Helping Yourself by Helping Others

Nick D.

    On Saturday Jake, Kevin and I went with our Spanish teacher Shirley, and our swim instructor Edgar, and a truck full of members from Shirley’s church to give food to three very poor families who live just outside of Zihuatanejo. It was a very eye opening experience to say the least, for us all and I found it inspiring. My best friend back home lives with her single mother and is extremely poor. There were a few times where I would go over to her house and there would be no food and I could hear her stomach growling. I would buy her dinner all the time and concert tickets and what not just so she wouldn’t feel left out. Living in an extremely wealthy area, I thought “broke.” But after visiting these three families I have a totally new definition of poor, and a stronger appreciation of how incredibly lucky I am. One of the families had eleven people in the family, and only the mom worked, and for very little money too. They shared three beds in a shack. No water, food, or electricity, barely any clothes. They all sat around all day hungry and bored, the youngest was four years old, the rest were under fifteen. Shirly told me how the oldest, a very pretty girl, had a headache one day when they went to deliver the food, she was very sick. Shirley asked what she thought she was sick with and she replied that she hadn’t eaten in four days. On a previous trip, one of the guys from Back2Basics asked this very same girl if she had ever got meat to feed to the family. The girl said she didn’t know what meat was. She had never heard the word “carne” before. I knew that people lived like this and I’ve always been interested in helping these kinds of people, but to actually see it firsthand made it so much more real. And it inspired me I’ve always had a big heart even throughout my using. Always caring for others, more than myself in all aspects. But this really sparked something inside of me I truly want to thelp people these kinds of situations. If it’s just dropping off a bag of good or even starting a non-profit organization to raise money for them, I want to help. To be a part of something more.