Doctors without Borders - Lost between River and Sky
July 21, 2005
Doctors without Borders - Lost between River and Sky
Just yesterday I completed an interview with Doctors Without Borders/ Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) and while researching their website, I found that some of the volunteers at MSF had written really interesting stories about their experiences in foreign countries. MSF gave me the permission to republish some of these stories, I think you'll find them very interesting since they shed light on the situation of the local population and the experiences of the volunteers in some of these far away places.
LOST BETWEEN RIVER AND SKY
By Ian Brown
Uraba is a land that has been forgotten by the world. It is a region of vast jungle wilderness that hugs the Panamanian border in northern Colombia. The region is bisected by the Atrato river, which by volume of water per kilometer is the third largest in the world.
Ian Brown
The Atrato is the artery of life for the area and the only transportation link to the outside world. Beyond the Atrato lies the Darrien. One of the last true jungle rainforests on earth. There are no roads. The only means of travel is by river.
Hundreds of rivers and a lush carpet of green were all I could see as our small twin engine plane circled for its final approach. Before me lay a land rich in beauty, shrouded in mystique and choked with conflict.
I had come to Uraba to document for Médecins Sans Frontières a unique project that was opened in 1997. At that time Uraba was the most violent region in the most violent country in the world. An internal conflict between various armed actors had initiated an epoch of fear and terror among the population, most of who lived in remote communities. As a result of the violence, large numbers of people had been forced to flee their homes and had become displaced. Many now live in IDP (internally displaced people) camps and have all but given up hope in returning to the lives they once knew.
One of the central components to the MSF work in Uraba is travelling to remote indigenous communities to provide vaccinations and hold medical consultations. Healthcare in the area is virtually non-existent. The local staff at the Riosucio hospital refuses to travel upriver for fear for their lives. The hospital has only one doctor for a population base of 30 000 people. This is the equivalent of having less than seventy doctors for all of Toronto.
Going upriver, one could be forgiven for thinking they were in a Joseph Conrad novel. The dense jungle seemed to envelop all the senses. More than once it felt like we were penetrating into the heart of darkness, not knowing what, or who would lie around the next bend in the river.
The rivers were always a logistical challenge, and would require us pulling, pushing, cutting broken trees, whatever it would take to push on. Often the MSF team would travel for nine or ten hours by dugout to reach a village by dusk. Despite exhaustion, the team would always return smiles, answer endless questions and endure countless pokes and stares from curious villagers. We were as interesting to them as they were to us.
It would be impossible to summarize the experience of spending a month in the jungle in a few paragraphs. One would have to have been there to understand. With all of the fear and the killing it is often the small things that keep people going, and the things that one remembers. Sharing a warm tea with an elderly woman watching the sheets of rain sweep across her village, neither of us speaking the other's language, yet still understanding one another. Setting up an IV drip for a young child with severe pneumonia during a torrential thunderstorm in the middle of the night and helping to bring him back to life. These are experiences one cannot convey completely with words.
What I can say is that my appreciation for MSF and the people who are selfless enough to work in the field has grown immensely. I made some new friends, learned much from others in the "team" and perhaps realize that if everyone does a little, than a lot can be accomplished.
By Ian Brown
www.msf.ca
www.textronics.com
For more travel articles, advice, photos, interesting interviews &
the opportunity to win a cruise on the Amazon River
visit my website at http://www.travelandtransitions.com/.
Doctors without Borders - Lost between River and Sky
Just yesterday I completed an interview with Doctors Without Borders/ Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) and while researching their website, I found that some of the volunteers at MSF had written really interesting stories about their experiences in foreign countries. MSF gave me the permission to republish some of these stories, I think you'll find them very interesting since they shed light on the situation of the local population and the experiences of the volunteers in some of these far away places.
LOST BETWEEN RIVER AND SKY
By Ian Brown
Uraba is a land that has been forgotten by the world. It is a region of vast jungle wilderness that hugs the Panamanian border in northern Colombia. The region is bisected by the Atrato river, which by volume of water per kilometer is the third largest in the world.
Ian Brown
The Atrato is the artery of life for the area and the only transportation link to the outside world. Beyond the Atrato lies the Darrien. One of the last true jungle rainforests on earth. There are no roads. The only means of travel is by river.
Hundreds of rivers and a lush carpet of green were all I could see as our small twin engine plane circled for its final approach. Before me lay a land rich in beauty, shrouded in mystique and choked with conflict.
I had come to Uraba to document for Médecins Sans Frontières a unique project that was opened in 1997. At that time Uraba was the most violent region in the most violent country in the world. An internal conflict between various armed actors had initiated an epoch of fear and terror among the population, most of who lived in remote communities. As a result of the violence, large numbers of people had been forced to flee their homes and had become displaced. Many now live in IDP (internally displaced people) camps and have all but given up hope in returning to the lives they once knew.
One of the central components to the MSF work in Uraba is travelling to remote indigenous communities to provide vaccinations and hold medical consultations. Healthcare in the area is virtually non-existent. The local staff at the Riosucio hospital refuses to travel upriver for fear for their lives. The hospital has only one doctor for a population base of 30 000 people. This is the equivalent of having less than seventy doctors for all of Toronto.
Going upriver, one could be forgiven for thinking they were in a Joseph Conrad novel. The dense jungle seemed to envelop all the senses. More than once it felt like we were penetrating into the heart of darkness, not knowing what, or who would lie around the next bend in the river.
The rivers were always a logistical challenge, and would require us pulling, pushing, cutting broken trees, whatever it would take to push on. Often the MSF team would travel for nine or ten hours by dugout to reach a village by dusk. Despite exhaustion, the team would always return smiles, answer endless questions and endure countless pokes and stares from curious villagers. We were as interesting to them as they were to us.
It would be impossible to summarize the experience of spending a month in the jungle in a few paragraphs. One would have to have been there to understand. With all of the fear and the killing it is often the small things that keep people going, and the things that one remembers. Sharing a warm tea with an elderly woman watching the sheets of rain sweep across her village, neither of us speaking the other's language, yet still understanding one another. Setting up an IV drip for a young child with severe pneumonia during a torrential thunderstorm in the middle of the night and helping to bring him back to life. These are experiences one cannot convey completely with words.
What I can say is that my appreciation for MSF and the people who are selfless enough to work in the field has grown immensely. I made some new friends, learned much from others in the "team" and perhaps realize that if everyone does a little, than a lot can be accomplished.
By Ian Brown
www.msf.ca
www.textronics.com
For more travel articles, advice, photos, interesting interviews &
the opportunity to win a cruise on the Amazon River
visit my website at http://www.travelandtransitions.com/.
posted by SQ at 9:54 AM
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