Me Knows Better Than to Say This… but I will. Recently, Jimmy had the opportunity of a
lifetime to travel to Cuba (legally licensed by the State Department) as part
of a People to People education exchange.
It was as they say, a chance to explore my Hispanic roots… yes, I know,
I don’t look Hispanic nor can I say anything in Spanish other than “hola” and
“gracias” and all this while still sporting a bit of a Minnesotan accent. But my grandmother was born just outside of
Havana so I can officially make that claim.
One chance encounter left me with a reminder that no
matter the “race” we claim or think we are… that we are all really the same
deep inside and made truly in God’s image.
While in the farmer’s market, a group of Americans and a group of Cubans
were mixed in an open square watching as a young Cuban toddler was drawn to
woman in our group. He climbed into
her open arms and she held him for some time.
All the while, the crowd, both Cubans and Americans were smiling at the
cute sight and then broke into laughter when the child refused to go back to his
mother or father. The more they tried to
persuade him, the more he resisted with arms pushing them away. The crowd continued to laugh but at some
point started to feel a twinge of empathy for the parents since their own son
was choosing a complete stranger over them.
The grandmother spoke to another woman in our group
explaining how unusual this was since the toddler was scared to approach anyone
he didn’t know. The show continued for
some time until a middle aged Cuban man in front of me said something to his
companions immediately to his right.
Even though I could not understand the exact phrases, he had that
playful look and said something like, “Watch this.”
Immediately he proceeded to get down on all fours and
crawled up to one of the attractive women in our party and reached up while on
his knees yelling, “Momma – take me!” At
this point the crowd broke into a huge roar of laughter knowing the dual
meaning of the phrase.
At that sanguine moment, we were neither Cuban nor American,
Communist nor Capitalist, Spanish, African, English, Irish, Chinese… or
whatever class of race that we box ourselves into… but we were all part of the
same race… a box we should more appropriately check called the Human Race.
