On 26 September 2007 I finally made up my mind to go and do something I’d been wanting to do for years: work as a volunteer in a refuge for street children in the state of Chiapas, in Mexico.
The fact that this decision took me years to arrive at reflected a number of things – my innate cautiousness, my close ties to my family and, ironically, my concern that if I made it to Mexico and the children I was going to help there I might like it so much I might never want to leave. It took a stiff confluence of factors to push me into the decision: a job I hated to the point of depression and the resultant almost daily tears of frustration, boredom and rapidly sinking self-esteem; a feeling of uselessness after a severe bout of depression and subsequent suicide attempt by my beloved grandfather; and increasing feelings of loss and loneliness as my sisters became increasingly absorbed in their relationships, one of them engaged and starting to make plans for her wedding and marriage.
This was the internal landscape against which, with perfect timing, I received one of the email newsletters from the refuge whose mailing list I had been on for the previous five years, stating that they could use some additional volunteers for December and January. I wrote back immediately – I couldn’t offer January (I had already planned to travel to New Zealand with my parents and brothers), but I could be on a plane soon – would they accept me for November and December?
The reply came back the next day: that would be wonderful, thankyou. I handed in my resignation and went to buy a plane ticket. A month and a day later, I was on the plane to LA, the first stage of the 24-hour+ trip to the southern border town of Tapachula, Mexico, where I would be staying for the next couple of months.