06-FEB-B-8
THE FINAL
LETTER TO THE RWANDA TEAM REGARDING DETAILS OF THE MINDANAO MISSION REPORT 2/27
, THE
PACKING PARTY PREP ON 3/1 AND TAKEOFF ON ¾ FOR THE RWANDA MISSION
From:
Glenn
Geelhoed
To: agf04@gwu.edu; croskery@storm.simpson.edu; dds@radix.net; jupa@yahoo.fr; jwhitis@gmail.edu; jwhitis@gwu.edu; katkell400@aol.com; lberk@gwu.edu; metnick@alumni.gwu.edu; michael.a.tadle@aphis.usda.gov; mkwasnie@physiciansforpeace.org; msdgwg@gwumc.edu; nikitank@gwu.edu; nsekhon@gwu.edu; rsconyers@physiciansforpeace.org; spalmer@physiciansforpeace.org ; stephen.katz@pilotonline.com; susan.fellows3@comcast.net; tim.harrison@bostonmedflight.org
Date: 2/21/2006 9:56:06 AM
Subject: Fwd: Rwanda:
Final notes re 2/27, 3/1, and 3/4 takeoff with tickets FedExed to you
today
YOUR FINAL
PRE‑DEPARTURE NOTES:
EVENTS 2/27, 3/1,
PRECEDING TAKEOFF 3/4
WITH THE AIR TICKETS BEING FEDEXED TO YOU TODAY
Dear Rwanda Team:
February 20, 2006
msdgwg@gwumc.edu, Stephen.katz@pilotonline.com, lberk@gwu.edu,
croskery@storm.simpson.edu, susan.fellows3@comcast.net, agf04@gwu.edu,
tim.harrison@bostonmedflight.org, katkell400@aol.com, metnick@alumni.gwu.edu,
nsekhon@gwu.edu,
dds@radix.net, nikitank@gwu.edu, Michael.a.tadle@aphis.usda.gov,
jwhitis@gmail.edu, jwhitis@gwu.edu, jupa@yahoo.fr, spalmer@physiciansforpeace.org
Are you looking forward to this medical mission
adventure as much as I am?
PRESENTATION BY STUDENT PARTICIPANTS
IN THE MINDANAO MISSION LAST MONTH
TO BE HELD IN ROSS HALL Monday NON 2/27
You might be interested to know that the group of
protégés who have just recently completed the Medical/Surgical Mission to Mindanao last month will be
presenting their “Show and Tell” report on their experiences on Monday noon,
February 27 in Ross Hall at George Washington University Medical Center The address is easy to reach at 2300 I St. NW
or the Foggy Bottom/GWU Metro Stop which empties you right into the courtyard
of Ross Hall where there will be signs posted as to the Room Number as you
enter the security desk check in.
RWANDA MISSION ORIENTATION
AND "PACKING PARTY"
This might get the juices bubbling for the next step
which is the orientation “packing Party” to be held Wednesday March 1 at 4:00
PM‑‑‑whenever at my home (see directions below) at 16618
Kipling Road, Derwood, MD 20855. We will
have a series of the photo albums of similar missions and a lot of advice on
everything from what to pack (“less”) and what we will be doing (“more.”) We will be making a brief train trip into
Amsterdam on the way in (so have some chilly Springtime clothing accordingly
and walking shoes with a few US dollars for our transit stop and perhaps a
Heineken or two.) On the way out I will
be your naturalist guide for an eleven hour excursion out of Jomo Kenyatta Airport
for which a single entry tourist visa can be purchased on return entry into
Kenya, and we may go for a day time tour of the “nursery” of the Nairobi
National Park in mid‑afternoon after lunch (during the Equatorial high
afternoon, nothing is stirring except a few bird species) and then we will go
on a Game Drive for the later afternoon until sunset over the broad highland
plane studded with Acacia trees‑against the backdrop of Nairobi’s hotel
row of downtown Nairobi! Do not be
fooled by the proximity to the urban Africa, NNP has everything but elephants,
and is accessible and easily doable in the time we have, and depending on the
luck of the day, I may be able to introduce you to Simba, Tuiga, Nyati, and
Suram Baya‑‑‑all to be translated back form Ki‑Swahili
later after you snap their portraits.
This excursion is going to cost about fifty dollars when split up among
a van‑load or two. If there are
some of you so jaded by big game scenes already, one van may make a separate
excursion around such spots as the Ya‑Ya Shopping Center along Ngong
Road, or other more urban pursuits‑I had heard one set of interests who
may have wanted to say they have eaten lunch at the “Carnivore”‑an
experience that once should be enough for most. I have my own favorite rather
neat Italian outdoor restaurant under lanternlight for our farewell dinner for
which we will still have the vans reserved, and all who might wish to do so can
join in for our farewell dinner before we load back for our takeoff just before
midnight for the three continent bounce back.
DETAILS ASKED FOR
PRE‑MISSION PREPARATION
I have had many questions about what “shots to get and
what medicines to carry.” It is a bit
like asking what kind of camera you should bring along when you are traveling
with at least four semi‑pro or pro photographers! Yes, you should be current on your usual
immunizations, and that includes tetanus toxoid if you have not had one in the
last five years, and Hep A is a good idea; at least once you should get a
yellow fever shot, since it is the best immunization around good for a decade
or more. But do NOT get either cholera
vaccine or gamma globulin for cholera risk, whoever advises it. I will take care of your passbook or whatever
health record you carry if someone insists you should have it. We will carry anti‑malarials, and it
is dependent on your risk as to whether you should be on prophylaxis (at this
altitude, rain season and season given the geographic details of our itinerary)
which would mean that most people healthy enough to be going on such an
excursion with me (given, again, the epidemiologic details which obtain in this
case‑i. e. non‑pregnant, not on immunosuppressants or steroids or
with a hematopoetic disorder) would not require it‑‑‑again,
in the case of this trip. When I
recommend you should have anti‑malarial prophylaxis (which I would of
reach one of us if we were at a lower altitude and at a different season) we
would not go on without having checked that everyone is taking their medicines‑and
that would vary as to which one, depending on choloroquin resistance of the
plasmodium and other characteristics of the person taking them. So, if you are taking vitamins,
antihistamines, anti‑allergenics, carry a month supply. If you are taking prescription drugs for cause,
let me know about them and carry them with you.
If you need glasses, carry two pair, and maybe one set of
sunglasses. You will not be high enough
to require altitude sickness meds (which I carry and have never used) unless
you wish to try to run up snow‑capped Equatorial Mount Kenya during our
layover‑but that requires more time to get to than we have!
PRE‑MISSION
QUESTIONNAIRE TO BE FILLED OUT
(ATTACHED)
BEFORE DEPARTURE
I have a favor to ask of each of you. As each of the students have done in the
recent medical missions (to Haiti, the
Philippines, Sudan and now to Rwanda) I am giving you a pre‑trip
questionnaire to fill out as to your expectations and preparation before the
trip. If you could fill this out and get
it to me either at the packing party or as we take off, I would appreciate
it. We will also be evaluating the trip
as we go, with frequent interviews, nightly case presentations and didactic
sessions and your own diary or notes as to the learning experience, holding de‑briefings
along the way, including our final wrap‑up sessions and then filling out
a post‑trip questionnaire, which I will give you in transit. These serve three purposes: 1) Quality
control on the specific medical mission and how they can be improved, 2) a
report to PFP and MVP to keep the missions sustainable and modifying future
missions planned, and 3) my own thesis, which is the “transformational learning
experience of international medical mission service by health care
personnel.” These before and after
snapshots serve as a vital piece of recording these experiences and not only
the transactions in the course of the mission, but the transformation in those
who participate. Thanks in advance for
beginning with the pre‑trip questionnaire appended (below)
CONTACT LIST
OF FELLOW TRAVELERS
I am also appending the email addresses for each of
the participants and a few supporters and friends who are eager to be pursuing
this mission vicariously through your experience. We will have our own photojournalist with us
(besides me, that is!) and one supplied by PFP, and, can you believe,
additionally, one to evaluate the MVP!
So, be sure you check with makeup and costuming! (Just kidding! My advice would be to pack everything your
significant other has been urging you to carry on a long one‑way trip,
since it will find a good home wherever you leave it.) Other little items I have gathered include
small stuffed toys for some of the kids we will see in clinics and little kits
like toothbrushes and paste or combs, toiletries. I have doubled the order for the MAP pack
meds so that we will be able to instruct some indigenous teams in the proper
use of the medicines residual we will leave behind for their wise use.
BON VOYAGE!
My med packs will arrive this week, and your tickets
will be arriving to your address of record by Fed Ex. You will also have a list
of contacts for emergency use in your ticket packet to leave with family and
friends.
As you fill
out your questionnaire, think now of who you are and what you expect, and what
you would like to learn and be‑‑and then we will go to it, and
enjoy it all!
GWG
WISDOM OF AN AFRICAN
VETERAN
PS: Here is a
favorite quote from Rosamond Halsey Carr, author of the “Land of a Thousand
Hills: My Life in Rwanda” p 140: “In all the years I have lived in Africa, I
have never known anything to go exactly as planned, and Rwanda¼¼[is] no exception.”
The single requirement for undertaking a mission in
the developing world is not just flexibility, but remember Rosamond Carr, and
think “an infinite threshold for tolerance for frustration.” This is a start‑up mission in new
territory; given the certainty of sustained ambiguity, accept it, revel in it,
and, let’s go get what needs doing done!
Pre‑Trip Questionnaire:
PRE‑AND POST‑TRIP QUESTIONNAIRES FOR
PARTICIPANTS
Questionnaire filled in on the outbound flight before
the Medical Mission
Name
Age School Year Date
1. Languages:
Spanish: French: Creole:
Ethnic origin:
2. Have you ever done anything like this before?
3. If yes:
When? Where” What was your role? How did you like it?
4. How did you decide to come on this trip at this
time?
5. How many of our group do you know very well?
6. What do you think is your primary motivation for
serving in this medical mission?
7. How will this kind of experience fit into your
career plans?
8. Do you think
now that you will attempt another medical mission?
9. If yes, In
the same? or another site?
10. Have you traveled abroad in the last ten years?
11. If yes:
First world destinations? Third world
countries?
12. What are your expectations?
13. What would
you like to do that you are looking forward to reporting upon returning?
14. What are you anxious about? What are you eager
that you NOT encounter?
15. How do you think this experience will change you?
16. What do you think will be the hardest thing for
you to overcome or to enjoy least?
17. What do you think now will be the most memorable
part of the experience?
18. Do you keep a diary? A tape recording or
dictation?
19. Photo log?
Film? How many rolls? Digital?
20. What role would you like to have in reporting the
experience of our mission upon returning?
DIRECTIONS INTO THE DERWOOD WOODS
270 passing Montgomery Ave to Shady Grove Exit, but
take the first hard right off Shady Grove's exit on Redland Road.
Continue East on Redland through King Farm Village to
the light at 355 (Wisconsin Ave extended here as Hungerford Rd and Frederick
Ave) and overpass straight ahead over Metro's Shady Grove (furthest North
station.) Continue on Redland east
through the lights at Crabb's Branch (lakes to your left) and Needwood Road, and
come to the Missionary Alliance church (their's is the first sign with
"Derwood" on its name).
Then turn
right in the T‑intersection on Grande Vista going south. If you overshoot to Panorama, that is OK too
since they come together at the top of the hill at Wick Lane‑‑on
which you turn left for no more than 100 yards, following signs to Candlewood
Elementary School. The left turn after
the "T"‑intersection of Panorama is Kipling Road, and a left
turn on that has you following down into the deep woods putting you in 16618 Kipling Road, where I should
respond to 240/401‑0247
>>> <rsconyers@physiciansforpeace.org>
2/18/2006 5:26 PM >>>
Dr. Geelhoed, hope you are doing well. Just reviewed all the photos from
Steve Katz in Philippines. Hope all went well there for your. A couple of
things on your upcoming Rwanda trip. First, as you know Steve is going on
that trip as well.
We will also be sending a two or three person
professional video crew. We are producing a broadcast quality video on
PFP
and this will be their first of several trips. Not exactly sure when they
will arrive there, but will know in the next week or
so.
Also, I am hoping that your schedule will allow you,
Steve and the video
team to travel to Mayange to visit the Millennium
Village. It about 40
kilometers, but about a 90 minute ride. Because there is a famine breaking
out around Mayange, it's difficult at this moment to
commit to any
particular day since the situation is rapidly
changing. We will have a
contact there for you.
We'll work the details this coming week if you think
your schedule will allow you such flexibility.
Thanks for all the great work you are doing.
Regards,
Ron
Brigadier General Ron Sconyers (USAF, Ret.)
Chief Executive Officer
PHYSICIANS for PEACE
229 West Bute Street, Suite 200 |
Norfolk, VA 23510
P 757.625.7569 x 317
| M 757.435.5288 | F
757.625.7680
www.physiciansforpeace.org
BUILDING PEACE AND INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS THROUGH
MEDICINE