Who our heroes are

At debriefing tonight we talked a lot about people’s wants and needs. You have your needs such as food, shelter and water, and you have your wants such as entertainment, special brands of clothes and richness. Today we spent our first half of the day with a family learning how they live and helping them out with daily challenges. The second half of our day was spent helping to build the new local medical clinic. Both of these tasks really helped us open our eyes and really understand the difference and separation between wants and needs.

The family we helped was a family of three children as well as the mother and father. The father was off working; he does not have a specific job but he goes out every day looking for any odd jobs he can do to make money to provide for his family.  On a good day the family makes $2.50, which does not cover the daily needs, so they often survive off one meal a day. We helped clean dishes, sweep the floor, clean clothes, fold laundry and cook a meal called “morro”. Their water was stored in a big bucket that was placed in the kitchen and used for multiple tasks. The house was very small and filled with children, which made the house really crowded and very hard to move around. They have so little but are the happiest family we have ever met, they are always smiling and full of energy. They struggle with daily needs that we take for granted at home, which leaves little room for wants. We are so grateful to have met and spent the day with such a wonderful and beautiful (bonita) family.

The medical center that is being built is something that is a need for the community and its people. We worked very hard and as a team with not only the LiveDifferent team but also with the people in the community. It felt so uplifting and great to be a part of such a wonderful experience. The people are so friendly and affectionate. You don’t need to speak their language to understand their gratitude because their hugs and smiles say it all.

It’s very hard to put all of our emotions onto one little piece of writing, because the emotions just keep building. We’ve only been here for three days and already feel so inspired and affected by everything that we are so fortunate to take part in. In school almost every year they ask us to write about who our hero is. If we had the chance to do that assignment now there is no doubt we would write it about all the wonderful and amazing people we’ve met so far.

Gracias for reading,

Hannah and Chelsea