This is not the story of “Platero and I”, much less that of “Negrita”, by Onelio Jorge Cardoso, this chronicle goes to someone very special that I met and was captivated by my caresses.  For him that even my husband feels jealous.

He looks out the window, waiting to court me as soon as I appear, he is very disciplined, he starts to despair when I approach him and I give him unlimited love, just like he does to me.
This connection has been inexplicable, everyone says that his character is not the most flattering with those who try to greet him, he selects his friends, although it seems that our love was at first sight.

The game is one of his gifts as a good gallant. He draws the attention with his baseball ball made of old socks, which handles with an enviable dexterity. If you do not pay attention, it manages to get you involved, leaving it to fall at your feet and hiding behind a jar that is in the kitchen of the house.

In his eyes hides the tenderness of a small child that keeps a sad memory of a childhood relegated to the oblivion of the street, where he wandered without hope of being adopted by the beautiful family he has today.

He never forgets the day he arrived at his current home, nobody thought he would recover and expose the beautiful figure he currently shows.  His guardian angel was the granddaughter of the sweet lady who spoils him without limits, as if he were part of her family, she thanks him with vehement attention.

You just have to be present when she arrives to enjoy such a show, unforgettable for those of us who share feelings of love for those little people that fill our days.

And to continue presenting my friend confess that his culinary tastes are inclined to the area of ​​carnivores, for him no rice, salads or dairy, his diet is based on meat and especially the liver that often hurts him for the amount he ingests.

Negro is so smart that his owner trusts him the filling of the water vessels, he warns her in the most sindular form that can be imagined.

I confess that, if I miss his look in the morning, or his wait on the window in the afternoon I feel strange because he is already part of my daily life, of my beautiful existence in a place of Camagüey, where between love and hope I build  my life adding the best of friends: Negrito, the faithful puppy that has earned a piece of my heart.

This chronicle is dedicated to families and animals that has “The dream of a home”, name and desire that carries the socio-cultural project of the House Carlos J. Finlay, belonging to the Office of the Historian of the Camagüey City.

In this project, some institutions and the population in general are interested in animal protection in order to care for and preserve the environment.

Negrito’s story is one of many with a happy ending for which we struggle and work.

Photo: Sheila Barros Fals

Translated into English by Yisel Torres Ruiz