Nothing to do with the topic of the list (whatever that is).... Two weeks from today I'll be heading to Haiti for a week with a medical team as its critical incident debriefer/chaplain. I've done a lot of crisis intervention and ministry, especially over the last five years, and I was a paramedic for about seven years (30 years ago!), and I have traveled into areas of extreme poverty and heard the local peoples' stories first-hand... but I must admit some apprehension about this trip. I've never been the person with the primary responsibility to look after an entire team's spiritual/emotional well-being. Not to mention listening to the locals who may be in need of an ear.
A couple of my other skills may come in handy - amateur radio and French - but I'm not sure about that. I'll be taking along a dual-band HT (2-meter and 70-cm) and it apperas that there are a couple of operating repeaters, but I have no idea what they are being used for in terms of relief efforts, if anything. And I don't know what language people will be speaking on them. Could be French, which I might be able to keep up with (probably not, too rusty), could be Spanish (one of the repeaters was installed by the Santo Domingo amateur radio club), might be Kreyole (that's the preferrred spelling there, I'm told) or who knows, maybe English. I suspect that most of the people we'll encounter as patients will be Kreyole speakers, not French. We'll have translators. I've gotten a bunch of shots to bring all my vaccinations up to date - tetanus, diptheria, pertussis, hep A and B, typhoid. Got my doxycycline ready for malaria prophylaxis - decided not to take any of the other ones because the rest have neuro-psychiatric side effects and I'm crazy enough already. Wait, that's not exactly it. I'm taking this trip partly to honor the memory of my sister Lesley, who died suddenly in January. Lesley lived a large part of her life in the Caribbean. Given that stress (and it is much more complicated than just losing Lesley) and the fact that I'm the team's stress management leader, it seemed like a bad idea to take anything that would potentially add to my psychological load. I have a growing box of things to take along... If you're interested, here's the sponsoring organization: http://jordaninternationalaid.org/ You can even donate, if you like (and if you do, put "Nick Arnett - Haiti" in the Donation Purpose box), but I was able to cover my direct costs by having my business partner (I'm starting a new company these days) donate in lieu of a consulting fee, so I'm covered. Friends have also helped me to buy some new clothes equipment that will make the trip safer and more effective. Nick
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