“In San Pedro, Belize I met a middle-aged woman with six children who lived in a home on the beach. After a few hours talking with her I learned that her husband had gotten work on a cruise ship four years ago and simply disappeared. Left alone with no skills, no work experience and six mouths to feed she went around to local businesses looking for work. Finding none she was desperate and discouraged when she overheard a landscaper at one of the hotels complaining about a batch of infertile dirt they were tricked into buying for $100 a bag and how he wished there were a cheaper and more reliable alternative.
She said an idea came to her and she borrowed a rickety row boat from a neighbor loaded it with several burlap sacks she scrounged from dumpsters and a shovel she found from an abandoned construction site. Then she had her kids stay with a friend and rowed two hours to a deserted part of the island and spent the entire day loading up her boat up with bags of rich soil from the forest. The next day she found that same landscaper and was able to sell a dozen bags for $80 each. It was more money than her husband had ever made working on the cruise ships in a week. Now she provides a comfortable living for her kids selling dirt to the local businesses.
It was an important lesson in finding creative solutions to difficult problems and being willing to work very hard.”