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| davetracker.com file photo |
Editor's Note:
Emily Seay is now in Indonesia as a staff member of an International Rescue Committee team that is assisting with the devastation caused by the Asia quake and tsunami. I've agreed to provide her with this corner of my online travel journal, davetracker.com, and do what I can to get her writing and any photos up on the web so she can share it with others. I'm sure it'll be quite a story.
-Dave Lewicki, Phuket, Thailand, January 7, 2005
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Monday, January 31, 2005 2:10 AM
let's try again
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| self portrait - taken yesterday leaving Calang |
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 2:10 AM
Subject: let's try again
Dave, please post a little update to my blog saying
that I left Calang yesterday, I'm here in Banda Aceh
tying up loose ends, & will leave for Jakarta tomorrow
with Audrey. Will be leaving Jakarta Wednesday
evening, & I have like 400+ photos to add to my blog,
totally amazing stuff....
[...]
Yet another editor's note:
My computer goes into the shop for a few days for a little repair. I'll do what I can....
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Sunday, January 23, 2005 9:38 PM
Fwd: prequel, or how did I get here?
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 12:07 AM
Subject: Home for the Holiday
I'm sitting here in Banda Aceh, just wanted to say hello! Am browsing through all emails, but I'm typing on my iBook so was able to send this anyway.... will send a much longer one soon, but can't tie up the line..... was supposed to go to Calang by helicopter tomorrow but that's out. Might go by boat, but just found out the doctor for my team, Joel, just got into Banda b/c he might have cholera. That's 3 members of our team who are sick... Tom got airlifted out with some kind of bizarre anemia, Jen the other team leader might have malaria & now Joel. Myself, I can't wait to get back to my team & my little tent in the refugee camp in the middle of utter devastation.... Dave, I'll have to update you b/c I talked to my mom for like an hour last night, but basically, I've never felt better. yeah they pulled 758 bodies out of the place where I've been living in the past 5 days, yeah, 2 of them right out of the ravine near our tents, yeah we had a minor boat accident which required some swimming & 5 km of hiking through the nastiest terrain you can possibly imagine.... yeah there's all kind of kooky stuff, but I've never felt more alive or stronger or anything, & frankly I can't wait to get back... Will all depend on what Joel thinks, he's at the hospital now being evaluated, we were going to continue mobile clinics next week, but I can't go without a doc obviously, & I can't do measles without a cold chain.... Hey Dave you have my cell phone # you should call me!!!! It doesn't work in Calang obviously but will be here tonight & possibly tomorrow, though... anyway, must log off, but will type more, call me! :) Anyone!!!
PS my pictures are going to knock you out, but Jakarta office says they haven't received the package yet. :( But Dave you can go ahead & post the prequel if you want, I'm not even going to edit it hahaha or even re-read it....
OK really must go.... talk to youse guys later!
xoxoxo Emily
Editor's Note:
I've included the prequel down at the very bottom of this page as the "first" entry....
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 9:38 PM
Off to Calang
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 9:38 PM
Subject: Off to Calang
Well, another amazing day. This will be super quick. I spent the morning doing inventory of dozens of boxes of medical supplies & drugs for the various teams in the field & including our puskesmas in Darussalam. However, when we stopped by to drop off everything, Dr. Hussein was seeing patients in the field, so Valerie will go back tomorrow.
After that, we visited the 400 bed government hospital where the Aussies have set up an outdoor field hospital. You will not believe the pictures I took, sorry they won't be available any time soon. Valerie saw a dead body in a car only a couple hundred meters from the front door of the hospital. The front 'lawn' of the hospital is absolutely packed with mud-covered debris, like wheelchairs, gurneys, fax machines, beds, pillows, IV poles, etc... It must have been a couple acres. The Aussies (who also are treating any ex-pats who get sick) already knew Valerie quite well as Valerie runs a trauma center in Sydeny. They were just intubating a guy in an outdoor tent, to operate on a necrotic inguinal hernia, it was utterly astonishing, to have a sterile surgical field that close to all that... debris. I spoke to an Australian nurse, discussing there's a nursing shortage (as always) but in this case there all these fancy doctors & surgeons running around but no one to do basic wound care which is a huge reason for readmission etc... they had just wrapped up a young boy with a head lac for that very reason.
OK car's here, cutting to the chase. Mom, yes, I am getting on a helicopter tomorrow, to Calang. It will be the IRC helicopter with 2 of the child protection staff. I'll be hand-carrying a cooler with measles vaccine, but all the other medical supplies will be going with Christophe who will be leaving on an earlier flight on a Navy helicopter. No idea how long I'm staying, but there is a fantastic team already settled there.
What else?
Well I have to go, will write when I get back.
xoxo
Emily
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Banda Aceh
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Subject: Jakarta
Well, my mom is going to *hate* this email, as if earthquakes & stuff weren't enough. (Don't worry, Mom, I *swear* I'm in safe hands!!!!) So yesterday, Monday, Team 4 (Valerie, doc from Australia, runs largest trauma center in Sydney), Ellen (RN but functions as team leader, spent last few years in Afghanistan), & Christophe plus Abud (our local translator/assistant, this is the one who lost his whole family, girlfriend etc) went to the Darussalam Health Center to perform assessments.
OK here's how I understand it so far. Darussalam is a subdistrict (kecamatan) of the district (kabupaten) of Aceh-Besar. Darussalam is composed of three mukims (smaller districts, has one mosque & one leader (religious) also called a mukim). These mukims are called Siem, Tungkop & Lambaro-Angam. As of today, Siem has 8 villages & 3 refugee camps, Tungkop has 14 villages & one big refugee camp, & Lambaro-Angam has 8 villages & 4 refugee camps, & 29 villages were destroyed. The first refugee camp we visited on Monday, we stopped at a house which was on the other side of the street to where the water stopped. The ppl from the destroyed village called Mireuk Lamreudeup which was literally across the street, fled the tsunami, lost everything & have settled in. We only stopped in one house, but while it was originally empty, it now has 204 ppl living in it. The original population of Darussalam was 17,000, now they have an additional 12,000, & remember Dr. Hussein? He is the only doctor caring for all of these.
We also went to the Health Clinic (called a puskessmas) where he has taken up seeing patients. He sees an average of 120 patients a day, & has referred at least 150 critically ill since the tsunami to the military hospital. The pukessmas is directly across the street from the mosque where the data for the 3 mukims is kept centralized on a white board. As you might already know, this is a very conservative Muslim culture, so health care, religion & politics are all very closely tied together with a very strict hierarchical structure. For instance, we are initiating a measles immunization campaign which should hopefully only take a few days, but we are starting on Saturday b/c we can get the announcement out on Friday with the religious announcements. Unfortunately, women are not allowed at these, so we are trying to get the word out as much as possible. We are projecting currently a 30% coverage rate & there was already one confirmed case of measles in an infant who died, so we really need to prevent an outbreak, targeting all children age 6 months to 15 years old.
The puskessmas for Darussalam is in dire conditions, but doesn't seem to be related to the tsunami. There is no electricity, no telephone & no running water. They have no stethoscopes, no blood pressure cuffs, no thermometers, nothing. They do have a lot of drugs, but not really the ones they need. We were fairly shocked at the conditions of the well/sanitation system. Christophe took a water sample for testing, & is planning on installing a generator & chlorinating the water etc.
Monday morning, we basically did a quick eyeball assessment/walk through, then spent the afternoon in the field, I think 2-3 villages. We are also performing assessments for orphans/children with no guardians, etc. Everyone was extremely welcoming, but by 3pm, I caught the eye of one child in a crowd of 50, & just wanted to burst out crying. When we ask what the children do all day (as all the schools are destroyed), the adults respond, "Read the Koran." I have to say I was very worried about the whole Muslim thing, but right now, they seem to like me (from America) more than the Australians or French. Everyone seems to have a relative in America or a friend or something. I speak as many little Indonesian phrases as possible, so between that & being American, I feel extremely safe & popular. Whatever refugee camp we go to, we quickly gather a small crowd, everyone wanting to stand near you or have their picture taken or shake your hand. In the Lonely Planet, the dialogue sample goes like, "Hello, how are you? What is your name? Where are you from?' directly to "Are you married?' & this is SO true. Neither Valerie, Ellen or myself is married, but that is one of the most frequently asked questions. I do wear a ring on my left hand at the moment for just that reason...
We wanted to leave to go back to IRC office around 3pm b/c Ellen had a meeting at 4pm, but Dr. Hussein insisted we eat together, & we were instructed, we must *never* decline an invitation to eat. He took us to an outdoor place across from a mosque, that had SO many bugs. I don't mind bugs, but it was sooooo hot & dusty & smokey & there were literally flies everywhere. He is afraid of a cholera outbreak so he wanted us to see "how the ppl eat, with all the flies flying.' There were scrawny cats & ducks & ducklings & motorbikes & bonfires & dust everywhere. They boil a whole container of rice, almost exactly the size & shape of a barrel of oil, it requires a beam of wood thrust through the 2 handles & it takes two men to lift it off the roaring fire. & noodles too, but they serve cafeteria style, so we stand in line with everyone else, take a plate (questionably clean) & they pile it with rice & noodles & you eat with your hands. As a nurse, I do carry hand antiseptic wipes, so yeah, that was good. Another very important aspect of the culture is to always ask permission to leave, so you can receive your blessing, so we received permission from Dr. Hussein & headed out.
On the way home, it was pouring rain (it pours rain at least once a day) but I popped out of the vehicle with Abud to buy some bananas, oranges & tomatoes so we had something fresh to eat at the Palace (Valerie is a vegetarian). While waiting for my stuff, this little boy was demanding my attention, incessantly in fact. I asked him his name, "Siama nama anda?" & he replied something which Abud & the market vendors laughed at, he says his name is "Money, money, money!" Later Abud told me this boy is a local, & although he was raised to be a street beggar, he is now officially an orphan b/c he lost his parents in the tsunami. Also, Abud says he is known for biting ppl who don't give him money! He must be maybe 3 or 4 years old. I did give him money, & a pen, which he probably threw away.
Anyway, at the Health Meeting at the Palace, Camilo (a doc from Colombia) says, "I bet you are relieved you did not get on the helicopter this morning." Apparently, this morning a US Navy helicopter crashed during take-off, & see, now not to scare my mom, it could have been one of my flights. No one died, but there were 4 serious injuries. A French journalist saw the whole thing & reported it firsthand to a guy staying at the Palace named Tom from Colorado. Anyway, I don't remember a lot else about yesterday, just I went to bed early. Oh also 2 new emergency docs from the States arrived, Hillary (who knows Gregg) & Rachel, & we are sharing the room. Oh yeah, apparently there is a new alert for an outbreak of hemorrhagic dengue fever for which there is no prophylaxis nor treatment -- whereas malaria mosquitoes are night time feeders, these prefer daytimes, so we are all totally DEETed out, & I am so grateful I splurged for those permithril garments & Hudson Trail Outfitters (2 pants, one shirt) & also the Gore-Tex waterproof shoes, I mean most of this place is like a huge mudpit.
Today, well, Valerie & I spent the morning completing the extensive paperwork for the official health assessment of the pukessmas, with much help from Dr. Hussein & his staff. Valerie got inventory & drug info, I got a lot of other data, like population type stuff, like as of 26 December there were 122 pregnant women registered at the health center; there are 2 kind of TBA's(traditional birth assistants): "educated' midwives, usually one in each village, & traditional midwives called dukun beranak, women who "bring magic during childbirth' according to Dr. Hussein, whereas the "educated' midwives have access to stuff like methergine. The closest hospital for obstetric emergencies was destroyed, so they would refer something like a breech or twins to the military hospital about 10km away. They only have one ambulance, & it is very very old they say, & it actually belonged to another doctor who has been relocated to western Sumatra. Before the tsunami, they used to have 40 "educated' midwives throughout Darussalam, but they estimate now about 29, as some were killed, & some were relocated to other villages, & others were having trouble grieving as they had lost everything & still others are completely unaccounted for, but basically they still do not have a firm idea of who is left or where.
I received much of my information from the midwife who was at the pukessmas named Ati (the midwives rotate clinic hours), a very businesslike but amiable woman, dressed in full Muslim garb, headdress etc, as all the women are here, translated by this really great Indonesian guy named Joel who is affiliated with a local NGO called Leuser, named after the highest mountain in Aceh, so it is worth mentioning, there definitely some breakdowns in communications & very likely some mistranslations, especially considering the content, so forgive me if the data changes over time or some Indonesian anthropologist writes to completely correct my terminology/geography, etc.
Anyway, Leuser, Joel's local NGO, are also extremely concerned with the "rentan" (high risk populations) & as such, are excited to be forming a partnership with IRC/CARDI to help with stuff, like the measles campaign, the refugee camps & the pukessmas up & running. Just for clarification, I am working for IRC, but the name of our local NGO is CARDI, I don't know the translation, but before the tsunami all the workers here in Aceh were Indonesian nationals (since all the foreigners were kicked out 2 years ago), & had strong connections to other local NGOs. Since the tsunami, all the INGO (international) have come in & many have tried to basically take over, not showing enough respect for folks who know their own country better than anyone, so we always say we are with CARDI -- we have t-shirts, ID badges & baseball hats etc.
While doing our assessment at the pukessmas, a rickety white minivan/ambulance filled with 7 members of the MoH (Ministry of Health) including some docs invited us to join them on a tour of some more camps, they were in the area doing some mapping, so of course we accepted. We visited one camp we already had seen, but then Valerie & I saw the worst thing either of us had seen yet since arriving. We stumbled on a camp that had not yet been accessed at all. It was a scene of utter devastation, dead trees, rubble, garbage, everywhere, bodies, body bags. Within minutes, the van was surrounded by maybe 100 very hungry ppl, mostly men, just asking for water. See I know this will worry my mom, but we were with not only the MoH, but Dr. Hussein as well, so we were well protected, but honestly, I've never really seen anything like it. There was one rep from the Mercy Corps there who seemed to be collecting information to see what was needed, but it was really, really eye-opening. In retrospect, the scene felt like the aftermath of a forest fire, so hot & smokey with dead stuff everywhere. Um so yeah, lots of interesting data, we had lunch at the same place, today was fried fish heads & fried bananas. Is worth noting the NY Times van was seen taking photos & driving away.
So on the way home, Valerie & I stopped at a supermarket! OK it was basically the size of an overcrowded convenience store, but it was more than any of us had had access to up to this point. We asked the driver to go to the market (pasar), for fresh stuff, but we were just as happy to buy stuff like crackers, cookies, powdered milk, chewing gum, coffee, other non-perishable snacks. While standing in line, this American guy asked who I was with b/c he was making a documentary for the Discovery Channel, so maybe he'll show up at CARDI in a day or two. Hillary's husband is a camera man for the BBC, so the media coverage, like I said is just wild.
Ok so as I'm writing this, it's Tuesday evening, my iBook has arrived from Jakarta, yay thank you Maliah, so I'll have more freedom keeping a journal like this & pasting onto internet connections, not keeping tying up Colleen's computer. However, when you are in the middle of an emergency of these proportions, everyone is just working 150% round the clock, so actually for me to take time to write these is pretty valuable time. I'm lucky in this way that I'm not a decision-maker or team leader etc so I can have some downtime to write this stuff.
Another quick note is that before Brian left with Julieta to assess the northeast, he was getting a little frustrated with the whole "assessment" phase, he's chomping at the bit to get to the decimated hospital & see patients, do hands-on stuff & feel useful. So for what it's worth, I mean, yeah, as nurses, we might get to see patients, but sooo much of this wave of work is about public health, epidemiology & planning etc., so I'm glad I also have that kind of experience under my belt, b/c it's really not emergency nursing in the way we think of it, at least not yet. We just got a report from Brian btw, that he & Julieta have already located 6,000 IDPs (refugees/Internally Displaced Persons) so they are requesting immediate shipments of food, medical supplies etc. My parents will not be happy to hear this, but Team One finally reported from the field (we hadn't heard from them in 2 days) & are also requesting supplies to set up a location, including plastic sheeting, nails, medical supplies, food etc. & since the crash, the Navy has been more strict about transport requests, so you need to submit a request for the next day by 9am, so today, Gillian submitted a request for myself & Christophe to be flown out to Team One for resupply . I may or may not stay out there, but Christophe will stay & send Frank (the head watsan) back to Banda Aceh. Even if I am approved to fly, it wouldn't happen til Thursday morning, so I have at least a day to prepare. Additionally, on the subject of helicopters, IRC just rented a helicopter for one month minimum, as an experiment to see if that improves things in terms of getting supplies to where they need to go. Our satellite phones from Jakarta have made it through customs, so that will help communications as well. What else? Um. It's 10pm, I need to go back to the Palace, so I'm going to conclude this, get online, send it, & go to bed. I'm sure there is just tons & tons & tons of stuff I haven't gotten to, but there's a huge bunch of it, & more every day.
Salamat malan (good night)
xoxo Emily
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Sunday, January 09, 2005 11:11 PM
No Boat
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 9:19 PM
Subject: No Boat
So there was no boat. Well there was one, & it departed successfully earlier today with Audrey & the rest of Team 2 on it, but I wasn't aboard. In the assessment/info gathering phase of any disaster relief effort (which we are still in, we have no idea really what we are dealing with, in terms of lots of things, like disease outbreaks, refugee camps, rural areas, etc, most of us have only been on the ground for less than 48 hours) apparently things always start out a little rough.
Right now, IRC is running out of 3 houses, b/c the original IRC house, including all its computers, maps, data etc were destroyed in the tsunami. House One is actually somebody else's house, an in-law of somebody or other, & really it's pretty much a disaster, though not from natural causes, but more manmade. Laptops & cell phones everywhere, maps of the peninsula & flowsheets & charts taped on all the walls, just a typical, hot, humid Indonesian house with lizards on the walls & cats everywhere, toilets where there's no seat & you dip water out of a basin with a bowl to flush, a constant supply of rice in baskets on the table & Nescafe etc. I'm not even sure how many IRC folks are staying here, but it's the 'home office' where our nightly meetings are held. (I'm actually at one now, typing on a word document which I'll cut & paste into an email later, due to only one phone line & a super slow connection.)
Each night at 5pm at the Health Palace aka House Two (more on that later) we have a Health Meeting, with the nurses, the docs, epidemiology , child protection, & various & sundry reps from various other NGOs or media sources where we discuss what transpired during the day & prepare our report for the 7pm meeting. Tonight's health meeting was really interesting, OK well yeah I guess last night's was too, as it was the first one, but wow. I take copious notes, so stuff will be really well documented, but we all compare notes on the day's activities, like today we heard from Valerie, a doc from Australia, about her visit to the utterly deplorable conditions at the 400 bed government hospital where they reported 12 new cases of tetanus in the past 24 hours including one death & where the water damage was like 5 feet high on the ground floor; the sad tale of Dr. Hussein, the only doctor in a small district in Banda Aceh who lost everything in the tsunami, & immediately started working in this village which originally served 17,000 citizens plus now 12,000 additional refugees now mostly hanging out around the mosque area, apparently the other doctor "went crazy" after the tsunami & moved back to Jakarta with her family, he literally begged Valerie for help, he works almost 24 hours a day with virtually no staff, no nurses, no running water, etc; we just learned 400 schools are damaged or destroyed.. There's so much, I'm rambling so let's cut to the other stuff.
OK so I'm staying in House Two, playfully called the Health Palace, b/c it's literally like a palace & it's where the Health team members are staying & hold our nightly meetings. OK a palace except for no amenities whatsoever & all the tile torn up in the gigantic huge foyer & no beds or lights in the bathroom or drinking water etc, it's absolutely cavernous, behind closed gates, at least 2 kitchens, innumerable rooms, you'll have to see pix to believe it. As cavernous & gorgeous as it is, there is nothing to eat generally, very little water, we only had boxsprings with no mattresses so last night I slept on a tile floor with a mosquito net & sleeping bag, & let me tell you, it's very, very, very hot & humid with zero breeze. House Three I've never been too. House One is walking distance from House Two, but we have at least 2 vehicles & drivers who shuttle us between the two, it's very inconvenient, but I suppose it's still a security issue. Absolutely no walking after dark.
Hey guess what, the 60 Minutes team just arrived as an entourage to the child protection expert, Marie de la Soudiere, they're doing a special, so be sure to watch! It will just be child protection stuff, so won't include any other health stuff or whatever, but look for Catherine, she's a friend of mine, really great girl, she'll look fantastic on camera!!!!!
OK so back to today's events. The morning call to prayer from every mosque that lasts an hour starting at 5am failed to wake me up, but I did get up close to 6. I was packing for 4-7 days on a boat & in the field. Audrey was pretty much done, but we shared a room (somehow she arranged the slats on the boxspring & caught some zzz's that way) so we compared notes about who was bringing what. The night before, a group prepared medical supplies & kits for us to take along. We get to IRC office 0730. Logistics are still fuzzy, we're just in a holding pattern. Nescafe, rice, veggies in broth, some kind of fried eggs with peppers, a few unknown side orders for breakfast. Tom asked me to go behind & double check the supplies for the boat for up to 10 ppl for up to 10 days, stuff like kettle, flatware, bottled water, rain gear, toilet paper, candles, cookies in a tin etc. The boat trip would have been 12-14 hours, arriving at night & disembarking in the morning. This a large wooden type fishing boat rented from locals, btw. I have pictures of it.
Anyway, sometime around 8 or 9, Gillian, the director of the Emergency Response Team to whom everyone else reports, tells me I am not going on the boat after all. They are going to try to get me on a helicopter to rendezvous with Team One in the field. The other members of my team, Team One, none of whom I've ever met (Jen, the team leader, Joel the doc & Frank the watsan (OK I had to ask, that means water/sanitation, also known as EH or environmental health, there is an astonishing new vocabulary I'm picking up in the whole humanitarian/aid worker community), well they had deployed up into a very rural area on Saturday morning. They wanted me as the nurse to go up for re-supply & remain with the team until their return. As I think I mentioned before, this group was dropped off at a certain set of coordinates by Navy helicopters, but even as of yet, we're not sure how Team One will get home. Their location was on a river which leads down to the coast, so maybe they'll be picked up by the boat Team Two is on one the way back north up the coast.
Anyway, the mere idea of this almost made me pee my pants, but I quickly collected myself, repacked for air transport rather than water, got a few boxes of medical supplies, & tried to locate Christophe, the EH guy from Lyons, France who just arrived yesterday & has barely slept. Gillian wanted him to accompany me to the airport. It was unclear if I would even get on the helicopter at all, for several reasons. First, the team apparently changed location, probably in pursuit of patient population, but no one was really sure of their new coordinates, so of course the US Navy isn't going to drop me in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of supplies & no way to get home. The worst, most frustrating part of the trip so far is the complete breakdown of the cell phone network we have. Not only were no calls going through this morning on our network, no text messages were either, & we have really no other way to communicate to each other. Here I am ready to go the airport, but b/c of Team Two preparations for the boat trip, all the vehicles were making runs to/from the warehouse, to/from the harbor, & I couldn't call or text Christophe or anyone, so spent a good few hours chasing down Christophe.
During that time, though, I saw the worst devastation, mostly during the drive down to the harbor. We had heard Christophe was helping load the boat up with supplies, & well, the destruction started out from the harbor probably 8 - 10 km.. I know everyone says they can't explain the destruction, words fail etc, but um. I couldn't take any pictures b/c I was in the backseat & the windows wouldn't roll down, & it's not like it's going anywhere any time soon. Just utter utter & complete devastation. I was immediately brought to mind of Ground Zero in NYC. What was that, 2 city blocks, plus? I mean, we just kept driving & driving & driving & driving & driving (it's worth mentioning I can't believe the streets are mostly cleared) through twisted metal, heaps of garbage & buildings & boat & destroyed cars & huge boats impaled on everything.. I had tears running down my face the whole way to the harbor. Brian says there were huge piles of body bags down the pier a little bit... It just looked like an atomic bomb went off, everything absolutely leveled, & wet & filthy.. & what remains is sort of reminiscent of the trash compactor scene from Star Wars. I'm thinking how long it took the city of NY to clear all the debris of 9/11, with all our money, & passion, & infrastructure & support etc, & then you look around at the utter poverty even in the untouched places here in Indonesia, & it's simply indescribable. It's not just about rebuilding, it's about digging out. Digging out & digging out & digging out...
OK it's almost time for me to leave this computer & go home.. So to finish up, I couldn't locate Christophe til like 1300. We went to the military airport, & I had 4 names of US flight operations contacts who might be willing to discuss taking me out to my team. First you have to drive through these areas of NGOs, like some kind of huge, bizarre festival, there are just acres & acres of various brightly colored tents, from all kind of military groups, NGOs like UNICEF, IMO, WHO, MSF (Doctors Without Borders), plus alllll the media, it's sooooo surreal, plus all the displaced Indonesians who are just hanging out ppl watching.
So we get to the proper tent area near the helicopter take-off place, & I happen to connect with the 2nd most important officer whose name I had been given. Tom, team leader for Team Two (he's from Seattle, an engineer who specializes in building roads & stuff) had told me earlier before getting on the boat that I should expect to wait all day & possibly all the next morning to land a slot on a helicopter but that I should be ready at a moment's notice as things happen so quickly. This officer was super friendly, & didn't hesitate, told me he could take me up right away, except that he didn't have the new coordinates of Team One. He had taken Rick (doc from Team Two & chief of medical operations, look for an article on him in the Washington Post in the near future) up to the destination of Team Two (boat team), a place called Calang & dropped him off earlier that morning. I guess the idea being Rick gets there earlier, susses the place out, receives the boat, sets them up, heads back down the coast, picks up Team One who have somehow made their way down the foothills to the beach to be picked up.
Did I mention the road on the west coast has been entirely wiped out so air & water are the only viable means of transport? Also, it's worth mentioning about IRC, they truly are on the cutting edge in any situation like this. The correspondent from CNN was camped in the living room of House One the first day I was here b/c IRC has such excellent access to information. Whereas MSF excels in mobilizing into situations immediately, they tend to withdraw when the crisis is over, whereas IRC tends to stick around, as I mentioned before, to build durable solutions. I think I heard the average stay for IRC is 8 years, but they do have a reputation for accessing some of the most difficult to reach areas in the initial time frame...
I am so tired, I've no idea if any of this typing makes any sense. Anyway, to make a long story short, I was offered a helicopter ride, but nobody knew the new coordinates. Team One had notified the office of their move the night before during their nightly conference call via satellite phone, but even though they had a GPS, they didn't mention their new coordinates. So, I didn't go. Instead, I came back around 3:30 & unpacked boxes of office supplies until the 5pm meeting. It did feel useful at least.
I just had a conversation with another really great woman, Selena (sp?) who has done a lot of relief work. I told her I was having a hard time processing my emotions. It's only been 36 hours in Aceh proper, but it feels like a weird combination of a reality show, summer camp, except with an ominous sense that tens of thousands of ppl are dead & grieving, right outside your door. The summer camp, or even freshman orientation, analogy arises b/c it's like moving into your new room, meeting all your new friends, figuring out where the bookstore is, the dining hall, the shuttle bus, putting all your clothes away, etc.. except here, everything is soooo temporary. Maybe you're going on a boat, or a helicopter, or to a refugee camp, or maybe not.
The trick is not to get frustrated or overwhelmed & to remain flexible & cool. Obviously most of these folks have much more experience, but even in the magnitude of this disaster. Like when your cell phone doesn't work, or there's nothing to eat except stale crackers or dried fish heads when you haven't eaten all day, just think of alllll the suffering all around you. One of the IRC assistants, I forget his name, lost his mother, his father, his girlfriend & many other family members. He's very quiet, & Selena said she was really taken aback when he said quietly in the car yesterday, 'The tsunami has taken everyone in my whole life.' The reality show angle, well I don't watch much tv as you know, but I guess the idea of all these ppl with strong personalities coming together in close quarters under a huge amount of stress, definitely brings out some interesting angles of human psychology.. Plus when there's camera crews in the living room & on every corner too (plus myself attempting to keep a blog of sorts), yeah it does tend to lend itself an air of voyeurism & total lack of privacy. One also really sad thing we heard in the team health meeting is that in the mosques, it's being preached that the tsunami was God's punishment for the unfaithful.. OK yeah I can't even begin to really process that...
So it's 11pm, Brian is standing here next to me in House Two. He is just finishing packing up for his very exciting trip! Here he is to explain, so I can go take a shower...
It's late. I'm tired, and we're leaving early in the morning. So, I'll keep it short. Tomorrow, a Spanish doc, an Indonesian consultant, a driver, an interpreter and myself are driving 200 miles to the northeast coast of Sumatra to assess and treat the health needs of the people there. As far as we know, this area has not received much if any aide. It is also an area that has been occupied by GAM - a political group fighting for Sumatra's independence from Indonesia. Should be interesting. I'll give you an update when I return. Must sleep now.
Ok so that's it from Brian, we are all totally exhausted but to kind of clarify a bit, the doc's name is Julieta, & they will be staying in hotels & not driving after dark due to security issues etc. so no worries about safety!!!! They should be back on Friday evening.
It's now Monday morning, 0830, quick update on Audrey, boat has arrived safely in Calange, yes the plan is to come back down the coast & pick up Team One on the beach, so no need for the helicopter lift. Until Team One returns to Banda Aceh (theoretically on Thursday), I will be joining Ellen & Valerie on Team 4 to help completing local assessments, esp like Dr. Hussein's dire situation, we'll be taking Christophe in with us to start with the water/sanitation issues, also measles campaign (to prevent an outbreak).. Will keep you posted..
OH YEAH, so last night/early this morning, there was an amazing aftershock that woke everyone up. I guess it was around 0515 am, I was sleeping in a room on a mattress with mosquito net & Brian was at the other end of the room, & neither of us said anything even though we both felt it, but the whole room just shook & shook & shook & seemed to last forever, though was probably closer to 30 seconds of realllly good shaking. I guess everyone else came out into the common area, but we just didn't. & we just fell back asleep. oh well, they're saying 6.2 on the Richter scale? Now that was really wild.
OK it's 9am Monday, time to hand this laptop back over to its rightful owner, the fabulous gal named Colleen.. I'll try to get online & send..
More later!!!!!!!!!
xo Emily
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Thursday, January 06, 2005 9:19 PM
Jakarta
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 9:19 PM
Subject: Jakarta
Well after traveling 26 or so hours, we finally landed in Jakarta earlier today. The view flying in took my breath away, b/c it was so much like seeing Thailand again, thick green foliage with tall white skyscrapers & ubiquitous red roof dwellings, though even from overhead, you can tell Jakarta is a little less organized than Bangkok....
I"m sitting in a clinic in Jakarta, it's nearly 9pm, I'm with a group of 15 or so other aid workers, we're all waiting to get our supplemental immunizations. I think I'll require typhoid, Japanese enchephalitis, maybe something else... anyway, we're allllll exhausted. We had a team meeting earlier, very very very exciting. We'll be mobilizing on Saturday. Each of us has been given our own cell phone as well as a small spending allowance. Some of the brief notes I took during the meeting include: Aceh being the Mecca of Indonesia, ie a stronghold for Islam & we should acknowledge & respect that; the entire west coast road has been essentially wiped out, so we are looking into alternative means of transportation into areas, ie air & water, & we do have a shortage of rental cars; there is an increased awareness of the child protection issues, & no child under 16 will be allowed to leave the peninsula without paren tal escort b/c of potential child trafficking; be wary of 'dog trouble' at night; highest security threat at this time is probably banditry, so no traveling alone; some discussion of the political situation on the peninsula, ie military vs freedom fighters; there have been numerous aftershocks so we should never never lock any doors, even if we are going to the bathroom; estimated 270,000 displaced ppl in Banda, somewhere between 16-60 refugee camps; we should be aware of potentially desperate situations caused by IDP's (Internally Displaced Persons) & any congregations or protests therein... This is one of the most exciting projects I've ever been a part of. Even though we are all exhausted, we are all running on adrenaline, & the quality of every team member is stellar. So far, it's been an absolute joy to work with everyone involved, of all nationalities. My Indonesian is coming along, I picked up a phrase book aimed at teaching child ren conversational stuff & vocab.... We're staying a reasonably nice hotel in the meantime... what else? That's it for now, I promise one more entry or so before leaving on Saturday, but I guess I would just like to say what an absolute honor it is to be in the same city as Colin Powell & Kofi Annan etc,... ooops they're calling my name, time to be a pin cushion!
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005 5:13 PM
heathrow
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 5:13 PM
Subject: heathrow
Hi everyone, quick update, I'm typing on a computer at Heathrow airport, a quick one-hour layover before our very long nonstop flight to Singapore, & I'd forgotten about the different keyboards. I have 14 minutes left, a lovely Danish girl gave me a few coins, she's on her way to Mexico....
So yeah, we're all a little punchy, but intact, us being myself, Audrey, Brian & Alex. Last night at BWI airport, we were greeted & interviewed by members of the local television news stations! Yikes! I can't remember what I said, I was pretty bleary-eyed.... Anyway, our flight was essentially uneventful, but I think it's safe to say we all had pretty interesting seatmates. Brian befriended a guy from Somalia & managed to get a few CDs of Somali music off him! I of course will pop them into iTunes at my earliest convenience... While standing in long lines, I've got my Lonely Planet Indonesia & have been sussing out some bits of the language, ie 'hello, how are you, where does it hurt, etc...' Good ol' nursing humor.... I think all 4 of us are incredibly excited. We catch snippets of news updates, like Clinton & Bush Sr teaming up for fundraising efforts, prefab buildings being shipped in to help house relief workers, refugee camps being set up, etc... Also just simply traveling internationally again really opens your eyes to the quality of ppl that are really in this world. The woman I sat next to, a pretty 20 something, is designing drugs in London. Mohammed, the Somali gentleman with the CDs, is studying politics & law to help reduce injustice & corruption in his country. I have a feeling one of the themes I struck upon during the television interviews was that yeah, first & foremost, we're nurses & we're there to meet the health demands of a very specific population, but we're prepared to do literally anything they ask of us, from moving supplies, immunizations, literally whatever. But what I said, & how I truly feel, is that this is an opportunity for us, as Americans, to go into the largest Muslim country in the world, & try to represent the United States in a spirit of compassion, enthusiasm, hard work & courage du ring a time of great tension. Doesn't it all of a sudden sound like I'm writing my 7th grade essay on what America means to me? Everyone who knows me that I place a huge emphasis on treating each person with grace, etc & that's exactly what I intend to do while in Aceh, & everywhere. Oh nuts, only 2 minutes remaining.... *click*
Love to you all!
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Early January
prequel, or how did I get here?
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Seay
Subject: prequel, or how did I get here?
OK So I"m typing on my iBook about 10,000 feet somewhere over Europe, possibly Russia. I have a bit of a sore throat, which is irritating, b/c I decided to check my bag with all my med stuff in it, including Tylenol, Theraflu, cough drops etc.... oh well! So the Hopkins team left Baltimore around 9pm Tuesday January 4, I've no idea what time it is now, we're about 3 hours in to our 12 hour flight, except it's 2:30 (pm I think) local time at Heathrow airport where we changed airlines from British Air to Qantas. Skimming through the inflight magazines etc, it's hard to believe I'll be visiting Australia as well in March! I'm thinking it will be a well-earned vacation.....
OK so I'm thinking I should probably write a bit of a prequel, a lead-in to how I ended up on this flight to Singapore, to Jakarta & ultimately to the Aceh peninsula which was struck by a tsunami 10 days ago.
Thursday before Christmas. I get an email from Dave, saying he's left the north of Thailand to do the touristy thing in Phuket for the holiday weekend read: getting tanked with a bunch of other English speakers. I work weekend option night shift at the Johns Hopkins Bayview ER, which means I work 7p-7a every Friday, Saturday & Sunday, which this year meant all night Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve & New Year's Day. It's simply contractual that you must work any holiday which falls on the weekend, which also means *that* won't be happening again for a few years, but it's just as well, since I've had a pretty hard time re-adjusting to East Coast living since coming back from the Navajo reservation in May. After Dubya won the election, I went into a sort of double shock, & when they started playing Christmas music in the stores on November 4, I renounced Christmas this year altogether along with the Bush wartime economy, & simply picked up a ton of overtime & held my breath til it was over. (Oooo that holiday/weekend/night shift/overtime check should hit next Tuesday!) Which isn't to say I rejected the spirit of Christmas -- on the contrary, I embraced it I believe more deeply than pretty much any other year, except for the year of the sun dogs in Arizona.
Anyway, also working strictly weekends isn't awful, b/c all the great sessions (traditional Irish music) are held Mon - Thurs, so it all works out pretty well. But back to the spiritual thing, yeah. The Bayview ER holds, I believe, more challenges for me than most ppl realize. First of all, I was raised in Dundalk, the very very blue collar community which Bayview serves. Most ppl find that hard to believe since I've lived in Europe, in Asia, on an Indian reservation & have bachelors degrees from both Loyola & Johns Hopkins. Most blondes from Dundalk don't quite end up that way. My parents lived in Dundalk until last Christmas when it just became too intolerable. Sometimes when I'm chatting up the junkies who come in & I'm putting an IV in them, I'll ask them where they score lately, & an increasingly common response has been 'Sesame Street' -- the 2 block corridor near Dundalk Elementary, right where my parents were living & where my aunt Kathy still lives. My grandparents live only a few blocks over. I guess when you live overseas or in foreign cultures & come home to Sesame Street & jerks that break into your parents' house in broad daylight while they're sleeping upstairs, even that can be a bit of culture shock.
Wasn't this supposed to be about Aceh? So yeah, I'd been a tech in the ER for a year during my last bit of nursing school, & after ob/gyn, I really wanted to get back into it, so it seemed a natural move. Huge learning curve from obstetrics & neonates, but still fantastic. But I'd been getting the bug to travel again, & you probably have seen from Dave's website, he's heading for New Zealand & Australia, so when a great sale popped up in November & I knew I had enough PTO, I paid cash & booked my flight for March.....
Aceh, Aceh... I'm totally rambling... So on Thursday, I get this note from Dave, spending Christmas in Phuket, party central of Thailand, I've been there several times myself, though I prefer Samui. Great, I'll be working 3 straight night shifts, but OK. Christmas Day, no email from Dave. Come home 8am Sunday morning to a 2-line email, "Andaman coast is trashed, but I'm OK. More later." I write back "??" & went to bed, thinking it must have been one helluva Christmas party. 6pm Sunday Boxing Day after my siesta & while getting ready for work, my parents come over to make sure I'm still alive & give me a few presents. They ask if I'd heard from Dave. I say he's in Phuket. They say, was he there for the earthquake? What? Tsunami? What tsunami? I check email, yeah, holy crap he missed it by 30 minutes, the cafe he had breakfast at was destroyed, was running for higher ground with a bunch of locals.... I simply couldn't believe it.... I was in the PHU that night, our Psychiatric Holding Unit & was able to surf the net as most of my patients were sleeping, & learned more about tsunamis & NOAA & what a bore is & how the Richter scale is logarhythmic ... then from updates from Dave & cnn.com, we began to understand the human toll. Unspeakable tragedy & Dave on the front lines.
Monday passes. I forget what happened Tuesday. Oh except both nights had good sessions since a lot of good players were home for the holidays.
Wednesday is when everything changed. I came in to work a 4 hour work bonus shift from 3pm-7pm. I was starting a line on a hyperglycemic in room 11, right across from the nurses station. If I'd been in 15, I'd never have overheard this. I hear Audrey the charge nurse on the phone. She says, "Hey it's me. Listen, I'm gonna ask you a question, then we're gonna hang up & I'll call you back in 10 minutes, OK? (pause) How would you feel if I went to Indonesia for 2 months? (pause) Yeah, OK, I'll call back in 10 minutes."
I come out to the nurses station still gloved holding my tubes of blood. She's sitting there with Dr. Greenough & possibly Giorgio, & Kirk I think too. I say over the row of charts & computers, "What? Can I go? What's going on?" Turns out Dr. Greenough has connections with the IRC (International Rescue Committee) & is on the phone with them & actively looking into sending some help ie nurses & docs over to the disaster area. First thing he says is (I think he was still on hold), "When can you leave?" Still gloved, holding the labs, I say without hesitation, "Immediately." "Passport?" Of course. Family? Husband? *snort* "Dr. Greenough, I'll take leave without pay, whatever it takes, but please consider me if a team is formed, it would me A LOT to me." He looks at me. I think he knows I used to live in Thailand, studying, teaching & doing reproductive health stuff, & that I just finished 2 1/2 years of nursing with the Navajo in rural Arizona, plus he remembered me from when I used to be a tech, but I'm really not sure where all that matters. I go back into room 11 & the shift continues.
By 7pm Audrey is glum. Hopkins wouldn't approve anyone to go for 9/11 or other emergencies, so why would they do something now? Besides, night shift has shown up, & the mere idea has spread like wildfire & of course, everyone wants to go -- Cathy, Cecilia, Brian, all incredible nurses, Brian & Cathy had just come back from Phuket on the 21st, just barely missing the tsunami themselves.... I go home, & forget this ever happened. I blow off the session at Cafe Hon, & stay home to watch re-runs of the West Wing & go to bed, mostly b/c someone had broken into my car, shattered the passenger window & not even bothered to take anything but slashed open 3 garbage bags of recyclables in my trunk. Nice. Ah, city life.
Thursday, New Years Eve Eve. Wake up 8pm, get ready for the session, I'm going into work at midnight. Two voicemails. One from Laura asking if I can come in an hour early on Friday, the next is a cryptic & painfully short voicemail from Audrey saying, "Hi Emily, just letting you know Indonesia is a go, & I've left some paperwork for you in the charge nurse office for when you come in tonight."
I listened like 3 times. Then I called Brian who was already at work. In his always upbeat, goofy California way, he says, "Yeah! We're going, we'll fill you in when you get here!" When the heck are we leaving? "Um, nobody knows yet but probably Sunday or Monday morning." (!!!!)
I had signed up to work 8 hours, 12:30-0730 so Sarah could go to the beach for New Years, but on the condition I could go to the pub first. I wouldn't dream of missing the Thursday night session at J Patricks during Christmas week, & boy was I glad I went -- Billy McComiskey & his whole gang, Andy Thurston, Pat & Laura, Myron, just a ton of peeps, & Geoffrey Hines was there writing his article on traditional Irish music which should be in the March edition of the City Paper. Anyway, I was mostly sad not to see Jason, since Jason plays a polymer (ie indestructible) M&E flute, which would be SOOOO much more appropriate to take to Indonesia than my Rudall, Rose & Carte made in 1847. (see pic on Dave's website) So I ended up leaving the Rudall with Pat McComiskey........
Wow I am totally rambling. Right, so Friday morning after work, Brian & Audrey & I have an 8am meeting with some VIPs from both Bayview & Johns Hopkins downtown. Sign some papers. Pick up some little survival kits some folks at Bayview had prepared, including water purification kits, mini-fan, mints (in a Johns Hopkins tin) & lots of other cool little things.
Friday night, New Years Eve, we got our asses kicked in the ER. I was float nurse & I had patients in the hall all night long.... Thank god Kristen took my Saturday night shift.... Saturday seemed utterly endless in terms of waiting when we would leave until we found out we couldn't get a flight out til Tuesday, which bought us another weekday in terms of getting stuff together like malaria prophylaxis etc....
Anyway, yeah, I'm really tired & gonna try to sleep a bit on this flight now, but I think you know the rest. Essentially I was in the right place at the right time (or wrong as some ppl think) & it was the history of international experience on my resume that helped push everything together into a flurry of craziness to launch me here. If I hadn't worked that 4 hour bonus shift on a Wednesday afternoon, I'm sure I wouldn't even be here. Isn't life strange? & it's about to get stranger.... type more when I land.... & sorry for the rambling.....
PS Dr. Greenough, thank you thank you thank you for your recommendation. None of this would be possible without you, but I have a feeling you just recruited another Hopkins nurse into the ranks of career international aid workers. OK OK grad school is there too... :)
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