One of the things that I try to do when I leave from my trips to either Nicaragua or El Salvador is to leave something that will help the residents after I am gone.

On previous trips to Nicaragua, it has been 40,000 children’s vitamins or sports equipment for one the school programs. This trip to El Salvador was a bit different as I had no direct contact with any NGO or other support organization. After a bit of thinking I decided that a basketball net and some balls for the local school would be a good choice.

The difficult decision was to either buy a basketball net locally (i.e. in San Salvador – a 2 hour drive) or try and find a local person to make one for me. The easiest thing would have been to by it in one of large department stores in San Salvador and haul it up to the school in the back of the pick up. Not much benefit to the local economy with that method, so I decided to hire a local builder to make one. It was more expensive to do so but the benefits were more far-reaching. The local builder got a job, all of the materials were bought locally, so local business benefited, the school got a solid piece of equipment that I think is much studier than what could have been bought and the local kids got a piece of sports equipment that they can use year round. The balls were also bought form a local merchant (who gave me a discount when he learned why I needed 5 basketballs).

If you happen to be traveling somewhere think about what you can do to better the local community. Sure you may only be a tourist but what better way to remember a trip than with a donation to help improve the lives of those whose country you visited.