St. Georges, Grenada’s capital. Marryshow is a representative of the Maurice Bishop and October 19th Martyrs Foundation. The foundation was established after the Oct. 19, 1987, counterrevolutionary coup in Grenada, in which then-prime minister Maurice Bishop and other government leaders were murdered. Marryshow said the island’s electrical lines were “almost totally devastated” by the hurricane. They are being repaired by Cuban volunteers who display “a very strong work ethic,” he said. “From six o’clock in the morning until late in the evening you see them on the road putting up new poles and electric lines. They’re also salvaging old lines and using them rather than new ones where possible,” Marryshow noted. “They display a large Cuban flag on their trucks so everyone can see who they are. People receive them quite warmly,” he continued. According to the Cuban daily Juventud Rebelde, the electrical workers are veterans of the hurricane recovery efforts in Cuba, restoring service in less than ten days to seven provices in Cuba that lost power after Hurricane Ivan hit. Reprinted from themilitant.com