The bee charmer...

We were enjoying a coffee on a terrace of the Kazimierz District, Krakow’s Old Jewish Quarter, when a young little girl –ten years old or so- suddenly appeared in front of our table and muttered a few words in Polish:

“Lo siento, no entiendo polaco” – I said, unconsciously, in Spanish, not meaning to be rude.
“Do you speak English?” - She inquired again, very politely and very sure of herself.
“Yes, I do… Why?” – I replied, curious.
“I wanted to show you my pictures and see if you want to buy one. I draw them myself” – She answered in basic, but fluid English, without the slightest hint of hesitation.
“Ok, let us see…” – I told her, still surprised by her language skill, and she took a bunch of postcard size pictures from her pocket and laid them on the table.

Mrs G. and I started looking through them. And it was true; they were handmade with colour pencils. A whole zoo of zebras, hippos, giraffes, elephants, ladybugs, dogs, etc, etc…

We had a great time browsing through them. They were very child-like, but indeed beautiful. In love with the artist hand and, just as important, her determination, we finally selected a piece: the happy looking bee you see above.

“How much for this one?” – I asked.
“Oh… whatever you want” – She replied calmly and not the least eager or imposing.

I searched through my pockets and gave her 10 szlotys for the cute bee. She grabbed the coin, then picked the rest of her pictures, thanked us delicately and left for another café.

Once she was gone, Mrs G and I couldn’t help commenting with excitement about the “little artist”. She was no beggar or anything like that – in fact, she dressed very clean and looked like the kind of child you would think is all A’s at school-. Since our first day in Krakow, we had been talking about how we felt Poland was such a beautiful country, but you couldn’t help feeling moved all the time, just by evoking that not that long ago, in those wonderful cities, little towns or landscapes, there was probably not a single place where someone had not been running or hiding to save his/her life.

The Kazimierz District, as all European Jewish ghettos during World War II, was one of those places where horror struck in its most sinister forms.

The view of the “little artist”, in that same old Jewish neighbourhood, today, helped us to remember –and most important feel-, how the beauty of life can always shine again.