By: Santiago Romero, MSc.
Here there is not a gardener, but many roses that water and take care of a group of little flowers, day by day, not for money, nor a macabre pretension, not even by obligation, on the contrary, at the end of the day there is a mixture of feelings, the eyes are flooded with tears and calm is sought with a lot of questions: will you be alright? Will you come back tomorrow? Did you like today’s games? Will you have a little dream of me? Do you want something to remember me by?

“No, miss, everything was beautiful, so beautiful that I give you a kiss”, says one of the little flowers as she says goodbye to her fantastic garden for hours. Suddenly, before sunset, everything is sad, lonely, silence dominates the place. Now all the famous cartoon characters like Elpidio Valdes, María Silvia, Eutelia and even the old nightingale are not visible on the walls that protect the fantastic facility located across from the Plaza de Marte.

I saw them all day, those little giants full of colors and laughter, that seemed to come out of a storybook or movie, suddenly, they vanished without the help of Harry Potter. Yes, they were in the very center of that enclosure located in the heart of the city of Santiago de Cuba, where very few know The Garden of the Little Flowers.

I went there the next day and I waited until eight in the morning when the garden was again populated by playful little flowers, some with many dreams and others in expectation of the new day full of sun and many visitors.

The little flowers played with me, I let myself be carried away by their proposals of all kinds: how to attend to a sick person, take care of him, give him medicine, jump between obstacles, put a baby to sleep, make a story and listen to the older Rose with her new stories about goblins, rascals and morals.

Then they invited me to have a snack with their homemade treats, and in exchange, I took some group photos from the ground, very low to know how life looks like from there where the little princes swarm, the kingdom of the Lilliputians, of the seven dwarfs, of Little Red Riding Hood and Bluebeard, Snow White and Count Lucanor.

I discovered the immensity of that small but huge universe that the common eye barely observes, where the Little Flowers adore José Marti’s “Rose’s Pink Shoes”, the secrets of “An Dangerous Adventure” told by the legendary Dora Alonso, of “The Grasshopper’s Song”, and many other Cuban stories.

Here there is no crying, no sadness, no deceit; the little flowers are sincere, they know how to love, the game is for them as serious as the real work. This garden must be watered every day with love, precipitate the flow of a spring of affection for the sprouting of the next story of elves and little stars, of the rooster that moved to the moon and from there heard about the pink shoes.