By Michelle Singletary, Washington Post . Sun-Sentinel. Web-posted: 6:10 p.m. Mar. 10, 2000
HAVANA -- Eight-year-old Patricia reminds me of my little girl. She is cocoa brown with a smile that seems to stretch ear to ear. She loves butterscotch candy, popcorn and snuggling.
Patricia doesn't have many toys or clothes. The day I met this charming little girl her tights were well worn with holes and her dress a little too short. She has no Barbie dolls. (I've lost count of the number of Barbies my daughter has.)
I met Patricia and her mother, Alicia, last month while visiting Cuba under the auspices of an organization of black columnists. We wanted to see for ourselves, among other things, how bad things might be for 6-year-old Elián Gonzalez if he were sent home to his father and communist
Cuba.
The Florida relatives who have custody of this boy say Cuba is no place for a child. They want Elián, who was found clinging to an inner tube in the Atlantic in November, to stay in America where he can enjoy the riches of freedom.
When I think about this controversy over Elián, I now think of the face of Patricia and all the other Cuban children I met or saw while in Havana.
What I see are sweet-faced children -- and intangibles that transcend all foolish materialistic arguments about who's better off where.
I could see no reason why Patricia would be happier anywhere else than right here with her mother, even though her mommy doesn't have many "worldly" possessions.
It is true that the family's television is '50s vintage. They don't have a car or a telephone. Their single-family cement house is so tiny their living room doubles as a dining room. Mother and child share a bedroom and a bed.
In Cuba there are no shelves full of Barbie dolls. There is no Disney World. The closest I saw to an amusement park was the antiquated merry-go-round in Parque Central in Havana.
Instead of aerodynamic skateboards or sparkling in-line skates, many Cuban children are forced to fashion their own toys. I watched as three young boys darted around traffic on makeshift scooters made out of old crates. Just down the street another group of boys was playing drums on empty
cardboard boxes.
I asked Alicia about the accusations that many Cuban children are unhappy and hungry.
"We have problems like people in any other country," said Alicia, who because of all the controversy surrounding the Gonzalez case asked that her last name not be used. "Maybe we don't have so much food like you in America but Cuban people in general are not going hungry."
I spent two days visiting Alicia and several of her family members, many of whom earn between $15 and $20 a month. I just can't imagine. I can spend that much money in one trip to a fast-food restaurant.
Now, I'm not naive about Cuba. Riding and walking around Havana, with its dilapidated apartment buildings and treacherously pothole-riddled streets, it would be easy to pity the people.
But I'm not naive about poverty, either.
I've been there.
And I can tell you that it is just as wrong to equate deprivation with misery as it is to equate prosperity with contentment.
So many of us in America live what Cubans would consider very prosperous lives.
Yet we worry that we don't have enough while our homes are filled with gadgets and things paid for with money we don't have.
We shower our children with so much stuff there is a perpetual layer of toys in their pricey toy bins that they never play with again.
Here in the United States so many parents, including myself, stress about providing enough for our children.
Alicia says she doesn't worry about the stuff she can't get her child.
"We don't live as well as you of course but we are OK," she said in her halting English. "We can go to university for free. We have free health care. My daughter can study the piano for free. It is not difficult to find little children in Cuba singing or dancing. My Patricia
loves to sing and dance."
What makes a child happy?
As I watched Patricia and her 2-year-old cousin, Anna, hug, kiss and tickle each other, with not a single toy in sight, that question wasn't so hard to answer.
Michelle Singletary is a Washington Post business writer. She can be reached by e-mail at singletarym@washpost.com.
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