Where are the heroes?

Sep 17/2010 – Balsita – Colombia

I have finally understood what is the problem in Colombia. Why do people fight so much here? What fuels and motivates people to fight? It is because the place is just too beautiful, too rich.

We went up the mountains today to a community called Balsita, where people also had to run away due to conflict. The drive was absolutely gorgeous, although a bit scary, through a narrow one lane gravel road, with lots of sharp curves going up the mountain with a big cliff on one side. The view was just spectacular, mountains, rivers and the forest… beautiful.

So, back to my original question, why is it that people fight so much here? Simple: greed. Greed for the rich and beautiful land, Colombia’s greatest asset and also its biggest problem As a friend of mine here wisely pointed out, also greed for power and control.

Sometimes, thinking about all this greed , I get these waves of disappointment and loss of hope for humanity. Everything we do seems like a waste of time, because men are just evil and will destroy whatever good we do. But then I think about all the good people around the world that support good causes. I look at the amount of resources that MSF has, the cars, the boats that take us to the communities, the medications, professionals and all the network of support. It takes A LOT of money to keep this organization running and it ALL comes from good people that donate it, because they just want to help.  Then I think of the number of projects that MSF has around the world and then I am really blown away just trying to figure out the amount of money necessary to keep it all going… I have a friend working with MSF in Zimbabwe, where they see from 800 to 1000 people per day, all with HIV. Huge projects all over the world. There must be A LOT of good people out there providing the money. There must be more good people than bad ones in this world. That is how I recover my hope for humanity and the joy to work.

Thank you so much, so very much, to all the good people out there that donate their money and make it possible for us to do the work we do. You are all the real heroes.