I'm a cheapskate if there has ever been one. I don't know who bestowed such a trait on me or what vestigial instinct bubbled to the top of my gene pool. However, I know that I began showing signs at a young age.
When I was a nine-year-old kid, I went shopping with my step-momma. She notoriously shopped by coupon at the time. As if under the command of Admiral Nimitz in Saipan, Carol Ann aisle-hopped across Target with stealth and speed. In no need of being distracted by a child with limited allegiance to a shopping list, she sent me to roam the toy section with a plan to meet back at the register in thirty minutes. When we met at the front of the store I had an X-Men action figure (Iceman if my recollection serves me right) ready to purchase for the fair price of $4.99. Carol Ann let me go first because I only had one item. When the clerk rang up my toy, the total came to $5.39. I immediately turned to Carol Ann and asked if I could borrow a dollar to cover the change. She responded "what about that $20 bill in your wallet?" Without thinking anything of it I remarked, "I don't want to break my twenty!" I remember as clear as day Carol Ann pulling out fifty cents in change and saying "Son, you give 'tight wad' a whole new name!"
What does this have to do with community empowerment in Honduras? Well, as I was tallying up my budget for this year's trip, I looked at where I might save a few bucks. Travel from the San Pedro Sula Airport to Casa Blanca in El Progreso stuck out at me. I wondered who I might know who could give me a ride.
Then it came to me! I thought, "Dr. Delmer is from El Progreso. Maybe he is home and can give me a ride." I wrote to Delmer; alas, he would not be in Honduras during June. "But my brother Neel can give you a ride" Delmer wrote back. Cha-ching...$30 bucks in savings!
Not only did Neel give me ride, his sweet girlfriend offered to feed me also. The special of the day??
Sopa Marinera
It was one of the best I have ever enjoyed, but what made it taste so deliciosa was not the whole fish, crab, shrimp, leche de coco, or sweet yucca, but the love which brought ladle to bowl. It is such a warm feeling knowing that I have friends a world away who will greet me as family.
There are many other memories (most which are best left for oral storytelling) from the night I spent in Progreso in early June 2019, but "Dinner with Neel" will be one of my fondest.
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How many more stories like this could be shared among the 60K volunteers who travel to Honduras each year? With UVA - Uniting Volunteers App of Honduras - we can learn about all of the other connections that have been and are being made among volunteers. UVA could also be used to discover which volunteers are doing what, where, and when in Honduras each year. Such a tool could truly transform the effectiveness of the honest outreach throughout Honduras. Such a tool offers the unity the volunteer community must have in order to provide the infrastructure the Honduran government simply won't. Will you join me in sharing my GoFundMe page at www.gofundme.com/unitingvolunteershonduras to raise awareness and funds for UVA-Honduras?!
And if you are ready to take the plunge and join AHMEN's Rio de Agua Viva team in 2020, contact me today!
Together, we are the difference.
