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!

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!

Morning musings from a vineyard

It’s a gorgeous day – a slightly hazy morning here in this vineyard in northern California. I’m sitting on the front steps of a barn, soaking in the early morning sunshine. Roosters are crowing, hens are clucking, a cow is mooing in the distance… it’s very pastoral and idyllic.

I’m on a short break in between interpreting sessions for a health benefits presentation for the Mexican vineyard workers. They tromp into the cold barn in their boots and baseball caps, make a beeline for the box of donuts on the back table, and sprawl out around the room. Some of them have been out in the fields since 2 a.m.

I’ve interpreted for enough injured vineyard workers to know that the work is really hard - the hours are long, they are subject to a number of hazards from accidents to pesticide exposure to harsh working conditions and weather extremes.

I don’t always stop to think of them when I’m sipping my glass of wine in the evening.

It got me thinking. How often do we pause and give thanks for all the invisible labor, the blood, sweat and tears that go into the making of the food on our table, the wine in our glass, the clothes on our backs, the gadgets at our fingertips?

We live in such an incredibly privileged society, and often we take it all oh so much for granted.  So I’m taking a moment now to be humbled by my dependence on the hard work of so many men, women and children around the world, and to give thanks for their labor, without which my life would be very different.