helen weld public health

Taking more plunges. . .

“The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.” Isak Dinesen

I have spent the past few months here on the home front in Maine collecting my wits and reevaluating my goals and taking Isak Dinesen’s words to heart.

After I departed Kigutu at the end of April, I went to Rwanda with Will Marsh, the VHW agronomist, on a fascinating and fun six day trip. Seeing the mountain gorillas in the wild was definitely a life highlight. The night before I departed for the USA, I received an email from the VHW administration in NYC saying that I would not be able to return to Kigutu as I had hoped. There has never been any follow up or explanation of why, which I find very disturbing after all the time, commitment and sacrifice I poured into VHW, an organization serving people whom I care about deeply. I felt derailed. Thanks to the loving support of family, friends and a healing environment in the midst of Maine’s “best summah evah”, I am once again on track and almost ready to head off again on another odyssey of service…this time to Haiti to work with J/P HRO near Port au Prince. Have a look at their website at: jphro.org.

People routinely ask me about where my next adventure will take me which makes me feel slightly awkward. Perhaps they don’t mean it, but “adventure” seems to aggrandize my experiences and shift the emphasis away from the intentions of voluntary work and service. Recently I came across these words from John Amatt the organizer of Canada’s first successful expedition to Mount Everest’s summit. I like his description and it seems a great way to define the word ‘adventure’ and it fits into the paradigm I hope to achieve in life.

“Adventure isn’t hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day-to-day obstacles of life --facing new challenges, seizing new opportunities, testing our resources against the unknown and in the process, discovering our unique potential.”

I will also be taking another plunge into academia. After almost a month in Haiti, I will go to Orvieto, Italy in Umbria, to be a student participant in Harvard’s Global Mental Health: Refugee Trauma and Recovery Certificate Program for a fortnight of face-to-face lecture, discussion and collaboration followed by five months of work online. I hope that this setting will help synthesize my work experiences and expand my scope of practice. It will also increase my network of colleagues which will help me continue with my quest to do my small bit to improve the lives of others less fortunate than me. Being in Orvieto after Haiti will certainly be quite the juxtaposition.

As the Fall Equinox approaches and I look back on this extraordinary summer another quote from Dinesen helps me keep perspective.

“Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever...”

Helen

Diving into the Damariscotta River

Swimming to Bennett's Neck

With the gorillas in Rwanda