Tribewanted: Vorovoro

(i know she wasn’t a member of the tribe, but she was one of my best mates, so i want to honour her here)

I first met Sarah 5 years ago and was immediately touched by her natural warmth and immediate friendliness. We were about to go off to Peru together to crew the first ever Madventurer project there together. I think we were both apprehensive, as being only 21 years old each the pair of us, we were suddenly about to be projected into a situation of a lot of responsibility. However she was calm, happy, seemed organized and knew her stuff. She had this incredible way of putting people around her at total ease with her engaging, intelligent and understanding personality. Any doubts I had about whether I’d get on with this person melted away in about 10 seconds of knowing her.

I subsequently had the pleasure of working with her in the small village of Llupa in northern Peru for 5 weeks running a school renovation project. We had a group of about 15. Over the course of the month it soon became apparent that I was working alongside an absolute superstar in the making. Her ability to be organized, fun, intuitive, perceptive was just incredible. She was a total natural, putting everyone at ease and taking time for their problems and difficulties with dealing with this new and alien culture. She had this unique ability to see the problem from the point of view of whoever had it, thus talk through it with them on their level and help them overcome it. That sort of emotional intelligence at the age of 21 is mind blowing.

The village of Llupa absolute adored her for the passion she put into making the project work, adaptability to work with them and their cultural subtleties and flawless Spanish. Whenever I went back in the following years, the mention of her name in conversation with the locals there would make them grin ear-to-ear. She had the total respect of the group and was consistently able to gently switch from the necessary figure of authority that was required to friend and confident of those who needed her. Her priority was the happiness of who she was in charge of, and that shone so brightly through. It’s no lie to say that I occasionally had the odd envious moment of her natural abilities in the role – I learnt so much for her over just 5 weeks.

Since then we remained good friends. Whenever we caught up she was always involved in a new adventure that involved pushing herself and making the world a better place for those around her. The fact that she was just in Ecuador was because she had recently gone back to England to work and couldn’t handle not being back out in the field. She had only just got this new job and was buzzing. That’s what makes her tragedy easier to bear in some respects; she was out somewhere she loved, doing some thing she loved and being able to share her passions with her group. I am certain that when it all went wrong she was exactly where she wanted to be in life – and that is very rare.

To work with her and be her friend was and is a real honour. Working overseas in difficult and stressful environments where passions run high is consistently challenging and exhausting. I never ever heard a bad word said against her, which to me speaks volumes of one of the most talented people I have ever met. I was extremely proud to be associated with her as a colleague and am overwhelmingly happy to have been her friend.

May she rest in peace.