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Bill & Carolina White

Bill & Carolina White

Current Position

Creative Director

Business Sectors

  • Business Entrepreneurs

Volunteer History

Bill: Volunteer, Nicaragua, 1973
Carolina: Volunteer, Honduras, 2008

Alumni Question

Answer:

 

AMIGOS: TELL US ABOUT YOUR FAMILY
Bill: I am 57, of Peruvian and East Texas heritage, married to a young woman from Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico and the father of two girls and a boy. We are all bilingual, my children forced to speak the language or starve. My wife and I met in Mexico City (she is a dentist) and lived for some years in Venezuela, where Carolina and Tyler were born (Sarah was born in Texas).
Carolina: My family and I enjoy experiencing different cultures and trying new things every day. We are a tight-knit Hispanic family and we are all into volunteering and doing community service. We love traveling and I hope to continue traveling in my career and being involved in Amigos-like programs such as Engineers Without Borders.
 
AMIGOS: HOW DID YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN AMIGOS IMPACT YOUR LIFE?
Bill: After AMIGOS, I changed my major to Latin American studies, finished college and joined the Peace Corps in Paraguay. After the Peace Corps, I stayed on in country helping run a ranch in the Chaco (Puerto Guarani) for two more years. I returned to graduate school, then went back to the expatriate work and life, spending the next 18 years traveling and teaching in 63 countries. I married at 38 and when the kids got too big to drag around, I settled them in Friendswood, Texas. But we continue to travel south of the border
Carolina: It really opened my eyes to how much poverty is suffered by most of the rest of the world and how much impact just one or two people can have in a community and in people’s lives. I knew I wanted to be an engineer before Amigos but the experience really cemented my passion for helping others and applying engineering skills to leave lasting impacts.
 
AMIGOS: BILL, HOW DID YOUR AMIGOS EXPERIENCE INFLUENCE YOUR DECISION TO ENCOURAGE CAROLINA TO BECOME AN AMIGOS VOLUNTEER?
Bill: I don't think she had much of a choice. She has known about it since she could listen to my stories, and now she loves those things about it that I do.
 
AMIGOS: WHAT WAS YOUR AMIGOS EXPERIENCE LIKE, AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR PARTICIPATION? 
Bill:  In the winter of 1972, Managua, Nicaragua suffered a massive earthquake, and a good portion of the city was destroyed. The desalojados were sent to live in the hills, given land and not much else. In the summer of 1973 we were an AMIGOS medical team comprised of a young (freshly graduated) female physician, a retiring septuagenarian dentist, a 19 year old college student from Akron, Ohio (Rick Rogers) and myself. Our task was to visit these folks who were now isolated by the rains, treat them for minor malaises, look at their teeth and innoculate them for DPT and measles. We had two mules for the equipment and medicos and slogged through a lot of mud.  Arriving at a farm house, we would set up the dentist on the porch, the doctor at the far end of the room assigned us, behind a hung blanket, and we two in the front receiving, interviewing and innoculating. They would be waiting for us a hundred at a time long before we arrived. I was the bilingual, so I managed most things. We did not have a day off the whole time we were there and loved every minute of it. I cannot remember having indoor bathrooms or showers the entire time, and grew a moustache, which I have to this day. The last I saw of doc she was going to Africa to do something good. Later, in the Peace Corps, I was far ahead of other volunteers in my self-confidence and leadership and was given projects that would not otherwise have been possible in the short time we had.
Carolina: It truly was above and beyond anything I could have expected. I had a wonderful partner, Emma, and an incredible community and host family. The whole community was just so involved that they made it so easy and enjoyable for my partner and me to teach lessons and build and help out. I learned that if two 16 year old girls isolated from their known culture and family can make such a huge impact, then there are absolutely no boundaries as to what I can do to help people worldwide in the future. It also really taught me how to be self-reliant and deal with people and situations that may be stressful and difficult. 
 
AMIGOS:WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE AMIGOS MEMORY?
Bill: When the trip was nearly over, at one of the villages where we had stayed a couple of days because of the quantity of people, when we were saying good-bye, I was presented with a cured anaconda skin as a thank you. I have it to this day, still get choked up.
Carolina: Definitely spending time with my host family and my community fundraising for our Community Based Initiative. We cooked empanadas and went around the town selling them for a few cents in order to raise money to help pay for the construction of the school. Just the overall involvement and enthusiasm of the whole town and everyone’s selflessness and willingness to help out was so enjoyable and memorable.
 
AMIGOS: IN WHAT WAYS DID YOUR AMIGOS EXPERIENCE INFLUENCE YOUR PURSUITS? 
Bill: I went back to South America after college, and then again after graduate school. I and my partners started collecting prescription data in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela in 1986 and selling it to the pharmaceutical industry in those countries. Later, in 1990 we expanded into PDA multi-lingual software for pharmaceutical sales forces in 63 different countries.  Today, I have a restaurant, Chabuca's, in Webster, Texas
Carolina: It really made me realize how incredible it felt to leave a community with something solid, something that would be useful for a very long time, and so I became even more enthused and certain that I wanted to be an engineer. Combining my passions of math and science and applying them to my passion of community service, engineering became to me the perfect opportunity to really make a difference. So now I am dedicated to pursuing a career in engineering, and using it to make an impact on the world.
 
AMIGOS: ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS OR THE SPANISH LANGUAGE?
Carolina: Yes, I am very passionate about both as I have a very strong Hispanic Heritage and am constantly surrounded by the Spanish language. I also am very involved with community service and hope to further expand my involvement in Latin America and the rest of the world as I get older.
Bill: I am a blond headed, blue-eyed Hispanic. Cien por ciento baby!
 

Honduran Diary - Summer 2008

BY CAROLINA WHITE

Day one—Amigos has left me in a village with 40 families and coffee trees everywhere.  I’ve brought clothes for the banana tropics, but the temperature at this altitude is in the 50s. I set up my cot and mosquito netting, and covered my doorway with my blanket. What is a bathroom with no running water or shower?  I wish I’d brought my own bucket. There are two women in the house: Danelia, the mother, bordering on behemoth, and six year old Elisma, a cherub with very bad teeth. They smile and say nothing.
 
Day two—4:30 am, Danelia loads wood into the hard mud stove, prepares the coffee, tortillas and beans. Elisma lies in bed singing until her mother shoos her to gather the eggs. And me, wearing three short sleeve shirts. The father and his sons go to the field before daylight; corn and beans in summer and coffee in winter. None of them finished third grade and they don’t read for fun. Danelia is lucky to have her husband. He and the boys all want to go to the North, probably for years. They make $10 a day and start working at 12 years old.  Must get used to Danelia hocking loogies on the kitchen floor.
 
Day three—Remember not to put toilet paper in the commode. Leave the bucket in the bathroom; get the firewood in before it rains. Forty-four more days to go. I feel really glum today because I have been thinking a lot about my family, and it seems like an eternity before I will get to see them again. I really want to go home, but I am here, so I will try to make the best of it.
 
Day four—Held the first town meeting and explained my plan to teach health classes and complete a community project. Speaking Spanish was the easy part. Being a leader to adults was tough. They want me to repair and paint their “Welcome to La Pena” signs and the fence around them. It’s something I can do. Hand washed my clothes on the paila and set them to dry on the barbed wire. It rained the rest of the day so probably be a couple of days before the clothes will dry. I am getting closer with the mother, Danelia, but the little girl, Elisma, is still shy. Danelia pushes Elisma towards me, but she won’t come, won’t smile, won’t show her teeth. I don’t blame her, they’re dark brown.
 
Day nine—This morning, Dengue had the father so he stayed behind. The schoolteacher stopped in for breakfast and Danelia caught up on gossip. She had me grinding corn, and my arm was not where the 24 Hour gym said it would be. Elisma watched, disappointed with the gringa, finding humor in my struggle. We have been painting signs for the last three days with the other kids and she has become my special assistant. I feel she is beginning to let me in and I am glad. Bucket bathing could get old.  I have a cough and Daniela’s mother heats up the water for me. Eternal struggle keeping up with the bucket.
 
Day Twelve—The one-room “schoolhouse” has no doors, no windows, no walls. Nothing to cover the students when there is wind or rain. I suggested at the town meeting today that since we have finished the signs, we build a wall. They got really excited and now I know now what I came here to do. I want to build something of lasting effect.
 
Day Fourteen—Between lessons on microbes I draw the plans for the wall, calculate cinder blocks, cement, and sand. The problems are money and workmen. Once we start, will we be able to finish?  My coughing is better but I’ve been on a strict rice diet trying to get my stomach right. Miss the beans and tortillas. I think I’m addicted to coffee.
 
Day Seventeen—Progress on gathering materials for the wall is so slow. Nobody has extra money. I used what I brought for paint for the signs. I have found other small projects to keep me and the kids busy, like repairing the fence around the school. I taught a class on the environment and recycling today and we collected trash which is everywhere on these steep roads.  Tomorrow we will cut the plastic bottles we collected in half, plant seeds in them and talk about giving back to the environment. The teacher is so enthused, she motivates me. Tomorrow I will bring them toothbrushes.  Elisma is brushing every day now. Not sure about her mother.
 
Day twenty—We made rice and cabbage empanadas all day and sold them door to door. Danelia helped me cook and Elisma helped me sell. We made enough money to pay for cement and sand, and AMIGOS has agreed to donate the blocks! We are so thrilled!
 
Day twenty-six—The supplies have arrived and the town has massed. Danelia called the town together and there were volunteers. So many volunteers. I was amazed, thrilled at this gift. Elisma is with me now, serious in planning, full of discussion.  I watch her mother, wood smoke in her hair, in her lungs, watching us. Tomorrow we start.
 
Day twenty-eight—We have started, slow at first while we organize. I have learned to stay out of the way unless they need me, which is hard since I think of this as mine. But the progress is definitely visible, and there is growing anticipation. I feel like now I’m worth the “extra mouth” they have been feeding.
 
Day thirty-five—I have learned to hold a trowel and lay cement. Although it’s not much, it makes me feel like I am really a part of this. The days have started to fly but the wall is taking its time. We only have two weeks left. I rode the back of a pickup to the market town in the valley and brought back walnuts, raisins and powdered sugar to make the nut pastries my mom makes.  None of the family had seen any of those things and couldn’t believe the sugar wasn’t flour. I don’t suppose they’d understand Hannah Montana. 
 
Day forty—The kids are habitually brushing now and we’re really into germs and daily bathing. Maybe they’ll teach their moms. Every evening the men settle in to WWF on the single channel black and white.  Elisma and I talk and Danelia watches, pushing back hair from a face that’s never felt makeup, never had a choice, while she picks the rocks from the beans.  It seems every night we stay up later. Maybe osmosis will work and Elisma will break free like permanent teeth. Maybe Danelia will find a way. 
 
Day forty-two—The wall goes up higher and someone has donated a door. The volunteers come, a different few each day, giving up their work days and Saturdays and we talk and trowel all day. Elisma sifts sand and gives instructions. Time is running out and I am not ready to leave.
 
Day forty-seven— We finished today. Cement patchwork, no money for paint. All gray, but the wind is out and it is gorgeous to me. I’ve never felt so fulfilled. Never. 
 
Day forty-nine—My time is up but Elisma and I are not finished. I have so much to tell her; so many things for her to know.  But there was the moment and Elisma smiling full, brown teeth taking air, next to her mother who combed her hair for the occasion. My poverty just an experience, theirs a life.  I looked at Danelia and could not say a thing.

Amigos de las Américas

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Amigos de las Américas (AMIGOS) hosts programs for young adults to volunteer abroad. AMIGOS' volunteer opportunities focus on youth leadership training and community development in Latin America.

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