My grandparents wanted to take a cruise through the caribbean and decided to take my brother and I along. Our first tour guide was amazing, his name was Raymond. Raymond is unique. Its fate that we ended up taking his tour that day, Monday June 26, 2009. Honestly, when I stepped into the truck I knew that this would be a learning experience. The caribbean accent flew clearly from his tongue as he explained his reason for having this magnificent truck as opposed to a regular old van like everyone else. Raymond is a fireman. He uses his firetruck as a tourbus.
Why you ask? In St. Thomas, one job is not enough to support a family and Raymond, he is a family man. Not only is Raymond unique but the way he runs his business is unique. One moment that stuck with me through that day was when half or our tour bus wanted to go back to the ship and the other half wanted to visit a market and shop. Raymond offered to take some of the people back to the ship and the others could stay at the market and shop. That is the rarest thing to happen in the caribbean is for a tour guide to offer such a generous deed.
Raymond was intrigued by my brother and I. He offered us great advice and he only met us just hours earlier. "The next time I see you, I want to know that you are in school and that you are successful because I can tell from a few hours of speaking with you that you will succeed." I was captured. He is the most inspiring person I have ever met at this point in time. I learned that not all people in the world are greedy and not everyone is out to get you. Some people generally want to see you succeed. I will never forget Raymond, the fireman, tourguide and his red truck.
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