#NoRules

She walked down the road. A road lined with dirt and decomposing garbage. A road that on the surface, no one would think of as exceptionally beautiful, but it was. It was beautiful not because of its appearance, but because of the people who’d left their footprints on it, who had walked it many times before her. People who didn’t seem to notice the overflowing dumpsters, but who saw the true beauty within the others taking steps down the same road.  This beaten down road led her to several stops along the way. One where she took courage and spoke her native tongue to a few who would listen with open minds, one of which who showed gratitude with a hug and a hand to the heart.  Another stop led her into a tiny home where a lonely, elderly woman lived. The woman was so overwhelmed with joy of new company, tears streamed down her perfectly wrinkled face. As she followed the rest of the group out of the house, the aged woman hugged her ever so tightly, and began to weep. The girl held her until finally she quieted some. Then, the elderly lady put her visitor’s young face in her hands and said “beautiful woman” in her parent language of Spanish. And the young woman smiled and said a few words she knew in Spanish, “Dios te bendiga,” meaning God bless you. The two hugged a bit longer and she waved until she could no longer see the once lonely woman. As she continued to travel, step after step in her American mass produced shoes, three kids came running past. They were racing each other, not with toys or cars, but with broken metal chairs. The children laid the chairs so the backs were one with the concrete, and pushed them as fast as they could. She started to frown at the sight, but before her eyebrows could form a crease she heard them laughing, the innocent pure sound of joy only a child could utter.  Each stop she made, she took a piece with her. Using each prior to interpret her surroundings, this new environment she’d never experienced. An ocean meeting the earth was her next pause along the way. Standing looking at the mouth of the water, she imagined herself seeing the Earth from space, and then zooming in, passing through the stars, clouds, the ever-climbing sky, until all that was visible was her, standing there on a beach, surrounded by trash. Surrounded by broken shards that were unidentifiable as broken bottles or shells, and yet the people there with her seemed at peace. She kept going. She moved on to what looked like a metal slat shelter house. Inside, she found an unusually large number of people that barely fit all together. People who were smiling, laughing, making conversation with everyone. No one was off limits. No one seemed afraid or self-conscious. It was as if no social barriers existed between the locals. As she sat inside the shelter observing, children outside began playing with pieces of wood, rather pieces of discarded material, using their imagination to build. She met a woman here whose scattered tooth smile stretched all the way to her eyes. Her laugh was contagious. Even when the conversation would seem to come to an end, she would renew it, commenting “that’s great” in her accent while laughing. The gregarious woman then showed the young woman her home, and told her that it would be her home too, any time she visited.  Each stop was beginning to become harder to leave, harder to move on to the next. She journeyed on to find herself with faces that were growing familiar. Faces whose bodies moved much better than Americans. Dancing was like a second language to them, but not one you had to learn using Hooked on Phonics. They were born with this second language. She tried it out, wanting to take in every experience. She caught on fast, and they smiled. She was communicating with them, without speaking a word.  Her days began to blend together as she continued walking down the tainted road. But, she hadn’t been walking alone. He was walking with her, along with a group of people just like her with the same purpose in mind. They had all made similar stops, surrounded by colorful residential buildings, all full of people who truly understood what it meant to love their neighbor, even if their “neighbor” was from another country. At the end of her time on this road she felt joy. Joy that all the American luxuries couldn’t fulfill.  Cuba. A place of genuine community, where a mask of poverty, is unveiled to reveal the strong faith in the hearts of many.