Rebuilding. The photographs in this section have served to remind me of why I need to continue...for the Good Times!

It was all going so well. The feedback from across the globe was most positive and I really believed I was making a difference.

The ONLY outcome I can allow from this trauma is that I make it through to the other side. I am an intensely private person in many ways and I cannot believe that I am telling the world my problems in such an open manner. It was not meant to be like this.

The violation of being beaten and robbed does make me fear the world around me, but I know that I still have the opportunity to make this project work, to link students around the globe and to offer participants a greater understanding of our relationships as brothers and sisters.

Having lost all my project fundraising which I held in local currencies this has meant that the future of this project has been placed in jeopardy. The reasons for holding the funding in this way were practical, if now viewed in a very different light.

What I have learnt is the difference between money and wealth. I have lost a great deal of money, but money is only a means to an end. Wealth is very different.

I am wealthy beyond belief and no-one can ever take that away. This project was conceived out of a genuine desire to create understanding and to help promote educational opportunity in the young. In its first month it has been very successful and the potential for further growth is immense. I cannot allow this set-back to pull me down. The economic reality is that it will take month's longer now to pay off the project debts when I return to the UK. My journey across the centre of South America is now lost...but there are a further eleven months that can be recovered and that can deliver on the project aims.

That wealth I spoke of is my family and friends. It is not monetary but human. My family went to extraordinary ends to repatriate me and have full medical checks conducted. The messages of support that have flooded in from around the world make me realise just how valued I am by others. It may have been an expensive lesson to learn, but I am also seeing some very positive personal reactions that only a time of crisis can facilitate.

I note that one of the questions to the project this week is from Attica, currently in 6th year at George Heriots School.

He wanted to ask a few questions regarding [my] travels through South America.

What inspired you to undertake such travels around S. America, and why did you chose S.America over any other place in the world?

And when you decided to travel, how did you go about it? I'm quite interested in travelling myself, i.e. taking a year out, and I don’t know where to start.

I realise that if my experiences can prevent what has happened to me happening to just one other person then my experience will have been positive.

I am finding it difficult to cope with the aftermath of my experience, however I hope over the next few weeks before I return to South America to make it clear both why I must return and also to try and understand why the thin veneer of humanity that we term civilisation breaks down.

My experiences offer the perfect opportunity for student participants to examine topics such as law and order in the developing world; issues of personal safety and mans' inhumanity to man.

Will