Stepping out and stepping in – who leaves and who comes back?

It’s truly amazing to me that thanks to modern air travel, in the space of 24 hours I went from a tiny village in the highlands of Chiapas back to my home in Santa Rosa, California – two such different realities.

But the really interesting thing is that, just slightly more than 24 hours after my return, I realize I am not the same person who stepped out from my front door two weeks ago.

It’s peculiar- how many times a day, a week, a month, do we step though our front doors, go out into the world, do our thing, and then step back in…. without even thinking about it, and probably assuming that the person who stepped out in the morning is the same person who steps back in some time later?

So what is it about life’s experiences when we are out in the world that changes us in some profound way? I’ve often had the experience of going on vacation and coming back refreshed and renewed, full of new memories and experiences, a more relaxed and happy person. Or of witnessing some challenging or even tragic event, and coming back shaken and vulnerable.

This 2-week time period time in Chiapas feels different. Not a vacation, but an immersion into another reality, a time of such intense focus that the rest of my life seemed almost like a distant dream. I realized it’s rare these days, with so many responsibilities and distractions, to spend a period of 2 weeks with such single minded concentration.

I don’t know if I could tell you what it is that has changed in me, what layers of inner transformation are making themselves slowly known. But I do know that as I allow it to be revealed, and give myself the time to sit in silence and contemplation and resist the temptation to rush helter-skelter back into the daily realities of life back home, that the mystery and the grace of embracing a new opportunity and challenge will continue to reverberate in my being.

But perhaps it doesn’t really take a 2-week odyssey into foreign territory to precipitate a change in consciousness, maybe all it takes is a willingness to be open and vulnerable to the mysteries that always surround us, and to give ourselves the gift of a pause when we step back in the door to reflect and integrate the day’s gifts.

So dear reader, who will you be when you step back in the door tonight?

A lifetime in 2 weeks

Our interpreting team and surgeon 

On my last morning here in San Cristobal Las Casas, it’s hard to believe I have been in Chiapas for 2 weeks. It literally feels like a little lifetime, this 2 weeks serving as a volunteer interpreter for Mammoth Medical Missions’ 2015 Chiapas trip.

It’s so interesting how you can live your life, do your regular thing, and time goes by in some semblance of predictability. Stuff happens, yet there’s a flow and a rhythm that is familiar, comfortable, known.

And then there are those peak life experiences, where you make a choice to put yourself smack dab in the middle of a completely new, unfamiliar and unpredictable situation. 

Each day is filled with so many new experiences, emotions, people, events and situations that you are always slightly off kilter, drawing on a deeper well of resilience, resources and energy to meet the day’s and the moment’s unique challenges. You discover you can handle way more than you thought you could, adapt more easily to changes and varying circumstances than you thought possible. You find yourself growing in new ways, stretching your sense of self and what is possible, discovering fresh perspectives.

Having spent these past 2 weeks in constant and intimate proximity to our team, the hospital staff and the people we have been here to serve, I am looking forward to the long plane trip home alone and the chance to process and let it all settle. This has definitely been one of the richest and most rewarding and moving experiences of my life, and after 60+ years on the planet, that is saying a lot!

One of the images that is engraved in my heart, is the beautiful young indigenous woman who woke up from anesthesia in the operating room, crying from relief and gratitude that the inguinal hernia that she had suffered from for years, that had caused her so much pain that she had only been able to eat 2 tortillas a day for the past 2 months, was now gone through the miracle of surgery.

The world’s problems are so vast, and we often feel so hopeless and helpless in the face of the enormity of suffering that surrounds us, it is a huge blessing to be able to have played a small part in relieving the suffering of even one person.

Hasta la vista Chiapas and your beautiful people,  it has been an amazing 2 week lifetime for which I will always be deeply grateful.

Trusting your heart's "Yes"

My life has taken more twists and turns in the last 24 hours than the winding road from San Cristobal Las Casas to San Andrés Larránzair, where I have been volunteering as an interpreter for the last week for the amazing Mammoth Medical Missions team.

So... plan A.  Monday through Saturday: Interpret for teaching week and Mass Disaster Conference. All wonderful, amazing experiences, worked my tushy off and loved every minute of it. Sunday: Meet my beloved friends from Guatemala, spend 2 days catching up on the past 32 years and sightseeing in San Cristobal. Tuesday: Fly back home.

That's when life threw me a curve ball. After weeks of planning and anticipation, and traveling all night, my friends got turned back by Immigration because of a missing stamp on a travel document- arrgh! 

Mother’s Day: What had promised to be a joyous get-together turned into a very teary series of FB phone chats, as we came to terms with the new reality: our longed for reunion was not to be this time.

Plan B: Now that you're not busy, it would be great if you could join us for triage day of surgery week on Monday, says David Page, our Mammoth Medical Missions fearless leader. So that was an immediate Yes. How could I not? The opportunity to meet the rest of the surgical team flying in from Mammoth, the prospect tof being able to be a part of the big day of sorting and evaluating patients waiting for a variety of much needed surgeries, the golden blessing of being able to work with our amazing Tzotzil indigenous interpreters as part of a relay interpreting team.  Ok, wonderful. I’ll just taxi buzz back up the winding climb to San Andrés, put in a great day’s work, and fly back home to my hubby and kitty on Tuesday morning as planned.

Plan C: Can I convince you to stay for surgery week?  We could really use your help, says Fru, the irrestistibly charming surgeon I am interpreting for. Long story short, a texting frenzy back and forth with my dear supportive hubby who not only gives me his blessing to stay on but changes my airline ticket for me, and I am here for surgery week and won't be heading back home until Saturday. Back up the mountain, ready to pitch my tent and who knows what will be around the next bend?

This past week has been kind of like navigating rapids (not that I’ve ever been brave enough to do it!) - you just have go with the flow, lean into life’s curve balls, and make the most of those rapids…. and trust that your heart’s Yeses will carry you safely home, with some wild and wonderful thrills along the way.

Here’s to a big Yes to la vida!

Blast off!

Wow, after weeks of anticipation, planning, translating, preparing and packing the day is finally here!  Chiapas Medical Mission 2015, here I come, ready or not.

My fellow interpreter on this mission, Katherine Allen, had to talk me down of my self-imposed last minute melt down. My back pack is too stuffed, I’ll never close it again (You have to understand, I am not a light packer in the best of times, and I am not a camper so putting everything I will need for 10 days, including sleeping bag and mat, into a carry on back pack is not something I do!   I’ll never learn all the terminology in time for the simultaneous lectures to the local doctors. Even though I’ve been madly translating all the lectures all week, there are still a lot of new WORDS to learn, big ones!  I’m too old for this!  What am I getting myself into?!

Okay, deep breaths. Enough of that silliness!  Everything is going to be OK. My adventure begins.  Back to Mexico, the land of my childhood, which I have not set foot in for about 40 years. I wonder if the jacarandas will still be in bloom?

So if you don’t hear too much from me, dear readers, it’s because we may have sporadic or unreliable internet access in San Andrés Larráinzar where we will be, up in the mountains of Chiapas.  Stay tuned and blessings on your adventures, whatever they may be!

Countdown to Chiapas!

Aerial view of San Cristobal church

A week from today, I board my first flight from our very own little Santa Rosa airport to LAX, where I will meet up with my fellow interpreter and dear friend Katharine Allen and the rest of the Mammoth Medical Missions team. Next day we board our flight to Mexico City, followed by another flight to Tuxtla, a drive to San Cristobal Las Casas and one more drive to our final destination, the highland village of San Andrés Larráinzar. In case you are wondering what this is all about, check out my post here.

It’s Saturday – my very favorite day of the week and I’m gathering my camping gear, making my lists, and checking them twice. So much fun!!

I’m also madly translating the handouts and Power Point presentations for the teaching week, and brushing up on my emergency room, physical therapy and obstetrical terminology. Talk about a crash course!

I am so grateful to all my friends and family around the world who have made it possible for me to join this event through their generous donations.  I am also so grateful to all the wonderful folks I have yet to meet, who have converged in their intention to bring some healing and training assistance to this village.

It’s amazing what goes into a medical mission. The hours and hours of planning. Fund raising. Sterilizing and packing medical equipment. Gathering supplies. Coordinating. Communicating. And countless other behind the scenes activities, all to make it possible.

It’s a global network of caring hearts, who are giving of their time, energy, money, resources, know-how and expertise to make it happen.

This particular configuration of Western medical providers, interpreters and support staff are about to converge and meet with a whole other world: the indigenous villagers of San Andrés Larráinzar, the local medical staff, the traditional birth attendants and local support staff.

It is always an unknown when such divergent world views come together…

Who knows what challenges we will face, what cultural bumps will present themselves?  And who knows what magic we will create together? 

Who knows what the power of such shared intentions can bring about – besides the obvious benefits of the no-cost elective surgeries, and the intensive skills training in maternal health, rural ER skills and physical therapy for local medical providers?

I can’t wait to find out!

A dream come true….35 years later!

Beautiful Guatemala

Have you ever had a dream that somehow got buried over the years…. A vision that got lost in the day-to-day realities of life?

That happened to me.  Thirty-five years ago, give or take, I left Guatemala, my home for almost 15 years, with my husband, 2 young sons, a daughter on the way, and 7 boxes containing all our worldly possessions.

We were fleeing the political violence that had overtaken this beloved country, the genocide of the indigenous population that we were working with as health educators, feeling the need to move to a more stable and safe environment to raise our family. It was a painful decision, and I left with the dream of one day returning to work with the traditional birth attendants I had grown to love and admire so much.

My plan was to study midwifery so I could return and help teach them how to deal with the obstetrical complications that took so many lives. I did study midwifery, establishing my own home birth practice in rural western Massachusetts for 7 years. I also studied and received my Masters degree in health education.

But the dream of going back to Guatemala to live and work faded over the years, as new opportunities and realities emerged and my family settled into a new life in the US.  

Well, the Universe works in mysterious ways. A couple of weeks ago, almost thirty-five years later, I received an invitation from a dear colleague and friend to join a team of medical volunteers who are going to Chiapas this May, one of the poorest and most vulnerable regions in Mexico, to provide simultaneous interpreting for skills-training for local medical providers, including traditional birth attendants.

How perfect is that?  Needless to say, I am so excited to have this opportunity. It’s not exactly what I imagined all those years ago as we left Guatemala behind, but it’s an amazing chance to be back in that part of the world, putting my interpreting skills and my midwifery knowledge to service.

Will you help me get there?  https://www.crowdrise.com/MMMchiapas/fundraiser/julieburns2