out of the fish bowl...

Of what I´ve seen and heard so far, relief aid has got to be one of the most haphazard and disorganized operations ever. At least it appears as the truth here.

I haven´t been able to really do anything all week because I´m committed to Spanish school in the morning from 8am-1am. By the time I got to work in the afternoon everyone in the office had gone out to work in the communities, so there wasn´t really even anyone for me to talk to. Andrea, another CCI participant, was in a similar boat and we´ve both been itching to help out and be a part of the relief effort. Since we couldn´t, we decided yesterday to go out to the Xela airport as we heard they needed extra hands there.

It was an excess of hands more than anything.

We spent the first 30min standing and watching, asking the other 80 gringos (foreigners) questions to figure out what was going on. The answer? ¨We´re waiting for the helicopter¨. What the operation at the airport consisted of was an excess of people forming a line so that water or food could be passed from one person to the next to get it from A to B, and another excess amount of people waiting in the back of trucks to load food into the helicopters that were flying the aid to affected communities.

A little disappointed we wandered over to a corner where a few people sat puzzling over a pile of small boxes. ¨Hey, do you guys need a hand?¨ we asked. ¨Sure do,¨ they replied, ¨do you have any medical background or can you read a bit of Spanish?¨

We had finally found our little help niche.

What did they want us to do? In front of laid a large pile of small boxes varying in colour and size, and with our incredibly expansive medical knowledge, they wanted us to sort the different types of donated medicine into various boxes marked ¨pain¨, ¨parasitic infection¨, ¨vitamin¨, etc. This proved to be quite the challenge not only because it was in Spanish, but also because these were behind-the-counter medications and nearly all different. Eventually, with the help of some doctors nearby, it all got worked out and sorted. What kills me is what we did after this.








The boxes were lined up all in a row so that we could bag x number of medications from each, and then have them shipped off to the various doctors in the communities. In other words, we sorted everything so that they could be mixed up again and resorted by the clinics/doctors again later.

Right.

I couldn´t believe what was happening or what I was seeing. Tons of people wanting and ready to help with really nothing to do. From all the various stories and efforts I´ve been hearing, I wonder how effective this Relief Aid stuff actually is. There´s really no one coordinating all the efforts making sure people who want to help can help, or making sure affected families are really getting the aid they need. It´s really quite frustrating because you know time and energy is being wasted where it isn´t needed.

For example, another account from an afternoon in the Xela Airport hangar (by Andrea):

So Id say the highlight of the day for me, humour wise was acting as a translator for this American military officer. I guess, I failed to mention that of the eight helicopters present I’d say half were probably American. So this woman was trying to talk to the Guatemalan Red Cross but was having no success since she had a thick southern accent and was talking way to fast. It was painful to witness so I approached her and asked if I could translate for her. She was trying to say that she had been out in Concepcion and a doctor there had told her that they really needed medicine. The Guatemalan Red Cross wanted to know if this woman could go in her helicopter to take it. She said no. So translation successful now comes the ridiculous part. The woman goes on to tell us that she is a "Medical Assessment Officer" She does exactly what the title says with a translator. So does this mean that she relays her information after her assessment by simply approaching the Red Cross without a translator! What the hell sort of system is this. One can only hope this was an extraneous circumstance and not normal practice of the American military.

Sigh. There´s no question that aid money is absolutely necessary when it comes to emergency relief, but it also really makes me wonder how effective that dollar you give actually is.

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Would you be surprised if I told you while everyone ate the simple Guatemalan lunch that was being served, the American soldiers there came in with giant bags of McDonalds?