It was a humid summer day. While sitting somewhere in between the dirty Amazon river and the muggy rainforest, I wanted nothing more than to be in my air conditioned house, laying on my couch, while watching One Tree Hill and drinking an ice cold Coke. I was sitting on the bug-infested ground trying to remember why exactly I was talked into coming here. I could taste the salt-like flavor of the sweat sliding down the side of my face making my shirt more and more wet with each drop. The task I was suppose to be doing kept running through my mind, however with each passing minute I couldn't find it within myself to get up and resume work. Just as a big black ant took his last step before being squashed beneath my fingertips I heard his voice from behind me ask, "want a water?" I rolled my eyes at the question, which I found to be ignorant. It's somewhere in the ballpark of 100 degrees, I'm sitting in a one bedroom house without air conditioning, in a country 5,000 miles from home, sweats stinging my eyes making them blood-shot red, and he wants to know whether or not I want a water. I couldn't think of one reason why I wouldn't want water, and the fact that he somehow found a way to remain in a constant good mood despite the circumstance perturbed me. I guess the look my eyes answered the question clearly enough because with one glance he returned outside fetching the cooler.
As I sat growing more and more impatient wondering exactly how long it could possibly take him to walk 10 feet out back, get water, and walk 10 feet inside again. I scanned the room that I was suppose to be painting for the first time since I got there 3 days before, and guilt started to set in as I compared it to my own back at home. Their king-sized bed with silk sheets and a Ralph Lauren comforter was a couple of ratty blankets stacked up in a corner. Their stained hard wood floors was a muddy piece of concrete, and their closet full of clothes, color TV, and flat-screen computer were no where to be found. It suddenly hit me that this was the resting place for the grandmother, mother, father, uncle, 2 daughters, 3 sons, and a cousin. All the flashbacks of my sister and I fighting because she merely took 3 steps into my room began to sit on my shoulders like a couple of heavy weights. The thought of even my family of four all trying to live in the same room made me want to scream.
I looked up to see my dad walking towards me, smiling from ear to ear, carrying a bottle of water. I took the water from his hands mumbling thanks under my breath. "You should take a break, go outside for some fresh air, you've been working hard today." I looked at him, then around the room, then back at him again. We both knew very well I hadn't done anything since I arrived this morning, still I was in no mood to turn down the offer. So, I picked myself up off the floor, wiping dirt from my shorts, and headed outside, water in hand.
Across from the muddy river I found a old wooden bench, the kind that looks like a giant splinter waiting to happen. I looked at the bench, looked at the mud puddles surrounding it, and then I, despite my fear of having wood stabbed into my skin, decided to settle for the bench. Across from me I noticed a bunch of kids stained orange from the mud of the river playing some sort of game with an old empty water bottle and a couple of rocks. As I sat watching them complaints started to once again fill my head. "God could this water get a little bit warmer, and it taste like they filled it up in that puddle over there," were the thoughts going through my head. The noise of the rocks hitting up against the water bottle startled me and I jumped looking up at the kids goofing around without a single care. Then it suddenly hit me, like I ran into a brick wall, and all at once I realized how completely selfish and inconsiderate I was being. These kids have next to nothing, yet they can be happier playing with an old water bottle and a couple of rocks than I was with everything I could possibly want. Looking at the smiles and looks in these kids eyes I began to grow envious. It wasn't fair that they could live out there without anything and still not have that feeling of emptiness inside them. I could hear my dad's voice coming from inside the house. Then the picture of him lecturing me became clear in my mind. "It's not what you have that's important in life Brittany, it's what you make of what you have that truly depicts character." This suddenly made perfect sense.
As I got up to go back inside to finish what I had started with more momentum than ever before I noticed one of the little boys starting to cry and running towards the river. A little bit further down the river was the water bottle swimming away with the current. The sadness in these kid's eyes made my heart of stone melt. I looked down at the empty water bottle in my hand and couldn't help but smile. I ran over to the riverbank where the kids were standing and reached out with the bottle in my hand. The looks on their faces at that moment are ones I will never forget for the rest of my life.
I walked back inside the house determined to finish what I had started three days earlier. Right before I reached the front door I noticed my dad standing in the window, paint brush in hand, smiling once again from ear to ear. I finally understood the reasoning behind my "water-break." I ran into the room and leaped into my dad's arms, tears streaming down my face. I knew right then exactly why I was there.
What I found to be most ironic about the whole experience is that being on a mission trip I was suppose to be doing what I could to help them. But climbing in that boat on the last day to return to the airport I realize I was the one who received all the help.
Brittany Stanford
Period 3A
