Playa Largo Rest Day
Weezie squeaks to an abrupt stop behind me “Leah,” she calls, “Can we stop here for just a minute?” We have miles upon miles to go to get to our destination, it is hot and the wind is building as it does every afternoon, but there is no choice. For there on the side of the road is a gaggle of nine children, all looking for some diversion on a Saturday morning and Weezie has just the thing. I hop off my bike and amble back to her, down the dusty street, in a town not even big enough to have a name.
Weezie’s command of the Spanish language isn’t great, but she finds a way to communicate through smiles, pantomime and her ability to relate to children with her heart first.
She opens her pannier and pulls out a long fire-engine-red rope and hands one end to a little girl of maybe six. Weezie then takes the other end backs away from the her and begins to swing it, slowly at first, sweeping it back and forth across the rocky ground.
She beckons for one of the kids to jump.
With a shy smile, but a brave swagger, a boy of about ten comes forward begins to jump. After he has mastered jumping over the sweeping rope, Weezie and the girl begin to swing it over his head. He jumps high, his flip flops slapping against the soles of his feet again and again and again. The kids cheer and shout encouragement until finally he misses. All the kids laugh and push one another forward, cajoling each other to take turns. Their bodies bump and shimmy like a little roiling pile of puppies.
When everyone has taken a turn, Weezie rolls up the rope, stuffs it back in her pannier and gives a round of high fives.
“Okay,” she says, “we can go now.” Her grin is only matched by the grins of all the children around her.
Sometimes, language has no words.
Today is a rest day. We are spending it sitting on the sand by the Bay of Pigs, eating, doing laundry and reading. This area has seen so much turmoil, but today tranquility reins.