Surfing with a Purpose

I expected Nicaragua to feel dangerous, since no one in the group knew the way to our destination of Las Salinas and I had no idea if our little rental cars would make it through the rivers we had to cross. I carried out enough research to know that the Sandinistas are not running around in the jungle looking to take American hostages, but I wasn’t completely certain on how the general population felt towards Americans. I was lucky enough to sit next to an English speaking Nicaraguan on the flight to Managua. He reassured me that once we were outside the city limits of Managua we shouldn’t have any problems with the local citizens. I took advantage of his English and asked him countless numbers of questions about his country and its culture. We were the only Americans on the plane so he was eager to know why we were traveling to Nicaragua. I took the opportunity and explained to him that we were not just coming to surf or as tourist, but that our group had a mission.
On March 28^th, we left our comfortable lives in Florida, and embarked on a journey that would change the way we look at how blessed we are to live in a place of such abundance. I had arranged for the team to lay a concrete floor for a family that was literally dirt-poor. The materials to do the entire house only cost two hundred and fifty dollars. When you divide the cost among the seven of us it only took thirty six dollars each. The entire house was done in two days thanks to the help of about ten people from the camp that came and worked on the project. We mixed all of the materials right there on the ground inside of the house and it was back breaking work. A five gallon bucket of concrete weighs around one hundred pounds, and it took one hundred and seventy five to do the floor.
With such a small amount of money we were able to help a family in a great amount of need. The mother, Francesca, suffers from arthritis in her knees and has trouble standing. It is very hard for her to care for her 14 children. The father Ernesto is an alcoholic and works on the salt flats for three dollars a day. His money is often wasted on alcohol, so just giving money to the family would not have helped their situation. None of the children had shoes and when the rainy season comes every year, the inside of the house turns into mud because of the poor roofing. I am only scratching the surface of their poverty and it is something you would have to see personally to better understand.
The purpose of putting a concrete floor in their house was mainly for sanitation. The children walking around bare foot on the same muddy floor that they use as a bathroom allows them to get parasites. This is one of the reasons life expectancy is so low in Nicaragua. The parasites they pick up through their feet as children rob them of their health and can take ten or more years off their lives. The concrete can be swept and cleaned very easily. We also put a slope in the floor so that water would not remain in the house during the rainy season.
The work was hard, the day was very hot, and no one on the team ate before we started, nevertheless, none of them complained to me while we worked. No one could complain because we understood as soon as we stepped into the house, that it wasn’t about us. When the guys picked up the shovels to begin, they looked around at the children and lost the ability to think of their own needs. They could no longer pity themselves over temporary discomforts. Most importantly they had lost the ability to have an absence of emotion when they looked at the poverty in Nicaragua. It is easy for you not to think about how bad some people have it, until you have been there and seen it with your own eyes.
I acknowledge that going into their house and putting the floor in will be a great blessing for Ernesto’s family. However, they remain in destitution with no shoes, and a poor diet. I knew in advance, before I started putting this trip together, that putting a floor in his house was not fixing their lives. It was simply a step in the right direction. We did what we could with the week we spent in Las Salinas, Nicaragua. The team accomplished the mission set before them. I was especially happy because not everyone in the group came with the intentions to work on the house. They all had the option to surf as much as they wanted and no one was asked to work. I simply provided the opportunity to go help someone in need and not one person at the camp turned it down. Half the people working at the house were not even in our group. They were staying as guest at the camp and choose to come along. 
The concrete work, the children’s vitamins we passed out and they toys we took for them were all good things but they were not the true purpose of the Journey. I had two different motives driving my passion to create our Nicaraguan experience. The obvious one was to help out some one less fortunate than myself. That was the motive the team knew about and understood. I want to be honest and tell you it was the lesser of the two motives that drove me. Previously I mentioned putting a floor in that house was not fixing their lives. I could have gone down by myself and paid some construction workers to do it. The labor would have cost about fifty dollars. My true motive behind this trip had to do with the six individuals that came with me.
I was attempting to rob them of apathy, to take from them the ability to feel indifferent toward those around them that are in need. My mission was to instill in those six a passion to help others. On my own I can do only so much, but if I inspire those around me to do what I am doing. Then, they pass the fire on to those around them. Before you know it, entire Nations are being affected. That may sound impossible but I will do the math for you.
By the end of July, twenty four people from all around will have gone to Nicaragua with me on what I am calling Surfing with a Purpose. So in one year, one person will have impacted directly twenty four people. If each one of those people come back and have an influence on only 10 people in an entire year, one person will have influenced indirectly two hundred and forty people. If you continued that trend, in six years it will have impacted almost two and a half million people. That number is equal to the number of Nicaraguans living in poverty at the moment.
My motive is not to help people, I am not that good of a person, but my mission is to influence individuals to help people. Leadership is a gift I did not earn but it is one I have accepted and decided to use. If you were to tell me that it is impossible for one leader to affect millions then I would ask you about the role of our president. I have chosen my battle and developed a plan. My fight will be freedom from indifference and my plan starts with this generation.