Comparisons

As one landscape, person, idea or moment enters my awareness, another one steps back or even out. Traveling and exploring allow me and often leave me no other choice than to be present. Sometimes this manifests as last minute plans for lodging, as an abrupt change in what I will do next, and as a mindset that tries not to hold onto expectations of outcome, appearance, experience. This approach allows me to quickly adapt to my transforming surroundings, to jump from Ramallah to my cousins home in Aviezar to Jerusalem and now to Turkish North Cyprus.

I have spent the last six days enjoying the adorable company of my good friend Mehmet and his friends and family, enjoying the beautiful beaches, mountains, and food of Cyprus, and searching for more understanding of the conflict I came from and will go back to tonight, and the one here. After over 10 years of civil strife between Turkish and Greek Cypriots (after Great Britain left the Island in a set up for conflict), in 1974 Turkish troops entered Cyprus in order to protect ethnic Turks from violence at the hands of Greek Cypriots. The Island was divided north and south. Turkish Cypriots left their homes in the south to inhabit Greek homes in the north and Greek Cypriots did the same in their travels to the south. Since the Turkish army has occupied the Island, there has been no violence, an uneasy truce that has left the island divided. People seem to have put parts of their lives and the development of their countries on hold since it is not known who will once again loose their homes once an agreement is reached. Entire neighborhoods such as Varosha (pictured is a formerly very popular beach front hotel that is now on the Turkish side and strikingly beautiful in it's spacious emptiness) have been left unoccupied, slowly decaying. Greek Cyprus has entered the European Union, while Turkish Cyprus has not. In 2005 the closed borders were opened allowing people to travel to visit their former villages and homes. Over the last thirty years as well Turkish Immigrants/settlers have moved to the northern part of the island, changing the demographic of the Turkish side dramatically and there are also tensions about this.

Clearly there is a lot more to this conflict than I can write about or understand yet. When I first arrived it was hard to resist comparing to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now it is a little easier to understand on its own accord. With the stalemate of the last 30+ years, wounds still run deep for people here in Cyprus. Humanity has created some incredibly knotty, sharp and sticky situations for itself around the globe.

Meanwhile I am oh so much enjoying and appreciating my life. Feeling gratitude hourly for the opportunities I have had, for what I get to see, for my brain and my health. Tonight I return to Tel Aviv and on Thursday I have the opportunity to facilitate a dialogue for an Israeli organization that works with young American Jewish youth for trips to the wonderland.

Popular Education

Over the last week and a half, I have led 6 CPR and first aid trainings in Bethlehem, Na'halin, Ramallah, Nablus, and Qalqiliya in the Palestinian occupied territories. This week I will lead 4 more. As a newly trained EMT, somehow I am in the position of the emergency medical authority in these trainings, and I am striving to provide folks with accurate, life saving skills and information. I certainly have so much more to learn myself about this topic and so it feels a little strange to be training others. When I stand and give trainings I find myself energized and enjoying my role as educator. I am giving the trainings in English and limited key Arabic words like breath, pulse, counting from 1-30, "what's your name?", and such. I continue to find that language barrier a challenge, though it is one that is certainly not preventing my from teaching and the folks that come to the trainings from learning.

I encourage questions from folks in the class and there are a few that are asked in every one. People want to know how to stop severe bleeding, especially when someone is shot. This question comes in the context of Israeli IDF soldiers shooting at folks. Along this line, people seem to agree that when people are shot, their heads are often aimed at, and are therefor worried about the possible spinal injuries that go along. Another thing that has been stressed by participants that I teach, is how to transport and move the injured with possible spinal injuries, since apparently a significant number of people have been paralyzed here after being moved hastily after a spinal injury. I believe it is not the movement that paralyzes them, though the original injury itself. I am asked every time how to deal with snake bites, since there are a good amount of venomous snakes here. I was asked today how to treat and deal with tear gas as well. I do my best to answer these questions, though one thing about emergency medicine is that there is little we can do. (A common joke in my EMT course was that EMT's can only treat injured folks by giving them oxygen and transporting them to the hospital) The goal is to prevent further injury and death, and deal with any life threatening emergencies. Non-medical professionals lack many supplies and training. Oxygen, gloves, mouth masks are all needed and people just don't walk around carrying them (this is most places), and here during my trainings we do not provide face masks for giving CPR, and we clean the dummy with alcohol and gauze between people.

When we drive from Ramallah to any other Palestinian town/village, we go by at least 3 IDF checkpoints. Sometimes we are asked to show ID, sometimes as we drive slowly through serious guns are pointed at us, often Samer, driving the ambulance is told to get out of the car and open the back for the soldiers who are checking for anyone riding there illegally. The soldiers use muted gestures, the simple putting up of a hand close to the body to signal the driver to stop, the waving of a car into the checkpoint. They seem so confident of the power of their guns, that their bodies do not melodramatically signal as they stop people, scrutinize them, and slowly wave them through. These are intra-Palestinian area checkpoints that are set up near Israeli settlements. Often, right by the checkpoint, we pass by religious-looking Israelis who are tramping (hitch-hiking) and of course only signal to cars with Yellow Israeli license plates (Palestinians have white and green ones for commercial vehicles). I often wonder who these soldiers are who are controlling this land, though I know they are mostly people called up for compulsory military duty and are "just doing their job". There are soldiers though who resist and do not serve, or who speak out about their own and Palestinian dehumanization while serving in the military. The majority of Israelis are complacent with how they experience "peace" in it's current state and are cheerleaders for their soldiers and state policy of terror of an entire population.

When I introduce the medical concept of shock in the trainings (the loss of great amounts of volume in the body, possibly leading to death), I am asked about psychological shock as well. Today I heard a story from a young man who's niece went into psychological shock (though it manifested quite physically) after the IDF military barged into her family's home. She started shaking, grew cold and collapsed. Palestinians, collectively and individually, have experienced unfathomable trauma and violence. As I come from a people who have also collectively experienced trauma through our history, I cannot help (as others have also done) but connect the two. The trauma has been passed on to Palestinians, though it has not erased Jewish trauma, and our memory of it as well.

It is very hard for me to really internalize and imagine all the traumatic experiences the folks that I am training have had collectively. I try not to presume that I know best about what they should do in an emergency, and what "Safety First" even looks like. I try to stress that they need to use their personal judgment to determine whether a scene is safe and they want to enter it in order to provide emergency care. I am a foreigner who has grown up in a privileged, peaceful way, and I have not yet practiced as an EMT. I don't blame myself for any of this; blame is not the issue. It is something that I struggle to keep in mind as an evolving educator, as a medic, and someone in a position of authority when I teach these classes. There is a fine balance between demonstrating and exuding confidence, competency, knowledge, and kindness in order to pass that on to the folks in the class, and getting caught up in my pride as the authority in the room on the subject.

Passover in Palestine

Traveling back and forth from Ramallah and other Palestinians territories into Jerusalem and Israeli territories is a challenge for me (though I have it much easier than Palestinians, and Israelis for that matter). Using public transportation in places I am unfamiliar with confuses me. Though I am used to and more comfortable knowing the layout of the streets and the land around me, I am able to adapt to not knowing as I make mistakes and get lost and then find my way again. Ramallah has been a confusing place to find my way around. There is one central roundabout, Al Manara, and the main streets spiral out from there. However there are no street names posted, and I just keep getting turned around. This morning I managed to walk to the center and then take the correct shared taxi to PMRS. Victory!

I am still getting used to leaving myself enough time to travel from Ramallah and into and then out of Jerusalem. The bus takes 40 min, the checkpoint can take anywhere from 15 min to over an hour, and then once in Jerusalem, I have preferred to walk to the central bus station. The buses out of the city stop running a few hours before Shabbat starts, which almost left me stranded this past Friday.

I have passed through many doorways and into very different worlds again this past week. I spent Seder night with the holy hippy Jews, my cousins' friends, who have a beautiful home ripe with blooming everything and the most beautiful seder set up, outside around fires and under a canopy of sweet smelling flora. There were about 30 of us there, and the seder went on into the morning. Most folks there were American-born transplants, some had served in the army. There was much singing, some very verbose young scholars-in-training, and towards the end of the night some discussion about freedom and the state of the Jewish people in Israel. As right wing as some of the folks were, there seemed to be a general consensus that something is not right with the Jews, we need to make changes. I sat and listened to the conversation and appreciated people's openness to at least discuss it. Agency and power were not mentioned of course. I spent the rest of my day and a half there relaxing, listening to people's stories, playing with my sweet cousins, and singing. I was also able to find a moment of privacy to take a quick dip in their pond/pool/mikvah which was so refreshing.

Afterward, I immediately jumped back into travel mode to make it back to Ramallah for a training on Wednesday morning. I went again to the auditing and finance ministry and this time gave most of the training on my own- on wounds and fractures, and transporting patients. Overall I think it went well, and the language barrier was a little easier since many of the folks there spoke English. I am trying to use my expressive facial gestures and body language to communicate a lot as well.

Liberation?

As tends to happen in my life (as if I had no agency in this role :) I have jumped from one reality to another. From Sinai in Egypt into Ramallah, Palestine. Ironically I have left freedom in Egypt and entered a land where Palestinians are not free. By extension I believe that this further continues the enslavement of also Jewish Israelis, and maybe by extension Jews everywhere. On the larger picture we cannot be free unless all are free. More locally, the Jewish State here is a slave to limiting freedom in the name of security, to a militarized society where violence is the norm, to this ugly manifestation of clinging to a freedom that does not really exist.

We crossed to and from Sinai through the Taba border crossing into Egypt, where we showed our passports maybe 10 times each way. Keter, Shalom, Rivi, Yosef, Yama, Ahron, and I swam in the red sea, relaxed on hammocks, chilled with Bedoins and Sudanese, ate good food, and got a lot of sun. The corral reefs were a dip away and so I was able to go snorkeling everyday in a magical underwater space world. The deserts there is all shades of tan, and brown. Underwater though the fish and the corral are vibrant rainbows with awe-inspiring patterns. Five kids are a lot of work, and I give Keter a lot of credit for managing to relax through all her work. I loved playing with different kids at different times, though found my self needing my space sometimes too. After five days of sun, shells, and salt we crossed back and drove to their home. (pictures to come)

I immediately set off for Ramallah so that I could be at the PMRS office in the morning. It was an easy crossing this time. I met a woman on the bus who is from Calcutta, India, and is doing research in Jerusalem, through Harvard. for her PhD about the different monetary units that Palestinians have used during Ottoman rule, the British Mandate, and up to today. I really enjoyed meeting her and actually crossed back to Jerusalem with her this morning. In Ramallah, I am staying with my friend Souli, who is a gracious, open, silly, and helpful host. He is involved with getting Israeli and Palestinian children on soccer teams together to play against others.
Thursday morning I went to the PMRS office and together with the head of emergency medicine, we went to the Ministry of Finance to give a CPR training. Really I just observed and tried to understand all of the Arabic spoken around me. It has been a while since I have not spoken the language of those around me. I find myself impatient with my extremely limited Arabic knowledge. It turns out that with some Palestinians we share more Hebrew in common than any other language. Great numbers of Palestinian men have spent time in Israeli jails, where many studied and learned Hebrew. I don't like to speak Hebrew with them though. It makes me uncomfortable, both reminding me of my identity as Jew, and thus in this place as part oppressor, and it identifies me as Jewish, which sometimes I would like to keep private. I am learning Arabic shwayy-shwayya since I know that I have only been there a few days, and it takes time.
On Thursday evening I went out with Souli to a cafe that internationals frequent for a friend's brithday where we ran into several more of his friends. We ended up going back to his friend's flat for a long evening of discussion and relaxation. His friend, Isaa Freij is a Christian Palestinian artist and film-maker with whom I really enjoyed speaking with and hearing his stories.
As I continue to travel, I continue to enjoy the wealth of wisdom, stories, kindness, and hospitality of those I meet. On Friday I went with Abu Ali in the ambulance to Bil'in as medics for the weekly demonstrations that happen there. There was a lot of milling about in the beginning, with internationals and Israelis joining the locals (all men and boys). It was raining off and on, and so Abu Ali was hopeful that there would not be any serious injuries this week. He told me that last week, he had to take several people to the hospital. This was my first ride along in an ambulance! Crazy. So eventually people started to gather and walk towards the wall, including Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. We followed in the ambulance. People chanted, some went up to the gate and shook it, some stones were thrown. For a while I could only see one IDF soldier who was not standing behind the barricades fifty feet or so from the wall/gate. It seemed that at some point the soldiers found the demonstrators too rowdy and fired several canisters of gas at the demonstrators, at which point people scattered. Abu Ali showed me that the best way he knew how to help folks deal with the gas is by giving them cotton soaked in alcohol to put under their noses and eyes. We gave out a few of these cotton puffs. He asked me not to open the door or window for anyone as long as we were in the gas-filled air, so that we would not be affected. I followed his lead, and later asked him about the safety first philosophy of emergency medicine, which he told me was something that was a viable option in his work in Palestine and important to him. This is something I'm still trying to figure out. I think that many medics in the US would not think that bringing an ambulance within an area where tear gas was being fired, and other violence/danger was potential, would be putting safety first. It's all relative though. Since we stayed in the car, I was able to take several pictures, and was not affected by the gas. After a second round of tear gas, people dispersed, no serious injuries needed attending to, and we drove back to Ramallah.
Though I have never been to a Palestinian demonstration before, the whole process seemed familiar in the way that I've read about this, seen video, and then there it was in front of my very eyes. This high-stakes game is enacted weekly, and the players seemed familiar with the roles they are to take. I'm not make light of this. Their toys are real and deadly. It just strikes me that this pattern continues. I spoke with my younger cousin today about the demonstration, and he said that he understood why the soldiers fired on the protesters, that the soldiers could not stand by while stones were being thrown at them, that using rubber bullets was okay because it only hurts for a day. At the end of our conversation, we just agreed that it's complicated. I find this a common point of agreement with others as well.
On Saturday I went with Hasan (another trainer), Maher (PMRS employee), and Amra (interpreting for me) to Bet Sira for a training for some young men and boys there. The training was on fractures and transporting patients. Hasan and I switched off and Amra interpreted for me. She was incredibly helpful and amicable. Even so it was really difficult for me to be in an educator role and not be able to communicate with others effectively. Again the language barrier was frustrating. After the training, Maher and Hasan drove us around a little bit showing us the village and it's boundaries and the very close by settlement. The wall/fence divided Maher's family's land, and cut them off from it, and some olive trees were uprooted and planted literally at the edge of the road. The settlement nearby sued the village so now they are unable to broadcast the call to prayer customary in Muslim places. We visited Maher's house where his family had prepared a delicious lunch of Maklouba, and I kept on making eyes at the little kids running around the house.
Throughout the day Amra and I spoke. Now 23, she grew up until age 16 in Chicago. Her father is Palestinian and grew up here and her mother is half Palestinian and half American and grew up in the states. Amra still has vivid recollections of first arriving. The wall had not been constructed yet. In their first 3 months they had a visa that allowed her family freedom of movement in Israel and Palestine. Then when they received their Palestinian ID's that changed. She said that though they have US passports still, her younger siblings are afraid to go through the checkpoints and don't want to go. When they moved here her father told her that she would have to take shorter showers. I asked her where she wants to live in the future, and she said that the longer she stays, the more she wants to remain there.
So far I have seen so many intersting things, spoken with some wonderful folks, and have not gotten in any trouble. I know that there is a heavy focus in this entry about Israeli Occupation of Palestinians. This reality seems to constantly be on the minds of Palestinians. It involves their movement, safety, history, family, pride, freedom, futures, and past. It is an inescapable reality, literally, mentally and emotionally and at least when I am around a frequently spoken of topic of conversation. Ramallah is a place with much smoking and caffeine drinking. Stress-coping mechanisms.
Spending the last 3 days in Ramallah, has made it difficult for me to get into a mood for Pesach. I am with my cousins and we are going to a large outside seder at a friend of theirs. Everywhere I go around Jewish Israelis I am wished a Chag Sameach, Happy Holidays. This in itself is strange, where I am in a land where my holiday is celebrated by the majority and everyone else is very aware of it. Pesach is about liberation and freedom, and right now I am so angry that, atleast the way the US and Israeli governments would explain it to me, my freedom comes at the cost of another's.

Orientation

The last few days have been so full of family, friends, strangers, different languages, modes of transportation and conversations. I arrived at my cousins' house in Moshav Aviezer on Tuesday morning, and since I only wrote down Baruch's home number, I managed to take a train, taxi, and then asked folks where the Shapiro's lived once I arrived on the Moshav. My family came home to their cousin already here. Surprise!

After a lovely day and night's rest, I went to Jerusalem yesterday afternoon. I spent the afternoon with Jacob, an old college friend, and Jenny and a little time with a new friend, Shelley, where I slept in her absent housemate's bed. We went out for bad Tai food and caught up. Jerusalem was overwhelming. I arrived by sherut, to find people of all walks of life bustling about trying to catch their next bus. My Hebrew is rusty, though day by day I am understanding more and more.

Today started along time ago. I ate tabouli for breakfast at Shelley's, who is gluten-free. Then I went back to Jacob's and we set out on foot to the old city. In Jerusalem there exist many paradoxical realities. The city has as much litter as Philadelphia, more stray cats, and more horn honking. The worn stone construction that turns into the old city feels old, worn, alive, tired, strong, and full, almost at a tipping point. We walked through the south gate entrance I believe and made our way through the Jewish quarter to the Western Wall, with a view of the temple mount. There are tourists everywhere, along with soldiers, and Israelis, all praying, taking pictures, singing, dancing, looking suspiciously at others, and asking for tzedakah. I took a moment to pray and it was hard to block everything and everyone out of my mind. I put in some prayers into small holes in the wall.

Jacob and I met up with his friend Avital and we all made our way through the Damascus gate and into the Arab quarter. It strikes me now how separated/segregated the city is and how different they are. I'm not sure all the ways in which they are different, just that the vibes in each area are different, and the people so as well. We ate hummus and made our way to a bus to go to Ramallah. We made it most of the way to Ramallah, and I saw for the first time the apartheid/seperation wall. It's a solid structure 8 meteres high, with barbed wire and feels temporarily permanent. We have a long way to go before it will be torn down, and I pray to see that happen while I am alive.

At the Qalandia checkpoint (This is from a few days earlier, there were no burning tires today), half the road was blocked off and the bus driver would not go any further. It seems there were some clashes between some Palestinian youth and the Israeli army. We were not in any danger and we simply got out of the bus, crossed the road and took a service into Ramallah. As we drove by we saw little pockets of young men, some alone, one with a gas mask on. They looked eager for action, and very familiar with this scenario. Out in the distance were the IDF in all their riot gear and big weapons.

There we arrived into the bustling and disorienting center, we weaved through the crowded market, that reminded me of the markets in Peru, and met up with my friend Suleiman, whom I know from Peacemakers weekend at Tawonga. He also had two friends with him and we all sat and had tea/coffee. Suleiman is a busy and generous man who I will meet up with again next week, and possibly stay at his home while volunteering with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Ramallah for most of April. Both in Israel and Palestine, I am struck with the warmth hospitality of my hosts. So then Suli dropped us off at the PMRS office, and I sat down with Mohammed and he told me that what they were needing right now was for people to give more trainings to local Palestinians on emergency medicine, like CPR, first aid, wound management and such. He told me that I would have an interpreter and transportation. Also he said it would be possible for me to accompany the ambulance on rides to the clinics in other cities and villages. Overall this feels very possible too me, though I've never trained others in first aid/cpr though I've been to many of these trainings myself.

By this point in our day I felt inundated with images, experiences, cultures and languages. We walked out to a road outside Ramallah, and tried to walk through a Palestine to Palestine checkpoint, at which point the soldiers told us that it was not allowed for us to walk through and we should just walk around, and so that is what we did, right through the field, 50 yards away. They did not seem to care about checking our identification. We hitched a ride outside the settlement Bet El and then took a settlement bus back into the city. What a crazy day. Maybe its normal for here though, I don't know. Palestinians without permission are not allowed into Israel and Israeli's are not allowed in Areas A and B within Palestine and so my American passport gives great privilege and some ignorance as well.

I've read and talked with so many folks about the situation here, and it has finally come for me to experience it, to see the crowds, the soldiers with their guns, the religious dress, the holy sites; hear the sirens, the screeching birds, the call to prayer; smell the sweet blooming jasmine, the rosemary, stale urine on the street, the hummus restaurants. Today I felt the rain as I returned back to my cousin's for the evening. With Baruch gone, Keter has her hands full and I am enjoying each five of my cousins individually. Tomorrow I decided to accompany them for a mini vacation in the Sinai in Egypt (This is not the exact place we're going). Where we will swim, relax, play and more.

I'm leaving today...

and I made this camera case! I can take quick shots without removing the camera completely from the case. Thanks for the idea Will!

Also I just realized that I may have forgotten to mention that I got into both NCNM and Bastyr!!!! I will be attending NCNM in the fall in Portland, Oregon, yay!

Plan Changes

My grandmother, Fay passed away yesterday. I was able to spend 2 hours with her yesterday morning. She was working so hard to breath and the keep her heart beating. I feel very grateful that I was able to be there. I thought that I was going to go on this birthright trip no matter what and then when it came down to it last night, I wanted to stay and be here with my family. I decided to delay my trip for one week, and travel on my own to Israel/Palestine. That's all for now.

Luck ain't everything

I am really lucky. I live a life right now where i am able to travel and see the people that I love and new places and situations and still have a home base...I am blessed. I want to recognize this as I continue to write about hardships that I also encounter. For the last week I have been HOME in Philly, with family and friends. I have been able to have delicious dinners with folks, puzzle time, moments of shear silliness, Purim fun, Shabbat meals, the Lesbian Dorkestra, and more.

I have also been present with my family as my mother's mother, Faye Korman Clark, passes away. As I write this, her heart is still beating, though she is not completely in this world, nor in the hereafter. We wait and try and support each other, make plans, try and ensure she is as comfortable as possible; we wait, amazed by her tenacity to live, to make her heart beat and cling to life. Fay loves life, like no one I've known. She always has a smile on her face for greeting and for conversation, she survived over 15 years of stomach and ovarian cancer. She survived two husbands, including my grandfather Bill Korman. She found conscious and clear moments towards the end of her life to appreciate the outwardly beautiful parts of her family, including finding the ironic clarity to tell me last week, all of a sudden, that my hair looks good .. I mourn her as her heart continues to obstinately beat, because she is not living life as she would choose. Tomorrow I will go to see her and once again say my goodbyes. I leave for Israel/Palestine monday and will miss the family mourning period. This is a hard choice, yet I do believe that were grandmommee able to perceive the situation, she would want me to live life as fully as I deem fit and to embrace to situation I find myself in instead of fighting it. In the end though it is about making decisions for myself and taking everything into consideration that is good for me and that match my values...

Couch Surfing Season

The WEMT class is over, and I have left the mountains and returned to the uber stimulation of cities. The conclusion of the class was filled with a lot of studying and scenarios. I led one of our group's testing scenario with an anaphylactic patient who was stung by a bee, went into anaphylaxic shock, collapsed and required CPR. The examiner was very impressed by our group, as was our instructor who was playing the patient in the scenario.
Also in the last week, we were able to learn how to stick IV's into people. Here is a picture of me sticking an IV in one of the EMT guests we had(I will insert the pic soon). After I found the vein and inserted the catheter and was removing the needle, a whole bunch of blood poured out from the site until I was able to properly occlude the vein. oops! We also were able to practice our suturing on pigs feet. I didn't know that I was going to act like such a sissy, but I felt a little feint and grossed out when I first saw all the little pink frozen piggy feet out on plates, though I sutured away anyway.

All of that feels like so long ago. I am now at NCNM, post school interview. I spent this past weekend at my friend Rebecca's house. She lives outside of Mount Vernon, Wa with 4 beautiful farm acres, two alpaca's, 3 feisty chickens, and one intelligent cat. It was sunny and we dug holes for her to plant her new fruit trees that were to be delivered on Monday. I was able to get some solitude, manual labor, outside time, a bike ride, and delicious fresh bread and pie with her and her friend who was also visiting.

I made it to Seattle on Sunday, rented a car and stayed at Addie and Justin's house for two nights and had good food, friends and yoga. I had my interview at Bastyr University which went really well, sat in on a class, had a clinic appointment, and then shadowed some student interns at their teaching clinic. At my clinic appointment, I received a craniosacral therapy treatment, which was wonderfully centering and may have helped my sacrum as well.

Ok, enough details for now, suffice to say the last few days have been a whirlwind of important and interesting moments. I am spending the day in Portland, at NCNM and then tomorrow I am in Olympia before I fly out red eye back to Philadelphia.

Fancy Photo Machine

Here are more pictures to show you how beautiful it is here. Most of my time in reality is spent in the classroom and around the premises of NCI since I am here to learn and all, it's just that the pictures of the outdoors are much more interesting. To the left is a picture of Ross Dam. There are a series of 3 dams up in the Skagit Valley that supposedly were set up far enough away from the Salmon run in the Skagit River. Ross is the last one. Addie and I hiked out there on Saturday for a few hours.


We caught the 3 hours of sunlight in the day and were blessed with this view of the North Cascades. Come to think of it, we have seen more than our fair share of sunny days.
This week we will be perfecting our patient assessments, back boarding techniques, and learning how to insert IVs. At the end of it there will be our final testing: crunch time. Coming into this experience, I did not expect to know what I want to do with this knowledge and experience, and I still don't. In the end I believe that I am gaining valuable and working knowledge about how our bodies work, ways of working with people in medical situations and a solid and basic approach to emergency medicine, especially in the back country.

Snow, or lack there of...

So apparently mother nature is going to drop another large load on Philadelphia tonight and tomorrow to add to the already present, 2 feet of snow and almost double it. Many of you might know that I am in love with snow, playing in it, shoveling it, admiring its beauty...I have told folks hear daily how much it has been snowing in Philly. Meanwhile the weather here, in the mountainous region of the rain belt of the pacific northwest, has been mostly clear, in the 40's and sunny???!!!! Last year at this time there was 4 feet of snow, this year zero. go figure. I know it's not all about me and my love of snow, it's about global climate patterns and the changes there within. It's just that...well so is life. Have fun in the copious amounts of snow!

Patterns

For the past two weeks, I have been waking up an hour before breakfast and doing yoga with Addie. I do it because it feels right to stretch and use my body and feel my strength; and I do it because I have someone else to hold me accountable to a meeting time and an activity. This strikes me as similar to how I found the discipline to train for the Broad Street Run with Rebekah. Class is a combination of sitting behind desks in a classroom, practicing skills on the floor, and going outside for scenarios, no matter the weather. Whether real or as part of the scenario, hypothermia is a big concern during these scenarios, and sleeping bags and pads are the most important and consistent pieces of equipment that we bring with us to the scene.

I've enjoyed learning a lot of emergency assessment tools for injury and sickness. It seems however that the scope of practice of an EMT, especially in an urban setting, involves giving oxygen, dressing wounds, splinting, car extractions, and little else. These are useful tools and seemed to be used by many folks as a step towards more advanced medical training. The Wilderness portion of the training along with the Medical Person In Charge certification gives us more leeway in acting and using our skills and judgment. All the more reason I'm taking this course I suppose. Tonight a lot of folks are practicing skills like putting a bag valve on someone who is not breathing on their own, backboarding folks for spinal immobilization, stripping a traction splint on a broken femur, and making splints. We have our practical skills testing next week, where all this and more will be evaluated.

I find it wonderful and simultaneously difficult to live in such an intensive and insular community. It's so easy to let the outside world slip to the back of my brain, as there is plenty of stimulation from the class, the mountains and green, and the folks here. Yet that disconnect from a world and people I am attached to and love is unsettling and is ever present even with some dissociation. I realize it's natural and normal to miss the life I left while enjoying where I am at present. I am often hard on myself for feeling disappointed, vulnerable, emotional, only to be reminded by those who love me that I'm acting like a real human. So I am reminding myself this time, and hearing the voice of Sissypants Popek telling me such things.

Currently I'm listening to my roommate Clarice play guitar. It's nice.

Adapt and Overcome

It's been a week since I left Philadelphia. Since arriving, my past began a week ago in relation to the folks here at NCI. It both makes sense and is unreal. A week ago I was deeply connected to the daily schedules of at least 10 folks in my life in Philadelphia. Their (your) lives have continued and I have split and I miss you. Here, I am the same person, different context. It feels so good to be in the wilderness, away from the city, breathing in the fresh, moist evergreen air. NCI is situated in the middle of the North Cascades Mountain Range. The nearest town with a gas station is 20 minutes away and we are definitely 2 hours away from definitive medical care (a hospital with doctors). Good thing the skills we are learning are meant to both be used in an urban environment and in the wilderness. Class is from 8-5 mostly with plenty of small breaks and some night time sessions as well. We have reading to do for homework every night as well.

I have jumped, feet first, into this world as a learner, community member and a wannabe medic. We are learning about what do to when coming upon a patient and how to assess their injuries, starting with our own safety and moving on to their airway, breathing, circulation, etc. We learned how to administer oxygen and keep an airway clear. I am looking forward to learning to stick someone with an IV. We will be covering search and rescue this week as well. There are 28 people in the class, about half of them young men in the 18-25 age range. Which, we have learned, are an extremely high risk group, especially when drunk, for car accidents and snake bites. There are 9 women. I have bonded with my roommate Clarice, 20 years old from Santa Cruz, Ca and Addie, 26 and lives in Seattle. Addie, pictures left, and I find ourselves creepily on the same page with our thoughts, referencing the same cultural contexts and sarcastic comments. The three of us laugh a lot, which is so necessary.

Yesterday I went on a 14 mile hike with Addie and Kurt where we hiked up to the snow line at 3500 ft, decided to turn around and hiked some more. The day ended with tired legs and satisfied smiles. It was so nice to not run into any other hikers all day. The weather has been mild so far, no snow, little rain, not too cold. Though any of those things can happen any minute.

The title of the post comes from a quote one of out temporary instructors Sandy (aka Macgyver), who told us in his gruff way that we need to work with whatever tools we have in order to try and care for a patient, and to adapt and overcome.

More pictures to come soon!

In Motion

After almost three years back in Philadelphia, filled with rich moments of joy, growth, love and challenge, I've moved out of Markoe St. I am currently in the Seattle airport waiting for the shuttle that will take me to the North Cascades Institute where I will begin a wilderness EMT training with Remote Medical International. It will be 4 weeks of intensive study of emergency medicine with a focus of how to best serve as a medic while not near a hospital. I am really excited to dive into learning some science that's related to parts of my body that I can point to. Over the next three weeks I hope to write about some of the interesting skills I am learning and on my thoughts in general as I leave Philadelphia, the city the sometimes loved me back. I welcome your thoughts as much as you would choose to leave them.