Alex - Michaels's Story

Michael’s Story

Michael Boddan was the most interesting person I met while in Roatan. A local fisherman and worker for Mango Creek for the past four years, he seemed pretty normal at first meeting. Maybe it’s that I am so “Americanized”, or maybe was not prepared for the friendship we would strike, but Michael shocked me with some of his insight.

Born in Honduras in the late 1980’s Michael was born into one of the wealthier families on the island. As we drove around different parts he showed us one of his sisters multiple houses, and told us that she was the rich one because she was a doctor in the town. Part of a large family, Michael was a very family oriented man, and two of his sisters worked at Mango Creek as well. Michael dropped out of school after the American equivalent of the 8^th grade. However, what he lacked in academic knowledge, he completely surpassed with fishing and boat knowledge.

During one of our talks, he told me that he had a girlfriend and a son that was only a few weeks old. It was shocking to learn that he just was so focused on making the Huntingdon group happy that he never told us about himself. He always asked questions about America, and what we did in our free time. He was always inquisitive of what college is like and what sports we played. Michael was just a genuine guy, and his people skills had made him successful thus far. Men would come on repeat trips from different places in the world just to go fly fishing with Mike. He is so passionate about serving other people and to see them happy that he repeatedly will stay up long hours get up early, sacrifice meals, and get up so early that many of us would just cringe, but Michael did it because he likes people and loves to see them happy.

Michael informed me two days before we left that his brother had a lobster boat, much similar to the crab boats of the TV show Deadliest Catch but for lobster. They would leave for months at a time, and the best perk is that he would make around 40,000 US dollars. The US dollar is much more effective and with doing that for two summers after he left school, he bought his own piece of property and will eventually have his own house built. He had much of the progress done and his goal was to be done building by summer.

Several days after I had been home my phone began ringing during dinner, and when I answered it was Michael. He was calling from his sister’s satellite phone, and we talked for almost 30 minutes. Plans were made to talk in the upcoming months for a possible return to Roatan for a week long fishing trip, and to reunite with some friends I had made. Michael inadvertently taught me many lessons, but the biggest was that people love to be asked about their lives, and when your goal is to make other people smile you’ll always be smiling.

P.S. Michael, if you read this, call me back. June is fast approaching.