06-MAR-B-12
THE
POSTPONED COVER LETTER FOR THE ON-LINE PHOTO ACCESS PAGES AND THE SUMMARY
REPORTS TO THE PFP AND
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: Glenn Geelhoed
Date: 3/31/2006 7:53:23 AM
Subject: Executive Summary of Rwandan Medical Mission Experiences and two Photojournals On‑Line
I have awaited sending you the Executive Summary of the PFP Report ("Physicians For Peace") on the Rwandan Medical Mission until I could also send the MVP Mayange Report (UN‑"Millennium Village Project") and a Bonanza of Photojournalism in addition to these brief texts. I also append a recent NYT editorial on how to address poverty and illness in the Developing World as "Searchers" as opposed to "Planners." I also attach a link to the recent text "Surgery and Healing in the Developing World" available as a free down load at www.landesbioscience.com‑Geelhoed‑geelhoed.html.
Herewith I append two compendia of On‑Line Photojournals,
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A0C6AD2C092&cb=PW
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A0BD3F2C092&cb=PW
These first two are from me through PhotoWorks, and the second already posted (see below) from Dennie Steinauer. Each of the other Rwanda Mission participants has made on‑line photojournals available so that we can all enjoy, again, the wonders of this developing world mission and what it has begun in accomplishing changes for the better in the lives of those we sought to help‑‑especially our own.
Thanks to each of you who have written about this life‑changing experience and how it has transformed you as well as the peoples we had contacted. You are all very much appreciated for your superb services!
There will be a post‑trip "show and tell" de‑briefing with a Power Point presentation on Monday noon April 10 at Ross Hall marked by signs in a program put together from an amalgam of your and my images and experiences of Rwanda for which I have already forwarded several CD's and Photo Albums to Amy Fiedler who will coordinate the program at GWU, picking a time and place to avoid conflict in students' schedules. This is the "closure debriefing" on the anticipation you had at the "Packing Party Orientation Briefing" with reporting, recruiting, and plans being made in preparation for the inevitable "next" missions you will, of course, be making again!
Of interest to those of you who already know for yourself, but may not have known about the others‑‑‑each participant has reflected on how this experience has changed him or herself and has volunteered to go again in a heartbeat; and just in time!
You can compare the experiences that you have had with the pre‑trip send‑off message I had sent you which I have appended, and also compare the opportunity of this venue to those of other sites in a prior year (also appended.) I am setting up the timing and logistic supply for my returns to Sudan, Eritrea, Somaliland, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mindanao, and further inaugural missions as they can be fitted in!
Cheers!
GWG
The Photo Works access is appended herewith:
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A0C6AD2C092&cb=PW
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A0BD3F2C092&cb=PW
Hello GLENN,
Your photos are ready to view and share online!
Your friends at photoworks.
If you cannot see the links above, copy and paste the following URL directly into your browser: http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A0C6AD2C092&cb=PW
>>> Glenn Geelhoed 3/23/2006 11:21 AM >>>
RWANDAN
PHOTO DELUGE AT RAINY SEASON BEGINNING IN KIGALI
AS
CHERRIES ARE BLOSSOMING HERE AROUND THE TIDAL BASIN!
Thanks, Dennis!
I have just spent a day (and night) sorting two thousand digital images, and labeling 300 of them which I have had professionally printed at Ritz and reduced to two CD's for your use in preparing a consolidated slide show on Power Point.
In addition, I have labeled eight rolls of prints for the albums, and am awaiting two rolls of the PhotoWorks
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A0C6AD2C092&cb=PW
http://www.photoworks.com/share/shareLanding.jsp?shareCode=A0BD3F2C092&cb=PW
on‑line images‑‑‑ALL of these will be available for the edited "Show And Tell Program" we will prepare within the month and forward to family, friends and supporters.
You all are CHAMPS‑‑and I appreciate all your effort more than a brief word or two can describe!
A two picture sample is appended‑‑‑with many, many more where that came from!
GWG
>>> "Dennis Steinauer" <dds@radix.net> 3/23/2006 10:14 AM >>>
Folks,
I've finally got (most of) my photos uploaded. You can see them at
www.pbase.com/dsteinauer; click on the thumbnail of the group photo. Fair
warning ‑‑ there are a lot of photos, and they haven't been culled, cropped,
color corrected, annotated, or otherwise cleaned up. Over time, I will
remove the junk and add some comments or other annotations. I also hope to
select a good number of shots and re‑post them in a little bit more spiffy
form. You can see a larger sized version of any shot by clicking on the
thumbnail. If there are any shots that you especially like, let me know by
voting for the image (click the Vote link); that is the best way for me to
see which shots may be worth a second look.
If you see any of my annotations that are incomplete or incorrect, be sure
to let me know. In particular, I still don't know the full names of our
drivers, the proper spelling and full name of Sunanga (sp?), and the names
of other folks in the pics. Any help, comments, or corrections will be
appreciated greatly.
Unlike snapfish and other photo sharing sites, pbase doesn't provide
printing or other services directly. The posted images are set for screen
viewing (i.e., 72ppi) and probably won't print well. If you would like the
high‑resolution version (300ppi) of any photos, please send me the
filename(s), and I will send them. These will be ~2mb jpeg files, so be sure
you can accept email attachements of that size.
I cannot tell you all how much I enjoyed the mission, appreciated your
companionship and support, and admired the enthusiasm and professionalism of
each of you. What a team! I've enjoyed the photos you have posted so far.
Hope you enjoy mine.
dds
p.s. I still have a couple of days' pics to upload and annotate, but right
now, my eyes and butt hurt.
================================
Dennis Steinauer ‑ dds@radix.net
www.pbase.com/dsteinauer
‑‑‑‑‑Original Message‑‑‑‑‑
From: Tim Harrison [mailto:Tim.Harrison@bostonmedflight.org]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 3:29 PM
To: Leah Berkowitz; jtoplon@drew.edu
Cc: msdgwg@gwumc.edu; Stephen.Katz@pilotonline.com;
croskery@storm.simpson.edu; Susan.fellows3@comcast.net; Agf04@gwu.edu;
katkell400@aol.com; metnick@alumni.gwu.edu; nsekhon@gwu.edu; dds@radix.net;
nikitank@gwu.edu; Michael.A.Tadle@aphis.usda.gov; jwhitis@gmail.com;
jwhitis@gwu.edu
Subject: RE: Welcome back
Hi all,
finally home, british air flight late out of nairobi, so my trip extended to
an overnight in london. one of those trips for sure. finally home and beat,
miss you all!
can't believe photos are already making the rounds, i will try and figure
out how to do it, back to work thursday so i have a day or so to acclimate.
once again it was a pleasure and an honor to have experienced rwanda with
each of you, can't wait for your 'presentation' and reunion.
tim
297 North Central St.
East Bridgewater, MA 02333.
‑‑‑‑‑ Original Message ‑‑‑‑‑
From: Leah Berkowitz <lberk@gwu.edu>
Date: Sunday, March 19, 2006 2:17 pm
Subject: Welcome back
To: jtoplon@drew.edu,msdgwg@gwumc.edu,Stephen.Katz@pilotonline.com,
croskery@storm.simpson.edu,Susan.fellow3@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.com,jwhitis@gwu.edu
> Hi everyone,
> I hope that you are all settling back in and that the reverse
> culture shock is not too much. Since Joe joined us at the last
> minute
> he did not get a list with everyone's contact info. I'm sending
> this
> out so can have all the email addresses and so you can all have
> his.
> Take care and I hope to at least hear from you all soon!
>
> Yours,
> Leah
>
> ps. Tim will you please reply back with your mailing address.
> ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
> (poem in progress )
>
> Little mother, drape
> bouganvilla colored cloth
> along the line of
>
> your flesh. With broadcloth
> cradle your child belly to
> the low of your back.
>
> Little mother, pad
> your head, the river road is long
> water is heavy.
>
> (c)2006 Leah Berkowitz
>
>
>The next one out!
GWG
>>> Glenn Geelhoed 2/21/2006 9:56:04 AM >>>
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!
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