This past week has been very difficult at Upeace. One of our professors, Dr. Mahmoud Hamid passed away unexpectedly last week.
Dr. Mahmoud Hamid was head of the Environmental Department at Upeace and believed passionately that peace was a possibility for his home country, Sudan. Everyone has spoken highly of his intellectual contributions to the field of peace and conflict and even more so they have talked about his infectious smile.
Although I did not know Dr. Hamid personally, his death has touched each of us profoundly. For me, I have been reflecting on the fleetingness and beauty of life. We have this one chance to live our lives and to make a difference in the world- the impact of Dr. Hamid upon the Upeace community and the wider world is evident.
I sincerely hope that when my time comes I will have “lived passionately so that I may die peacefully,” as my colleague, Greg so eloquently stated.
In the past few days, I have been trying to embody this philosophy. Over the weekend, Maggie, Jean Paul (a fellow Rotary Scholar), and I went to help with a beach cleanup sponsored by the Downtown San Jose Rotary Club.
Two miles on la playa de Guacalillo is littered with trash which washes down from the capital, San Jose, and into the ocean which then washes the trash back on the beach. We spent 6 hours picking up trash and sorting trash from recyclables, there was an amazing effort from the community and over 200 volunteers showed up to help clean up.
The beach cleanups, however, are not enough and the Rotary and Rotaract clubs are taking initiatives to educate people in the city about how to properly dispose of their trash. The Rotarians and especially the Rotaract club members appear to be very active in the community here and I’m very excited to be a part of the projects and the passion shared in Costa Rica.
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