Only five years old, he won hands down in the “Guess the Jelly Bean Flavor” game open to all. He beat all adults and older kids combined.
Rules: close your eyes as a jelly bean is placed on your palm, taste it, then check your answer from a sheet of about 59 flavors.
Lean couldn’t read yet so his mom had to tick the flavors as he named them without hesitation. “Umm, cinnamom.” “Umm, lemon.” “Umm, banana.” “Umm, green apple.” His teammates soon noticed that Lean was getting all the right answers while they could guess nothing. They set a new strategy—wait for Lean’s verdict before they ticked the flavor off their own lists.
I asked him after the game, “Lean, how’d you know it was green apple?”
“It tastes like green apple.”
“How’d you know it was cinnamon?”
“I just know!”
Lean later was seen playing with a little boy who was as dark as Lean was fair. He wasn’t one of the family so we asked around who the boy might be. He was the son of the cook. Very friendly, he came to me and asked, “Can you give me one of those so I could also join the games?” He pointed to the reunion ID (which shows the branch of the family tree you belong to) hanging down my neck.
I lost my tongue. Tony came to rescue and gave him a coloring book and crayons. He shrieked with delight, and then Lean took his hand to play games only they could understand.
“What’s your friend’s name, Lean?” I asked.
“John.” At mealtime, Lean invited John to join him. They were together at all times—a study in contrast. Lean spoke English and John (who was very small for an eight-year-old) spoke Filipino.
Then came bye-bye time. John unfortunately figured in a freak accident. He fell down a ledge and hurt his leg.
Lean lost no time in asking his mom for his box of treasured chocolate crackers and told her he wanted to give it to his friend, John, before going home. This was the moment I captured on camera.
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