Do you remember what your expectations were before leaving?
My first trip was for the HIV workshop and I found out two weeks before I was going that I was leaving. I was calling Cori for another reason, and I told her that I was looking to go to the Tsunami area, and she said, “I don’t know how to get you there but we’re leaving for Africa in 2 weeks, so… if you want to go…” I of course was willing, and quickly got the shots I needed and flew off. So, my expectations? I try to go into most situations without expectations, I try to be open to what is in front of me and what it is I’m supposed to be discovering and learning from each situation. I had done some traveling in the past, had done plenty of reading, and had plenty of information about the situation in Africa, so I can’t say I was shocked by too many things I saw there. Certainly the living conditions are… tough. And the hardships that people go through. But also the beauty and the strength of the people are amazing. The children that we’re dealing with, that we’re bringing out of their environment and into this whole different situation, it’s just amazing to watch them experience it all and they just … really take it all in. These children also have no expectations because they don’t know what they’re going into, they just absorb everything that they’re seeing. And sometimes I’m surprised by the sense that they don’t exude so much shock at what they’re seeing. I think it’s because they’re just taking it all in. They don’t know what to expect so they’re just absorbing it all.
What is one of the most difficult things you have encountered?
There are so many children that we can’t help. To be looking into a parent’s eyes and knowing that there’s nothing that we can do for their child is extremely difficult, extremely. You know that if a child was in the U.S there wouldn’t be much the doctors could do, and [the Next Right Thing] is bound by certain limitations of what we can do, so that’s definitely the hard part. There was one mother, who was a part of the group of families and kids that I was bombarded with in the lobby of the hotel, who had a child with a problem we had seen before. His condition was probably treatable but the mother looked at me and said, “Will my child live?” Now, I don’t have a medical background, and not even a doctor who’s sitting there is going to tell her if her child’s going to live or not, but to be faced with that question, while she’s holding her child and asking, “will my child live”… it’s tough to find the right words, especially when they’re in French.
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