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Sometimes, Dreams Come True
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One of my favorite East German writers once wrote:
"Thoughts don't start in your head, but in your belly. Over the years, most of my own thoughts probably sank down. but here is one thought that first became an idea and then it even became reality. To trace it back to its origin, we have to undertake a twenty year-long journey across three continents. |
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In 1990, when I was still a merchant marine sailor, I spent some time in Ghana, West Africa. One day, I visited a ship managed by a German
Christian charitable organization. The ship had four operating rooms and was on a four year-long voyage around Africa, treating people for Cataracs,
which is a very common plague in Africa. The treatment is easy and is practiced more than a million times every year in the developed world - but
most Africans can't afford it. All the sailors and doctors on board were volunteers, working for food, accommodation and pocket change (the captain, for example, made $200 a month). My own company wasn't doing so well at the time and so I thought, this might be a way for me to stay in business. The captain gave me his business card and I kept it - just in case. Three years later, I spent some time in Nicaragua. There, I met Willy, a German engineer who worked for a charitable organization at the Amazon in Peru. He came to Nicaragua for a conference and now spent some time as tourist before returning to the home of his choice, a little Indian village in Peru. We spent some time together and talked about everything under the sun. At some point, this African hospital ship came up and Willy said spontaneously, "We could really use something like that on the Amazon." Evenly spontaneously, I gave him the old, well kept business card and said, "Call these guys, maybe they can do something." |
| Willy returned to Peru, I hitch hiked to Guatemala and a year later, I got stuck permanently in California. Over the past 17 years, I didn't think very often of Willy and even less often of this old, African ship. |
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Yesterday (in October 2011), I had to see my doctor since I caught a nasty, little virus infection. When we talked about places I had to avoid
for as long as my infection was contagious, the Native American sweat lodge ceremonies, I attend from time to time, came up. My doctor said melancholically, "I miss the Indians." Then he told me about his time as a jungle doctor. In the 90s, he worked for a charitable organization in Indian villages in Ecuador and Peru. Of course, I remembered Willy and I told my doctor about my old Peruvian acquaintance. Somehow, we also talked about the Amazon hospital ship Willy and I dreamed up in a rainy, tropical Nicaraguan night. |
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At that point, my doctor said, "Wait a minute! When did you guys talk about that? 1993? You won't believe it, but the ship exists! In 1995, a
German and a Scottish aid organization bought two old tug boats and tied them together with a barge on which they had their operating rooms.
I was one of the first doctors on this boat!" Maybe - actually most likely - those charitable organizations had made their plans long before Willy and I had our African-Nicaraguan-Peruvian dream. But somehow, it feels good to imagine, that not all ideas become brain farts.
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