I saw a photo about 5 years ago that crysalised my vision of the direction I was heading in professionally. I already knew I wanted to work overseas with Red Cross, and I already had an idea of doing development work in the Pacific – but this photo showed two Islander guys in a fibreglass boat with a Red Cross flag delivering relief supplies and I knew as soon as I saw it that one day, I wanted to be there, where they were, doing what they were doing.
Last week, I sat in that very boat (as it turns out) and I travelled to one of the most remote and rugged parts of this country to celebrate the achievements of a public health program that has made some amazing differences to life in villages scattered around the Solomon Islands. If you’d seen me on that day we left, although the sea was a bit rough and it was pouring with rain and I was a little nervous of what lay ahead – you would have seen me grinning like a mad woman.
And it struck me that then, in that moment, I was happy for me. And it’s a long time since I have felt that way.
I’m in no way being a martyr when I say that the happiness of my friends and family is one of the most important things in my life; for me, my happiness is derived largely from the happiness of those I love. If I can facilitate that happiness, even better. But again, in that moment there on the water last week, I looked back over the last few years and realised that so much of the time I have been happy has been because I’ve been sharing the happiness of others. Engagements, weddings, pregnancies, births, professional and personal achievements. Hell, I even tried to be happy for the people I was IN love with when they decided to love someone else instead of me! (ok so that happiness might have been a little forced!) But this moment was about me, about celebrating just for a short time the fact that I saw something through; that I persevered even when it looked like it may never happen; that I worked steadily towards something I wanted and finally achieved it; that I didn’t bail out or leave promises I’d made myself unfulfilled - and it felt great.
On our last morning away, as we were walking from the village where we’d spent the majority of our time away, to the sea side village we were to depart from, I told one of the guys the story of that photo and how happy I had been to make this trip and share their places, their people and this time with them. He told me he knew exactly which photo I was talking about – because he was in it. And then he took my hand, squeezed it and let it go.
About an hour into our journey home, the skipper who had been walking in front of me during that conversation I’d had on the road – asked one of the other guys to come and drive the boat for a while. He climbed to the front cargo hold, found the Red Cross flag and tied it up behind me. I nearly cried it was so sweet.
And that’s the story of my adventure in the jungle. There are plenty of details I’ve missed that I just can’t do justice to in words or with photos – like what it was like to arrive in a croc infested river in the dark, walk 3 hours in the mud late at night, cross a 100m wide, chest-deep river at midnight, get my hair braided by young girls while sitting in the river and learning a traditional song, sit chatting with the women about their community, be supported through muddy walkabouts by beautiful, respectful men on either side, be appreciated and given warm and open friendship and feedback by the team… nope just can’t give any of that the full force of meaning it had for me. But the story of the photo and of the boys’ response to my expression of happiness epitomises the essence of what I saw in that picture all that time ago. Despite the rocky highs and lows of this job and the problematic cycle that is development work, its actually all about the exchange. And as usual, this week I feel that I am receiving so much more than I will ever be able to give.
No comments:
Post a Comment