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.