Simple Gifts

Santa Rita, Nicaragua March 22

I have never considered myself exceptionally generous. The concept of "giving is better than receiving" rang hollow to my ears. Easy for YOU to say, but I like getting. Getting it takes care of that urgent need of wanting it.

Actually, I have given people gifts, nice ones, but hardly extravagant ones. So I am not a total ass. But it took a small gift that went a long way to remind me that truly giving is a pleasure and does not need to be something huge and expensivve.

2 plastic frisbees and 2 simple plastic jump ropes. That was it. But to the kids of the school here in Santa Rita, you would have thought I gave them the ownership of Microsoft. Their faces lit with joy, jumping and screaming all at once as school kids are want to do. PLATIO! PLATIO!! the boys screamed as the teacher flung the frisbee into the yard they shared with pigs, horses, sick dogs and our clinic. The girls gathered around the ropes and jumped giggled and tripped with joy over the pink and yellow plastic rope. The air throbbed with the sounds of children and was thick with wild flung platios. When we were done, the guys in the group joined in, contributing some baseballs and a couple of more platios. For about 20 minutes, poverty, sickness, language and culture barriers broke under the weight of the joyous games.

What a gift I had given.