People change for the duration of their entire lives, and usually do that gradually, being influenced by various aspects of surviving in the modern world. My father, and I suppose he followed Freud when discussing this topic, believed that personality is developed in the very infancy and is primarily influenced by childhood experiences. I realize that such a theory does make some sense. However, my own experience proves that it cannot be applied to everyone without exception. When facing the task of telling a story that had changed my life, I had few doubts about what event in my life would fit the set requirements in the best way possible.
In August 5, 1986, my husband and I were working as water well drillers in the most inhospitable region of Colombia. Our mission was to provide people in small cities with drinkable water of which they knew few before our visit. I liked the job; it gave me both socially valuable occupation and satisfaction of doing something useful. The curious fact about the situation was that I was eight months pregnant by then, and was actually getting ready to go home so that sufficient medical care would be available at the critical moment. One day we were coming back home late at night. I enjoyed the trip from the rig to the camp since the weather was nice, and the land was flooded with a beautiful silver light of a moon shining majestically in the sky. I had never before seen such a huge and breathtakingly bright moon. It made me feel in a strange way, like something was going to happen, either good or bad, and I felt frustrated with the vagueness of own emotions caused by the beauty of night.
To my great delight we got home without any adventures, and by 8 p.m. already went to bed since there was nothing else we could do, – at that place getting dark was considered the end of the day and none night entertainments were available. About 10 p.m. I woke up with the only intention of going to the bathroom. My husband turned on the light and helped me to get up from the bed. When I eventually did we both realized that my waters had just broken and that we were in a huge trouble. We were in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity, no water, no doctor being available. We both realized that the situation was extremely dangerous. Thinking feverishly about what our next actions should be, we remembered that a practicing doctor visited the town that day. He was vaccinating kids all day long, and we hoped that he decided to spend the night at the town. So we called the medical center to see if he was still there. Fortunately, he was where we wanted him so badly to be. We let him know about the situation and, I must confess, seemed to scare him to death. Poor guy had never faced cases like ours and warned us that if something went wrong there was nothing he could really do. Evidently, we did not have much choice, so we all just prayed for an easy delivery.
No need to say, I was terrified. The conditions in which I had to give birth to my long-awaited child were extreme. I delivered my baby in a room with two candles and a flash light. All I could do is to cover my little boy with a blanket and keep him close to my loving heart. The next day we called my family, and they managed to come and take us out of those uncivilized jungles. The story had a happy ending. This experience has undoubtedly changed my life. I have become stronger and hardier than I have ever been before. That incident, when I had to take myself into own hands, when my life and life of my child depended on how courageously I deal with situation, made me a survivor. I have realized how greatly the outcome of a problem depends on one’s self-possession and endurance. These days I sincerely believe that nothing can either scare or stump me, and this belief helps me to overcome all sorts of troubles.