©Shawna Scherbarth 2001-05. All rights reserved.
Crowd Pleaser
Santa Clara Province, Cuba
December 11, 2003
This is not a great picture by any stretch of the imagination. It is, however, a great memory. This was the evening we were invited by no less than three separate CDRs to attend festivities in their neighborhoods.
As we got off our bus, we were greeted in a matter befitting of royalty -- serenaded with the inevitable renditions of Guantanamera, treated to some heartfelt speeches and, in one case, a poem written especially for the occasion.
As we sat listening to the translators stumble over these cheerful welcomes, I made friends with some nearby kids by taking pictures and showing them the results on the back of my camera. It took maybe five seconds before I was completed engulfed in children and well on my way to being officially adopted. I spent the next 40 minutes or so being passed from one family to another, taking pictures and earning huge smiles in return. One woman took my hand and led me across the gathering to the table where they had laid out food for us. On her recommendation I took a bite of some strange looking confection that turned out to be almost entirely sugar. Gamely, I nibbled on it and smiled, smiled then laughed. And just as I was getting ready to part with a lifetime’s reticence regarding dancing in public, we were hustled back on to our bus to head back to the hotel. As I boarded the bus, a little girl, my first friend of the evening, came running up to me. Hugging me fiercely she whispered something sweet and unintelligible in my ear.
