BY EUNICE PONCE AND ELAINE DE VALLE

 Hugs, kisses and tears of joy washed over 14 sunburned and blistered Cuban rafters Saturday as they were paroled to their loved ones a day after they were found at sea suffering from severe dehydration.

 The group was plucked from an aluminum boat they constructed in Cuba after they were spotted by a passing freighter about seven miles off Miami. Coast Guard crews reached them about 2:40 p.m. Friday and brought them ashore, where they were brought to Mount Sinai Medical Center and South Shore and Jackson Memorial hospitals for medical treatment.

 Family members and friends gathered in the parking lot outside the Miami-Dade Health Department clinic in Little Havana where the group of 12 men and two women was being processed and screened early Saturday afternoon.

 They anxiously looked through the tinted glass windows to catch a glimpse of their relatives inside, banged on the glass and spoke through the cracks in the doors.

 Inside, the rafters cupped their hands over their eyes to see their welcome committees through the mirrored tint on the glass.

 When rafter Ariel Acosta, 28, and a few others stepped outside the office for a moment, friends and relatives swarmed around them. They wore navy blue T-shirts, sweat pants and canvas boat shoes they were issued at the Krome Detention Center.

 Several of the waiting family members were speaking on cellular phones and someone handed one to Acosta. ''Yeah, I'm here. There's a lot of cameras here,'' he said. In the confusion, he thought he was at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

 Rafter Alfredo Lorenzo Rodriguez, 37, was visibly moved when he was embraced by his uncle, Lazaro Rodriguez, and his aunt, Alida Rodriguez, who held a Cuban flag and a chilled bottle of water for him. Both beamed when they saw him.

 Asked how it felt to be in the United States, Lorenzo -- whose lips were still bleeding from the exposure to the sun during their seven-day trip -- began to cry.

 ''Imagine. This is incredible,'' he said. He said he was both happy to have arrived and sad he left his wife and two children behind.

 ''I'm here to work, and to live in a real country -- a free country.''

 Lazaro Rodriguez, who hadn't seen his nephew in 22 years, said Lorenzo did the right thing.

 ''We would have liked to welcome all of them, but unfortunately, that can't be. I think what he did was a good step because it's the only way he can help his family,'' said Rodriguez, who spent hours at his nephew's bedside before he was discharged from the hospital about 10:30 p.m. Friday.

 ''He was desperate and depressed. He thought he was going to be repatriated. But we told him not to worry, that this country would give them support.''

 All 14 rafters can stay in the United States because of a policy that allows Cuban refugees who reach shore to apply for residency within a year and a day, said Maria Elena Garcia, an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman. The policy -- often called the ''wet foot, dry foot'' rule -- also calls for the repatriation of Cubans caught at sea.

 Oscar Mederos, 44, of Miami, spent all night Friday visiting the emergency rooms of the hospitals where the rafters were taken.

 When he popped in on Gustavo Valiente, 38, at Mount Sinai, his longtime friend was in the bathroom and he decided to play a joke.

 ''I told him, 'Hey, get out of there. Do you think you own that bathroom?' And he was saying in a nervous voice, 'Please, I'm almost done,' '' Mederos said.

 ''When he came out and saw my face, he burst into tears.''

 Another friend, Humberto Cabrera of Westchester, said he wasn't surprised that Valiente risked his life to flee the communist island. When Cabrera visited Cuba last year, Valiente told him he was desperate to leave.

 ''He used to tell me 'I am going to leave here. I'll go even if I have to go in a palanganita,' '' Cabrera said, using a Spanish word for a shallow tin washtub.

 The group left in a small boat they built from discarded aluminum pipes and slipped away from the water's edge in Martín, Matanzas, in the dark. They include two young sisters and their husbands, a cousin of one of the men and their closest friends since childhood.

 Shortly afterward, they stopped on a small island near the Cuban coastline to hide from Cuban border patrol boats and, in the confusion, lost their rations: two roasted legs of pork and several jugs of water. For the remainder of the trip, they shared a small bag of Cuban crackers.

 By the time they were found by the U.S. Coast Guard about a week later, most -- if not all -- had drunk salt water and their own urine. At one point, they lost hope and several of them wanted to jump overboard. The others had to hold them back.

 The rafters who were conscious couldn't tell crew members how many days they had been at sea. Some said it had been 10 days.

 Ariel Sanchez couldn't even tell hospital officials his age.

 ''The only thing he remembered was his name,'' said his sister, Mayelin Sanchez. ''I was the one who told him he was 27.''

 The rafters and their relatives said they had no party plans for Saturday. They just wanted to sit and catch up on each others' lives.

 And then, sleep.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald