Lesson from Chaos #1: Rule number one, have fun.

Thirteen hour bus ride from Freetown, Sierra Leone to Conakry, Guinea. Photo Susan Hale Thomas

I’m not like other humanitarians. It’s true. When you ask most aid workers why they do what they do, most reply, “To help.”

Sure, that’s an overall reason, but let’s face it, we could help back home or in many other ways. Why are you out in the field? Far from home? Usually uncomfortable.

For me the real answer was to have fun. 

To many it sounded crass. I’ve gotten criticized and berated for this, but it’s the truth.

Take for example the time I went with the Sierra Leone delegation of the West African College of Surgeons to their annual meeting which was held in Conakry, Guinea. Two months after the military coup, by the way. We took an overcrowded bus, not air conditioning, thirteen hours over unpaved roads. It was fun.

It might not be the type of fun most folks enjoy, but that’s my point. If you’re not in these environments and enjoying it, I don’t think you’ll be much help either.

It was a lesson I’d learn over and over. 

And it was always fun, until it wasn’t.