It all began last year. Or maybe, it already began many years ago. I always had this dream of working abroad, there where people really need it. Without realizing at that time, that might have been the most important reason to become a physical therapist. As I am regularly looking for a change, I thought: “With a world-wide useful profession I will never run out of possibilities”. That idea, combined with a strong desire to look for the borders, the edges, the boundaries brought me here at Mae Sot, the Thai/Burmese border town, where no two days are the same and nothing is predictable (well, only the quality of Charlie’s curry).

Clear Path asked me to tell my story. I asked “Why?”. They thought it could be a motivation for other people. That’s the only reason why I would like to tell you my story.

I had a great job in a rehabilitation center in The Netherlands (my home-country). I had a nice appartment and a busy social life. Still, there was no escape from the restless feeling, the urge for adventure inside, and so from early 2005 I took a year off to travel. To New Zealand, that was the plan. Several months later I found myself travelling throughout Southeast-Asia. Never before had I felt attracted to Asia, but I decided to give it a fair chance. Then, completely unexpected, it happened: it caught me. It captured me, it struck me, just like that. When I encountered many amputees (mostly landmine or UXO victims) in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, the picture couldn’t be much clearer. I wanted to work with landmine accident survivors. That was what I wanted to do. And that was exactly what I was going to do.

First things had to come first. I had to return to my job in The Netherlands. It didn’t take long; I washed my clothes, got through the mail and started repacking. I quit my job, my appartment, sold most of my possesions. There wasn’t a single moment of doubt: I was going back to Southeast-Asia. As I was counting the last 2 weeks before departure, I was talking to the director of the rehab center. He liked my initiative and regretted that I “had to give up everything” (people use that expression, although I would rather call it: clear the road for new possibilities). He also liked my ideas about developing a new rehabilitation system and so, out of nowhere, he made me an offer. I could go and live my dream: I could leave to work with landmine victims for a while, exploring a new approach on rehabilitation, before coming back to the rehab center to implement things, using my experiences from abroad. It may sound like an experiment, but in fact isn’t much like that. The bottom line is to work a bit broader than only physical therapy (which is my educational background) and to offer a more comprehensive rehabilitation treatment by 1 person instead of 6 or 7.

Although I had my path clear in sight, I had to face several bumps in the road, a few detours and many windings, before I ended up at the Mae Tao Clinic. I got in touch with Clear Path a few month before that time; in the blog “My own two hands” you can read how we got to meet in Mae Sot. I planned to volunteer for a few months, to encounter my personal challenge, the “been there, done that” kind of thing. That idea was soon gone. The point that I had to admit “It happened again” came after a few weeks. It grabbed me again; this time it wasn’t so acute, but it somehow sneaked into me. I became attached, more then I could have foreseen. Life at the border, the Burma situation, the people, the work, and not in the last place the CPI mentality; this just was the way of life I had always wanted. Then I became afraid; afraid that I would have to chose one day, between staying here or going back to The Netherlands. The choice itself wouldn’t be necessarily difficult, but still there were some practical issues to be solved.

Fortunately, that choice was never to be made. After a presentation about my activities here, the same director of the rehab center who let me live my dream in the first place, agreed on me to continue working for CPI, and for them at the same time. How? By splitting the year in half, as to work 6 months in Holland, and 6 months in Thailand. Standing with one leg here and one leg there? I’m quite flexible, but not that much! So, we needed a bridge. The bridge was built by the agreement of the rehab center to support CPI on a 2-years base, in which I can continue my attempt to implement the basics of comprehensive rehabilitation treatment for landmine victims along the Thai/Burma border.

I have been incredibly lucky. Others say I created my own luck. Eitherway, this is working out better than I ever imagined. My life has changed a bit, since I took off in April 2005. And I have no idea what the future will bring. But I do know that CPI needs people to keep the good work going. It’s not always an easy job, but it’s definitely worth whatever amount of energy you put in it. “Every dead end street has a sideway, leading somewhere” and if there doesn’t seem to be a way at all, we need to pave one.

I understand that not everyone will be in such a priviledged position as I am. Not everyone will have a boss with the same generous attitude. And not everyone will be in the posibility to leave “home” behind to go and explore. But everyone can help in his or her own, specific way. When limitations are obvious, we need to look for possibilities.

Lobke Dijkstra,

PT and Clear Path’s representative at the Thai Burma border