I am sitting in the airport on my way to Amsterdam and then Nairobi! I said goodbye to my mom yesterday so that the airport wouldn't be hard for us and my dad, stepmom and sister took me to the airport this morning and I have met three other students also traveling to Kenya so far. At check-in, myself and another student were told that Amsterdam is no longer accepting 2 carry-ons (purse and regular-sized bag), so I had to consolidate my bags! Luckily, Eliza (with financial support from my dad) remedied the situation at an airport store where we bought a duffel bag to fit both bags.
This message is going to be short as it is the beginning of the trip, but I want to thank everyone for their support previous to this trip. I am looking forward to sharing a few of my experiences with you as I can while in Kenya and to talking about them with you when I get back!
In addition to this post about my trip, I wanted to share with you all a message from my friend who has traveled to Haiti to do medical work and is going back again this spring as I have been thinking about his tragedy a lot this week. In a place the world has seemingly forgotten or turned a blind eye for a plethora of reasons, it seems cruel for this severe of a tragedy to befall Haiti. In some of the pre-departure readings for my trip, Haiti was one of the subjects: from 1825-1947, Haiti had to repay France (and then the US, who bought the Haitian debt from France) for 'property losses' as a result of Haitian independence, in which freed Haitian people from slavery under French slaveowners. It seems to me that the world owes Haiti a few things instead of the other way around.
Anyway, here is a message from my friend, Adam, who has worked in Haiti. While he was in Haiti, he took a picture of the capitol, which is below. The comparative picture after the earthquake follows this picture. The force of the message asks for money and feel free to take him up on it if you'd like! I mainly wanted to add this to my blog because I've been thinking about it a lot and it leads me to ask the same questions that led me to take this trip: what is our responsibility to developing nations, individually and collectively? How can we best aid development without causing more problems? Why is it that some countries are economically prosperous while other countries struggle to stay afloat? Should developed countries be implicated in world poverty? and other questions.
Here is Adam's message:
Hey everyone,
So I never do this, but I'm going to push a cause on you, and ask you to push the cause on others. A massive earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday evening, and it looks like it's bad. High loss of life and extensive damage to Haiti's already unstable buildings are more than likely. It has been the top news story on the New York Times and CNN for several hours now, and I encourage you to go there and read continuing coverage.
I've attached two photos to this email. One (named "before") is a picture I took in Haiti's capitol, Port-au-Prince, of the president's palace last March. The other (named "after") was taken of the same building a few hours ago. This is the White House of Haiti, probably one of their most structurally sound buildings, much more prepared to withstand a 7.0 earthquake than the homes of common Haitians. This catastrophe will cause a lot more people to be homeless, go hungry, and succumb to disease in the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.
Here's the "ask." Go online and donate to the relief effort. Tell your friends to do the same. I've seen first hand how difficult life can be in Haiti on the best of days. Things like this earthquake, or the hurricanes eighteen months ago, cause untold amounts of suffering. The two weeks I spent there last March allowed me to interact with people who were one catastrophe away from starvation or death at all times. The limited medical assistance we provided is a tiny step forward; this kind of disaster is a huge step back. I haven't heard any news about the Haitian interpreters and drivers we worked with as of this moment; I'm just hoping that everyone is okay.
Please, please, please give what you can.
A great list of sites to donate to are listed on the following page:
http://northshorejournal.org/haiti-earthquake-aidor you can donate directly to a group I know does great work, Partners in Health, at
If you want to give to the group I work with (I'm going back in April), you can do so at
Please tell others to give what they can and continue to follow this tragedy. Feel free to forward this email to anyone you wish.
-Adam
End Message
Here are the pictures he attached:
End Message
Here are the pictures he attached:
Thanks for that Adam, and for adding to my first blog post (or making it??). Hopefully for you, not all of these posts will be so long, although many of you who exchange e-mails with me know that I can tend to be verbose in writing- I will do my best to subvert this!
Happy spring, everyone, and I will talk to you soon!
Gillian
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