Focus on Arts and Ecology

Nene cleans algae off a piece of coral. | Photo by Dr. Shireen Rahimi

"I am a musician, a poet, and crazy" is a common saying in Cuba when somebody finds creative solutions to a problem. That's how Reinaldo Borrego Hernández, who goes by Nene, describes himself and his work to save the coral reef near his childhood home.

Nene grew up in the 1980s in Cocodrilo, a small coastal village on the Isle of Youth in western Cuba. Nene's family was poor; the only games he could play were with the ocean. He spent his days skirting the curved, rocky coastline and its white beaches, watching sea turtles make their nests, and diving in the Caribbean to explore coral reefs, where striped parrotfish and blue-striped grunts circulated among sea stars bursting in a kaleidoscope of colors.