When you are with Mariela Pérez-Simons, she exudes happiness, joy, and love- of nature, humanity, and life! Mariela will lead you to believe that life is total bliss and problem free. However, life has not always been easy for Mariela. She came to Greensboro in 1995 as a political refugee from Cuba. Her family was the first to be sponsored as political refugees by Lutheran Family Services from Cuba to Greensboro. The departure from Cuba was harrowing. Her family sold everything to have the cash to take the flight from Cuba to Miami. They sneaked through the streets of Havana to the airport in the night as many Cubans were being detained and their exits denied. Had this happened, Mariela's family would have been left with literally nothing. Fortunately, they arrived in Miami, incident free. The Miami portion of the journey was no problem as so many people in Florida speak Spanish. However, for the connecting flight to Greensboro, they were told nobody spoke Spanish and were given a New York City phone number to call if they arrived in Greensboro with nobody to translate. They were terrified that they would be alone and had they no idea how to make a phone call in the United States (especially in the pre-cell phone era). They were especially worried because they couldn't even find Greensboro on the map. They anticipated having to sleep in the streets and were a bundle of nerves. To their great joy, they were greeted at the Greensboro airport with a party of 50 people holding signs and welcoming them with open arms. That was their introduction to Greensboro. Because of the great people in our community, they have never left.
While many people tried to convince Mariela to relocate to Florida, she says that the palm trees don't speak to her the way Greensboro's trees do. She loves the nature here and stays outdoors as much as possible. She is constantly walking the nature trails and greenways and, 20 years later, continues to find new trails. Her business, "Live Your Bliss,", incorporate all of her talents, from photography to public speaking to freelance writing to bringing people together to connect in a deep way. The human connection is so important to Mariela and she is introducing her 9-year-old daughter to this concept. She and her daughter have a project where they collect smiles from people. They try to get strangers to smile and when they to, they draw a small picture to add to their wall of smiles (see photo below). The happiness of others brings happiness to her. We are so lucky to have Mariela in our community. Today is ABC Wednesday and "M" is for Mariela.
For the other people in this A-Z Local People series, see, here.
See, I learned something new today. Even though I've known Mariela for several years and listened to her story about life in Cuba recorded by "Story Corp," I had no idea that she and Lulu collect smiles.
However, that should not surprise me because that is so much like her, always trying to put a smile on other peoples faces ;)
Posted by: Katja | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 07:11 AM
Hi, Mariela, nice to meet you!
Posted by: VP | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 07:39 AM
Mariela sounds like a wonderful person and a wonderful addition to your community. Florida's loss! :)
Posted by: Lowell | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 08:28 AM
She seems to be a lovely lady and I love her sMile!
Leslie
abcw team
Posted by: Leslie | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 03:04 PM
She has a very friendly and welcoming smile!
Posted by: Halcyon | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 03:13 PM
Some people are truly to be envied... i wish i could live in that state of mind...
Have a nice ABC-week / - day
♫ M e l ☺ d y ♫ (abc-w-team)
Posted by: ♫ Mel☺dy ♫ | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 03:23 PM
a great addition to your city
ROG, ABCW
Posted by: Roger Green | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 03:58 PM
Such a wonderful portrait!
Posted by: William Kendall | Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 03:59 PM
What a hearty, dramatic and happy-ending story of Mariela. Many many smiles to her and to your country's amazing hospitality.
Thank you so much for your comment on my drawing blog!
Answering your question, I turned off the comments on MDP, as the blog was stopped but then the crowd of spammers suddenly appeared.
Thank you for your interest and great memories of my CDP activity.
Posted by: Irina | Thursday, October 08, 2015 at 04:52 PM
I love this post so much. What a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing. I wish Mariela and her family nothing but the best.
Posted by: Life with Kaishon | Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 02:48 PM