From the category archives:

What we do when we aren’t doing SAR

Helping Haiti

by Rita Argiros

Here is an email  our saftey officer, Karen Pardini, just sent out to the team.  Karen has a medical background and has served in various capacities at Katrina,in  Africa and Haiti.

Text 501501 to donate $5 for earthquake relief .
You can also donate directly at www.yele.org

Hi Team,
I’ve been working straight out with Yele Haiti since I heard from (our) Kate that there was this huge earthquake! Yele is the group I worked with in Haiti and NYC in the past years.

This morning with a ten-minute warning I ended up on a conference call with the NYC Mayor’s office, FEDEX and the Yele team. This relief mission is unfolding and changing with the speed of light. OPS and LOGS take on a whole new meaning!

We have FEDEX donating two planes and 3 FEDEX collection sites (NYC, Brooklyn and “Little Haiti “in Miami m)on this Saturday. The Coast Guard is flying our medical supplies on Saturday, then a FEDEX plane leaving early next week and another later in the week, both will be loaded with the basic need supplies.

As of now the needs are simple, sheets for shrouds, blankets for the nights, utility candles, energy bars and wind-up/solar flashlights and radios (no batteries).

FEDEX has been generous; Cliff Bars donated 100,000 bars, Timberland one of our sponsors working on donating.

I’m organizing the NYC sight for drop off in the form of “trouble shooting” the site in the moment. I have 100 birth kits arriving plus disposable sheets. Also looking for medical supplies for women’s healthcare. Midwifery teams are poised to go but finding seats on a plane just impossible, private planes are the only way at this point.  Wyclef, who started Yele Haiti, rented a plane as soon as the quake hit from the Dominican Republic then left NY after the CNN interview with Anderson Cooper. It took him all day to get into the arena.

The air arrival list for supply planes is becoming longer every hour, hence the days for getting the supplies in are lengthening. FEDEX has been great and as you can imagine so organized. I’m working with Airline Ambassadors, a group of volunteers who I’ve worked with in the past, and they are ready for any work, totally professional.

There are only daylight landings in Port au Prince and the tower is not very functional,  Someone waves from the ground to the tower and those in the tower radio to have the pilot look for the person on the ground…crazy!

Yele raised 1 million dollars as of late today through our text donation of $5.  To 501501. If nothing else please check out yele.org. we’re working so hard for the people of Haiti,

If I were to have my preference (as if I had a choice) I’d work in Jacmel on the other side of the island.  I know the area better…  it’s a smaller sea town. The word from people I know is that Jacmel also pan-caked and is on the ground. On a good day the 25 mile road takes about 6 hours or more. Now a rhino can’t even pass. The Jacmel landing field is for only small planes and helicopters, not even sure it’s functional.

Stay in touch,
Karen

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Yes I’m a nerd

by Jana Martin

I was going to report on Slam’s long effort at training on Wednesday, expecting that Kyle would set up some kind of problem that was just nervewracking enough for me — and would keep my developing area search dog enmeshed in “nose time” for at least a half hour, something he really needs right now. But the fates intervened. We wound up with a very short problem (partially my fault; I had to go back to work — that cursed practice — in the afternoon). With Karen tucked down out of sight, I was given a bearing to set off on and did, straining through my glasses so hard I could’ve cracked the lenses as I went from dial to sighting some tree in the distance, and back to the dial, determined to keep a straight line.

Shift to the second bearing (oh boy was I going to nail that one: on a map it would look like an art student had drawn the line off the edge of an Italian ruler), and boom — Slam did his circling, head surfing, tail flagging, do-si-do with obvious scent, and zoomed into the subject quickly. Much rewarding ensued. But still, I was obsessed with the nav thing. As we hurled the yellow Kong woodwards, I wanted to show someone, anyone, my straight lines on the GPS.

Flash forward about half and hour and I’m at the Mobil station, pumping gas into my car, in a rush to get back to the home office and get to that work call. Decide to pay with cash and stomp inside. So I’m standing on line, tapping impatiently with my giant green and gray hiking boots, forgetting that I am wearing gaiters, giant blue pants, and have all sorts of objects clipped to me. I look like a cross between a firefighter and a wannabe astronaut. I am also wearing a hi-vis cap on my head, probably crooked. The clerk rings me up without looking. There I am pulling out dollar bills from my pocket, along with: old folded up maps with drawings on them, nerda whistle on a yellow string, a couple of used batteries, and that old pal of mine, the compass. Behind me is a trio of teenage girls. I used to be a teenage girl. I used to wash my hair with Herbal Essence. Now I’m happy if I just have the time to wash my hair. But these girls, they are impeccable, and groomed, and they start to giggle. And at first I wonder why they are giggling. Then I realize. I might as well start speaking in tongues. They’re laughing at me.

So, okay, I’m a nerd. But nerd or not, I may be the one to find you that night you break up with your boyfriend and go wander into the woods for some solitude and lose your way. At least that’s what I’m thinking I’d say as I stand there, face burning, as I wait for my receipt. Instead, I hustle off to the car, give Slam a scritch behind the ear, and race off to my work call. Which I conduct in full regalia, pulling a tick out of my hair as I discuss production schedules. And then I wash my hair. In strawberry shampoo.

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