Life goes in Cuba village, despite Fidel illness

ISABELA DE SAGUA, Cuba, Aug 8 (Reuters) While the world waits to see if Cuban leader Fidel Castro recovers from surgery and returns to power in the island nation he has run for 47 years, life in this remote fishing village goes on as before, almost untouched by the news.

On a weekend visit, children splashed in the sea, men played dominoes in the shade of wooden houses and couples shared glasses of rum and ate roasted peanuts.

A Soviet-built combat helicopter passed overhead, but people paid it little heed as they continued their work and play.

''The people are worried and speak of whether this is good or bad. But we are all calm, everything is the same,'' Luis, a 36-year-old farmer, said on Saturday after coming to the beach 187 miles (312 km) east of Havana.

Nobody knows how long they will be without Castro, who, two weeks short of his 80th birthday, surprised the country on July 31 by temporarily relinquishing power to his brother Raul Castro while he recovers from intestinal surgery.

It was a reminder that even the man who has dominated Cuban life since taking over in a 1959 revolution is mortal, said a shirtless Alfonso.

''I hope Fidel doesn't die. He is our leader and we are worried for him, but sooner or later all of us are going to die,'' said the 50-year-old economist, while chatting with friends by the sea.

KEEPING WATCH One thing that has changed in the past week is that the government has placed everyone on a higher state of alert.

As elsewhere in Cuba, the people of Isabela de Sagua have organized themselves to keep watch for a possible military invasion from the United States.

US President George W Bush has urged Cubans to push for a democratic government, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday the United States had no plans to invade Cuba.

Still, said Naidis, a 20-year-old economics student, ''They are doing watches at night in the barrios. We are alert.'' As if to drive home the point, the men of the village followed a group of outsiders who showed up. Eventually they were stopped by police and required to show their documents.

''It's a routine control,'' explained a police captain, accustomed to making such checks in a country that for half a century has been in permanent psychological state of war.

In messages from his sickbed, Castro warned that the US government, which has spent almost five decades trying to defeat him, is lying in wait.

But the inhabitants of Isabela de Sagua pointed to a brand new rental car passing through and said the only US arrivals were old friends who emigrated to Miami and who return home every three years, as allowed by US law.

REUTERS DH RK0515