Desmond falls in love and finds enormous generosity as an aid worker in Tibet.
For some reason I feel a need to confront devastation head on. I work for an aid agency in Tibet. Tibetans are trying to revive their culture after what Deng XiaoPing called 'ten years of catastrophe.'
On my second journey, I met Helen Williams on the steps of the Petroleum Hotel in Beijing. She was attractive, but I was the Projects Co-ordinator, I couldn't be hitting on the new computer teacher.
For the next three summers we worked in Dangche village. Despite their hardship, the local people were unbelievably generous to us. After a day's work, Helen and I practiced Yoga and meditation together. Buddhist practice is a salve and strength for Tibetan people and it is for us too. Then we drank some good red wine together. The local people cracked bawdy jokes or turned a blind eye as Helen and I got closer. But where could this love scene go?
I lived in New York, she lived in Sydney. We worked all over the world. We phoned a lot, we wrote. I still felt burnt from the break-up of my previous relationship. Did I want another? The truth is, we both did.
A job came up for me at the University of Glamorgan, part of a major regeneration project for South Wales. On the way back from Tibet to Wales I stopped off in New York - September the 10th, 2001 - in this world, devastation is unavoidable.
Helen's grandmother was from Pontardawe, so she could join me in Cardiff. Now we live and work together in South Wales, but we still have a lot more to do in Tibet. We've raised people's expectations and if we don't help to keep the project going we'll have let them down. Confronting devastation head-on, I found so many precious things in the heart of it - generosity, resilience, kindness and even love.
Desmond Barry
