Love my work!

As many of you know, hurricane Irene is passing through the Atlantic, impacting many countries as it is moving on. The beautiful Island of Puerto Rico too has been affected by this hurricane. All 78 municipalities are affected with the main rivers overflowing, hundreds of houses flooding and numerous trees broken down. Many people had to take refuge in shelters and many are still without electricity and water.  

We were without electricity for almost two days, one of our trees was also uprooted, house was flooded a little bit. For at least three nights, we couldn’t sleep because of the heavy rains, gusts of wind, and  thundering. Thankfully, there was no major damage.

This was the first time, when I was both the survivor and the responder to a disaster. I would work until late night and then get up early in the morning start working. Like always, got the opportunity to know a lot of good people who are always ready to help. What an honor to work with such people! 

The most beautiful part of this experience was that even we had problems of our own; they didn’t bother me as much because my focus was on action that would help those who were in greater need. And honestly, those days passed very quickly and now we are back to normal. I am better able to focus on work and support the recovery efforts.

Two lessons were reinforced during this experience, (a) when we focus on those who are in greater needs we are better able to appreciate our situation and (b) helping others recover facilitates our own recovery.