Yahoo! August 18, 2000
HAVANA (AP) - Images of Elian Gonzalez frolicking with other children on a beach were shown on state television Thursday night as the government updated Cubans on the boy's summer vacation.
The two-minute segment showed Elian with his family and other boys and girls playing on an unidentified beach with clear waters. One close-up of the boy showed that his two permanent front teeth are growing in, filling in the gap that characterized his smile when he returned to Cuban in June.
The broadcast did not say when it was taped.
Elian reached America when he was rescued after a boat carrying him from Cuba wrecked at sea, killing his mother and others. For seven months, the boy was the subject of a highly publicized custody battle between relatives in Miami, who fought to keep him in the United States, and his father,
who battled to bring him back to Cuba.
The announcer said that Elian and his family had spent a week at a beach, then another week at their home in the town of Cardenas after they left Havana in late July upon Elian's completion of first grade.
Elian, his family and a group of classmates lived at a specially prepared boarding school in Havana for a month while Elian caught up on the schoolwork he missed during the custody fight.
The announcer said that Elian would start second grade in September in Cardenas, about two hour's drive east of Havana. | 