Author's Note: I wrote this while in Cuba in May 2015. I hope this contrasts with the hatred, divisiveness, and turmoil of this past week.

There is a young man I have met here, through Eduardo’s (our guide) church. He’s eighteen, I believe. Awkward as can be, but with a heart of the purest gold. The kind of person you can’t help but to like. I’m sure you know the type. His name is Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos and I talked at the first lunch we had here. His English was less than stellar, but his smile was so genuine that you really didn’t need to speak the same language to connect. He asked me for my email address afterwards, and even though Pam (our team leader) said to not give out your personal email, I gave him mine. I knew I wouldn’t be getting scammed or hacked any time soon with my email in his hands. I’ve seen him a couple times since and we have smiled and hugged and small talked for a bit, but I felt like we hadn’t really bonded like I have with some of the other people here.

Fast forward to this evening. It’s our second to last English lesson and things are wrapping up. I’m dead tired, but I notice Juan Carlos walking around with some kind of cool paper sculpture in his hands, then I go back with talking to the group about our usual stuff: alphabet, family, basic grammar, etc.

Well class ends, and I’m hanging outside with Tato (my Cuban friend) waiting for the carriage to get where, when the team is called back inside. I roll my eyes—I am cranky and tired and just want to go to sleep—and begrudgingly go back for whatever we had to do.

I soon find out it’s Juan Carlos wanting to say goodbye to the group, as he will not be here on Wednesday. He’s still holding his paper sculpture, and after his goodbye speech, he announces that the paper sculpture is for me.

Yes. That beautifully intricate paper sculpture that he made was for me, a guy he hadn’t even spoken to for more than an hour. As he handed the sculpture to me and everyone unavoidably pulled out their cameras and gave us the paparazzi treatment, my understanding of the unimaginable hospitality of the Cuban people yet again shattered into a million pieces (of paper) and rearranged itself into that figurine. I truly cannot fathom the utter, total, complete kindness and love that these people—who were strangers to us just eleven days ago—have shown to me, to us. I don’t get it. I honestly don’t get it. Why? Why did they do this? Why did the congregation, who live on $20 a month, feed us not once but twice? Why did Tato pedal us back to the hotel in the sweltering sun even though he was exhausted then refuse to let me pay him? Why did Juan Carlos make that sculpture for me even though we had spoken a maximum of one hour? My best guess is their depth of love for each other is far deeper than ours.

After the seemingly endless camera flashes stop, I hug Juan Carlos more than I have ever hugged anyone. I tell him, teary-eyed, that this was the best gift I have ever received in my entire life, and I meant it, I meant it with every bone in my body, I meant it as genuinely as I have ever meant anything before. He tells me he only makes sculptures like that for his best friends, and when he tells me that I almost start to sob, because I know then I am in the presence of the kindest person I have ever met in my nineteen years of living, and I know that he loves me, a funny-looking white American in his country, probably the first redhead he’s ever seen in his life, and I know that I love him too.

Eventually we have to leave after I hugged him a few more times and reminded him to email me, and on the way back I find out that the sculpture was made of twenty-three sheets of paper cut into over eight-hundred pieces, each folded up into little triangular shapes. I held the figure to my heart when I heard that. Twenty-three sheets of paper. In a country where I could not buy a mojito at the bar until last night because there was no more sparkling water, or where I could not find a freaking pair of scissors in three different stores, twenty-three sheets is a lot of paper and a lot of money. Last week I would’ve felt guilty for Juan Carlos spending all that paper on me. This week, I am just gracious, and I am awestruck. The Cuban people seem to become more and more selfless than the day before. At this rate, I could very well be given a house by the end of the week.