Guest guest Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 I am just now beginning to read some of the comments sent to me on and off list about my small part in helping the people effected by the Tsunami. Thank you all for the support both monetary and emotional, and for the kind encouragment. FYI for my friends on this list; Yes I am taking care of myself. Jim MacRitchie LAc. is treating me for PTSD and I am getting lots of massage. Doc NAM KEM VILLAGE, PHANG NGA PROVINCE, in southern Thailand - is the area in Thailand, hardest hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami. ''The people here are devastated. Homes gone. Boats gone. Children dead, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, grandchildren, all dead,'' said Doc Rosen,Hunka Lakota medic with the Emergency Air and Ground Lift and Evacuation Service (EAGLES) team. EAGLES is an American Indian-organized relief team that came to provide Medical aid and brought smiles and magic as well. ''The people here are still afraid of the sea. " Conversations with Graeme Killen, an Australian ex-pat and sole surviving farang (foriegner) in Nam Keam revealed the pre-tsunami population of this fishing village conservatively estimated at around 7,000 including undocumented Burmese workers. Of those 7,000, in mid-February 2,400 were confirmed dead and at least 2,000 missing. It will never be known exactly how many are missing since entire families disappeared and among the undocumented workers and their families there is no paper trail. It is as if they never existed. Rosen said the EAGLES team planned to go to Bandeh Aceh, but was kept out of the region by the Indonesian military. Instead, the team went to Nam Kem in Phang Nga. Rosen found his magic and sleight-of-hand tricks for the children offered much-needed healing. ''The kids flock around asking for magic tricks, as do the adults. The other aid workers say some have not smiled in weeks, but they are laughing as I do my sleight-of-hand,'' Rosen said in an e-mail from Thailand. ''Today an old man who lost his entire family, 16 people, smiled at me and then he asked me to 'do the rabbit trick.''' The Thai counselor said they thought they would lose him because he was not responding before this, just sitting and staring but now he is talking again and eating. He kept the photo of my newly born granddaughter. He no longer even has photos of his children…. ''They are so sweet and gentle. Many have lost everyone. Brothers dead, sisters dead, mother and father dead, it is the constant litany. I cry at night, but only when alone. My Thai is returning in full force while doing exams; *Khun mi dek dek?* (Do you have children?) *Tao rai dek dek?* (How many children?) Some of the families no longer have kids... ''A little girl started calling me 'uncle;' her favorite is the magic coloring book ... the kids who clung to my hands, pants, arms, while wandering through the village. ''The Thai counseling people say that the magic tricks are the biggest step the kids have taken towards normalization.'' Rosen also helped briefly with the recovery of bodies, and toured refugee camps and orphanages while performing magic and providing medical aid. A group of orphans in a temple were among those he entertained. Meanwhile, the team handed out toothbrushes, performed medical exams. Doc treated other aid workers as well. Rosen is a longtime activist and medical trainer in the Civil Rights Movement and American Indian Movement. Doc worked with Dr. ML King. He was the first medic in Wounded Knee, S.D. in 1973 and continues to serve as a medic for the AIM. Rosen spends part of the year on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations in South Dakota and Big Mountain Reservation on the Navajo Nation. He is one of the founders of the Guatemala Acupuncture and Medical Aid Project and travels regularly to the Guatemalan rainforest where he works with the Maya survivors of La Impunidad - massacres of over 240,000 Maya people. He also works in Chiapas and was a volunteer during hurricane Mitch. While living with the EAGLES team at a local refugee camp and eating local food, Rosen said, ''We also build temporary housing. The men cannot work, they cannot feed their families, they do not feel alive and their entire culture is in danger of dying. The government does nothing for the poor family fishermen. They are talking about rebuilding boats but only for the big boat fisheries, not the long tails. They need to have their fishing boats rebuilt or repaired.'' Rosen said the Tsunami Fishermen's Relief Fund –the long tail boat project - is trying to do exactly that, with local people and resident foreigners working together. They need to raise $45,000 to repair or replace all of the boats of the surviving fishermen. Only about 6 of the 300 longtail boats were left. With just a few hundred dollars they have already gotten boats back in the water fishing. ''Right now I am putting a lot of my efforts - outside of clinic hours and doing magic shows - into helping with construction of the dry dock. It is mostly just lifting, carrying, and hammering. This project can give the people the tools to help themselves. " As he departed from Nam Kaem, Rosen wrote, '' said goodbye to all of the kids, lots of grownups too, and did some last slight of hand for them. It makes me sad to have left them. Every Thai person I meet, and lots of Westerners as well, thank me. I have done next to nothing, and the need is so incredible; the outpouring of help is also incredible. I am honored to have been working with these folks.'' " There are memories of Nam Kem I will always carry: The kids! The wonderful spicy Thai home cooking for two meals a day - once I got the idea across that I eat no pork or shell fish.... -Alena and other volunteers pulling staples out of used coffins whose wood was intended for the building of furniture for the World Vision camp that we built and stayed in. The man who keeps repeating, " Why did the waves take all my family and leave only me behind? " All of the volunteers who cry only when they think no one is looking. The man who will not stop searching the rubble for his wife and children even though workers have already scraped his former home clear. The smell of death The sweltering heat and humidity, the smiles of the survivors and the lingering beauty of the land, still visible despite total destruction. The volunteers – Aussies, Brits, Kiwis, French, Canadians, Quebecoise, Yanks, Israelis, Palestinians… young people from Nederlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, Sweden, all of the world was there along with the many volunteers from all over Thailand. Many put up their rent money or next semesters tuition to get here… " (NB;Rosen himself paid for his trip with his rent money) Never seeing most of the big charities like Red Cross that are making money from this misery (UNICEF was there-as usual) Joining Rosen was physicians assistant Alex Bertelsen. Bertelsen volunteered for the team and, like Rosen, and many others paid his own way here to serve Bertelsen described the smashed buildings and the devastation that remained after the sea water crashed through buildings, sweeping the people and debris inland and carrying them out to sea. In Nam Kaem, no medical relief arrived for two weeks and people with broken arms and legs and treatable injuries died from infections while waiting for help. Alex provided a medical assessment for the EAGLES team and helped construct the plywood one-room box homes being constructed by World Vision, UNICEF, and other international aid groups. he also helped with the sports and recreation projects to bring joy to children and youth. Bertelson, who speaks some Thai, once served as a U.S. Army Special Forces medic in Asia. ''I have a connection with the Thai people and wanted to help.'' He said he was wondering how he could help when he ran into Dr. Robert Lame Bull McDonald, Blackfeet, an organizer of the EAGLES team, and McDonald asked him if he would like to join the team to Thailand. There is a great need for post-traumatic stress work in Thailand; however, the greatest need for medical teams remains in Sri Lanka and Sumatra, where the lack of roads and infrastructure hinders aid to tsunami victims. McDonald organized the team with American Indian activist Robert Free Galvan (WK'73 vet) in Seattle. Galvan, in Seattle, is organizing a clean water project for villagers hit by the tsunami. Stephen Johnson, Chippewa from Ann Arbor, Mich. who is working in finance and lives in Singapore, is assisting him. Johnson serves as a contact to identify villages to receive the forthcoming water supply systems. ''We are still hoping to have a Native organization or tribe sponsor the water project for at least one or two villages,'' Galvan said. For more information on the Fishermans Boat project, http://www.tfrf.net. or http://www.tfrf.org. Donations to help Doc with his ongoing work can be sent to; https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=drdrdoc%40 & item_name=Medical+Com\ mittee+for+Human+Rights Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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