There’s silence. Everyone’s concentrated. “Let’s imagine a beach. Listen to the whispering sea, just walk on the sand. Get in the water. Swim.”

Two dozen kids of diff erent ages are lying on the fl oor, as if they were swimming in the sea. Th ey pour water on one another, they laugh and have fun. Th ey’re in a small, narrow hall with the lights dimmed. It’s kind of a makeshift performing arts company led, from a corner of the room, by a young girl in her wheelchair.

Mabel Cedeño Perez is barely 20years old and 3’ 2” tall. Yet her willingnessis a whole lot bigger than the disease she’s been suff ering from since she was born: imperfect osteogenesis with bone decalcifi cation, quitea weird name for something that hasn’t been able to deter her from becoming an arts instructor or the longstanding star of A Little Roach Called Martina in the unusual version staged by La Colmenita.

Over the past decade, she’s been running her own “beehive” in Boyeros, a municipality in the outskirts of Havana. With her boys and girls in tow, she organizes presentations in the neighborhoods and in theaters, or goes out on tours across the entire island nation.

“You’re now climbing a mountain. Your clothes are dry now. Th e mountain is pretty high. Try to climb it. Help yourselves with your hands. Get a good step up every time. Don’t stop, just carry on.”

As the children learn to play their parts in a number of playful situations, Mabelita –as everybody calls her- tells us how she signed up for La Colmenita while she was studying at the “Solidarity with Panama” Special School, together with other impaired children like her.

That gave birth not only to a vocation, but also to her desire of doing something for the others. And the La Colmenita de Boyeros saw the light of day, a project that’s now construed as a reference of good mental and community work.

“Things haven’t been easy. Costumes are made of nylon and handme- downs. The stages are built with the help of some of the parents and the children’s own paintings and drawings. And they also help sew their own costumes. “We never request specifi c costumes made of specifi c fabrics or in specifi c colors. The important thing here is to make both the parents and the kids feel fi ne and that they’re doing something good for themselves.”

Thanks to that philosophy, the company has staged its own versions of A Little Roach Called Martina, Th e Big Hoedown or My Imagined Girl in which the kids get kicks out of the performing arts. “I don’t want to form actors and actresses, but good, independent people who might someday become doctors, teachers or workers.”

“We’re now in a green meadow teeming with butterfl ies. Look how much light there is. Lie down on the grass, take a rest, swim in the river if you want to. Play with the balls. At the end of the day, we are home, down to the wire.”

The workshop designed to build gesture skills in children is nearly over. It’s almost 8:00pm and the parentswait outside. The kids have been inside for roughly two hours that have ticked by in a couple of shakes. Th ey swam in the sea, walked in the desert, climbed a mountain, crossed a swamp, sauntered through a cave and fi nally reached a green meadow.

“It’s hard, but if you’ve got the will and the stamina to carry on, you get things done,” Mabelita beams as she sees us off from her wheelchair that, even though she hasn’t noticed completely, it’s now too small to carry her soul.