Just a Bit of Simple Engineering

Enrique is just a boy.

An ordinary boy.

I am just a girl

An ordinary girl

I live in the north

He lives in the south

North America

South America

Colorado

Bolivia

But our lives aren’t as different as one might think

I entered his small village, nosily

Carrying a fancy small backpack with,

What must have looked like to him,

A large expensive camera

He greeted me barefoot,

Wearing a tattered old shirt

Chewing on the end of a plant

And thus, our cultural exchange began

We traded language

My English and sometimes Yoruba, for his Quechua

My funny faces for his laughter

My pencils and books for his lessons in playing soccer

My smiles for his happy dances

My water filter for a second chance at a longer, healthier life

It never dawned on me, until I returned home a week later,

That I was ultimately there to give him another chance at life

Even though Enrique and I found that we did have a lot in common,

Health is one place where we differed

I have always had access to clean water, he hasn’t

But the day that I met Enrique,

That changed

It didn’t take a lot of money, or fundraising

It didn’t even take a lot of time

All it took was a little cement, a bag of sand, some rocks,

And a little simple engineering.

All I had to do was collaborate with a small health clinic in Bolivia,

To make all of this possible

Just a little collaboration,

An exchange of knowledge can go a long way

It can end up changing the world, or maybe just one life

Either way, progress is made and some one is happier

Engineering was all it took for me to really make an impact on my global community

For me to make Enrique’s and my world come together as one

To reject the separation that society has automatically put between us,

Just because we’re different

It’s a feeling that I’ll never forget

It’s a feeling I don’t want to forget

It’s engineering,

It’s one dream job that would change my life forever