Still on the road. Finished up with Thailand, Viet Nam and Cambodia in the last few weeks, and now wrapping this trip up with these last couple days in India. We’re on the Infosys campus in Mysore – a 400+ acre spread where the company Infosys trains future employees. The CDC is conducting a training here for some epidemiologists studying non-communicable diseases like obesity and diabetes – diseases the US has been dealing with for decades but which are relatively new in low and middle income countries. So, they have few staff in their Ministries of Health who know how to deal with the new range of problems.
This trip has been tough. My trips are always busy – this one maybe just seems to have taken it out me a bit more than usual perhaps. Interesting work here with the CDC – as it always is. But ready to wrap up over the next few days and get home. More trips taking shape over the next weeks and months including Afghanistan and teh Middle East so stay tuned…
May 22nd, 2011 | by David in Travel
Dr. Can Phu Nhuan, Head of the Examination Department of the National Pediatric Hospital in Hanoi, examines a young patient presenting with flu-like symptoms.
Catching a quick breather from a few very busy days so thought I’d post another quick trip update. Got up to Hanoi a few nights ago after two days down south in Ho Chi Minh City. Spent this week with the CDC seeing more of their projects – mostly influenza surveillance and HIV projects. If you’re wondering what influenza surveillance is, it probably isn’t too far off from what it sounds like. Yesterday we went to a pediatric hospital – one of the three largest in Viet Nam – named, appropriately enough, the National Pediatric Hospital. Anyone who presents with what scientists love to call ILI – Influenza-like Illness, like a fever or sore throat, is tested. The results are tracked by the CDC an the Ministry of Health in Viet Nam – that’s the surveillance part – so they know, basically, when they have an outbreak on their hands. Since Viet Nam has in the past had cases of H5N1, more commonly known as Avian Influenza or bird flu – and since bird flu is fatal about 40 to 50% of the time, it’s at least good to know when it’s coming, even though there isn’t yet a vaccine for it. All over the country CDC scientists are doing that kind of research, watching, anticipating, and trying to prevent the next outbreak.
Few more days here, then off to Cambodia on Sunday.
May 12th, 2011 | by David in Travel
It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Actually, it’s been awhile since I’ve traveled internationally – all of my work this year has been in the US, which is unusual. So, I pitched up here in Ho Chi Minh City after several days in Bangkok with the CDC. As always they are doing so many different things, all of them public health related, that I got to see a wide cross section of projects while I was there, from influenza and HIV research studies to a project that seeks to better educate the caregivers of pediatric HIV patients, and their doctors, on improved quality of care.
A young HIV patient refills her monthly ARV supply at a hospital 100 miles north of Bangkok, Thailand
This is going to be a busy trip. I’m in Viet Nam this week for the CDC and an NGO called Counterpart International, then off to Cambodia over the weekend for work with two agencies there. My final stop is a quick one in India before heading home. I’ll write more as I get chances along the way.
A medical technologist processes blood samples using an instant HIV test kit at the HIV clinic for Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) on the grounds of the Silom Clinic in Bangkok, Thailand. The lab processes an average of 20 HIV tests each night.
May 8th, 2011 | by David in Travel
My first trip to Colombia. It’s one of those places you have heard of often in the news – all the years of drug violence and guerrilla war – so it’s easy to be surprised when you get here and find a vibrant, healthy city. There are always problems, of course, but my last few days here have been great. Working with the CDC Foundation on some projects related to obesity, which is becoming a problem across Latin America as diets change, fast food makes deeper inroads, and the urban lifestyle slows people down. But despite that, we’ve seen a lot of things Bogota in particular is doing right to keep people healthy. Today we toured three of the city’s 5,200 parks with representative of the government’s office of sports. There has been a real push here in recent years, apparently, from politicians seeking to make the city greener. Aside from bike paths and large open lanes for jogging and walking, these parks include top notch soccer fields, playgrounds, and most surprisingly, nice new libraries. Even in the poorest areas of the city, communities have access to exercise of the mind and the body.
Yesterday I went with CDC staff to what is called here a ciclovia. It is, basically, a sort of large-scale community party. Every Sunday since 1974, and every public holiday, the city of Bogota has closed miles and miles of city streets to traffic from 7 am to 2 pm and just let people get out and walk, bike, jog, or stroll. The parks are filled with skate ramps – set up just for the hours of the event, then disassembled – and large-scale yoga classes taught by ciclovia instructors. There are vendors, mimes, performers, artists and musicians everywhere. Every Sunday. Aside from the physical benefits of getting out and walking, the ciclovia provides an opportunity for something I think we’ve long since lost in US cities, and never had in the suburbs – the chance to regularly and intimately connect with our communities. In that sense, despite Colombia’s bad press in decades past, they are way ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the need people have to connect.
November 8th, 2010 | by David in Travel | 1 Comment
The end of a long hot day here so just a few words on the day’s work. I spent the day with engineers working for the aid group Pan American Development Agency, which is conducting some large-scale assessment and repair efforts for homes damaged by the January earthquake in Port au Prince. It’s fascinating to see them work, quickly judging which homes are safe, and which unsafe, by checking over the cracks that appear in the walls of the homes. Th
ey know it like the back of their hand, which cracks – vertical, horizontal, diagonal, or anywhere in between – spell trouble, and which can be dabbed over with concrete and left as they are. Thus far they have checked over 248,000 homes, and found about 49% of them to be structurally damaged in some way. That’s not to say they are dangerous or uninhabitable, but they need some work to make them safer.
This will be a long, long process. Across Port au Prince there are hundreds of thousands of people still living in tents or in damaged homes, and the pace of rebuilding or repairing on such a scale for all involved is painstakingly slow. Despite a hot, sunny day, rain clouds gathering tonight hint at the dangers of the hurricane season, making those without adequate shelter even more vulnerable.
August 31st, 2010 | by David in Travel
A quick trip down to Tanzania after just getting back from the Middle East last week. Came to see some work AmeriCares is doing with a large hospital in Mwanza – a place called the Bugando Medical Center. Their work revolves around making contributions of medicines and medical supplies to hospitals and clinics in developing countries. At Bugando that includes the latest antibiotics, which proved critical in fighting several cases of drug resistant bacteria they had at the facility’s pediatric ICU. In that case, the drugs literally saved lives. The doctor said they started several infants on the drug the day it arrived two weeks ago, and it helped immediately. I also visited with several young kids with heart problems who are taking medicine provided by AmeriCares as well. With most major heart problems here, the only permanent solution is surgery. Unfortunately, there are very few hospitals in Tanzania that can perform such surgeries, so the only solution is for those kids to be wait listed to be sent abroad for their operations – places like India and Israel. But the wait can be long – last year, of 100 kids at Bugando wait listed for surgery abroad, only 7 went. For the others, it’s only heart medication that keeps them alive until that call comes, a long wait for a mother.
Every time you visit a hospital in Africa you are reminded of just how lucky you are to have your health. People routinely die here 
from things we don’t even see in the US anymore – basic infections, easily curable cancers, even polio. It’s nice to see some of what we have making it to places like Bugando where it’s being used, and much appreciated.
August 7th, 2010 | by David in Travel
A busy week. From Jerusalem we went down to Gaza for three days last week. That place always sort of fills you up with a whole range of different emotions, and this time was no different. Like the West Bank, Gaza has been occupied by the Israel’s since 1968. In 2006, the militant group Hamas was elected to rule the strip by Gazanas themselves, and the Israeli’s more or less washed their hands of it and put in place a blockade, with US support – limiting goods like cement and water pipes, and even children’s toys, saying they are a threat to Israeli security. Gazans tunneled into neighboring Egypt to bring in goods, which they are proficient at, but the whole economy is one of stagnation – survival really – and will ultimately remain so until the occupation is finally ended – and there is no likelihood of that any time soon.
What always strikes me when I go there is how generally upbeat the people are, given the incredibly difficult circumstances. Imagine how you would feel if someone occupied your country, dictated everything you could and could not bring in, helped bring about an unemployment rate of more than 60%, and wouldn’t let you leave – ever. That’s what most in Gaza face, yet despite it they get educated, do whatever they can to support their families, and enjoy what few liberties they have – like a day at the nearby beach, albeit one cluttered with trash and impacted by tons of raw sewage dumping into the sea each day from old and broken pipes.
Coming here to Beirut yesterday is like arriving on a different planet. Beirut was once called the Paris of the Middle East. With a mixed society of Muslims and Christians, there is a vibrant night life here, with bars and restaurants and lingerie shops and dance clubs. The women are dressed like they spent 6 hours getting ready to go out, and you can sit down and spend $100 on a meal and couple drinks, easily. I have some old friends here I am eager to catch up with. Busy few days ahead but looking forward to being back in Lebanon.
For those who don’t understand the Middle East crisis, and the causes and realities of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, I will end as I usually end trips to that part of the world, with the call to please find other sources outside of the American press to educate yourself on what is really going on in your country’s name, and with your country’s treasure, in Gaza and the West Bank. I promise you it is not what you have been led to believe by the hijacked American press.
July 22nd, 2010 | by David in Travel
This place always sort of spins your head around – and I’m reminded of that every time I come back. It’s been years now since – 2006 I think was my last trip here – but that feeling of tension I always remember this place by is still there. The details of travel here, how complicated and unpredictable, are too much to get in to. If you are interested to learn just how complicated it can be even to get into the West Bank, you can look up the US State Department site and go to the Jerusalem or West Bank sections, and it’ll give you some idea. Checkpoints into or out of the Occupied Territory, or within it, can be closed at any time, indefinitely, or delays made so long that people can wait hours to make a crossing, or to reach their own neighborhoods. That uncertainty pervades everyday life here, as people going to work in the morning or dropping their kids off at school don’t even know if they’ll be able to come back the same way that evening. It is a frustration that is very difficult for those who have never experienced it to understand.
So far I’ve only seen one day of projects here in the West Bank, working for a group called ANERA – American Near East Refugee Aid. They do a lot of work in this part of teh world – all of their work in fact – from water and education projects to health and agriculture work. Yesterday we saw a school being refurbished, as well as a hospital. ANERA is also building a wholesale market for farmers to use to sell their crops directly to the public. We plan to see more of that over the next few days.
July 14th, 2010 | by David in Travel
Wrapping up this trip now to the Philippines with my last full day in Davao. Off tomorrow evening for Manila and then a brutally early flight out on Wednesday. This week was all about peacebuilding, which is the term aid agencies use for wide variety of projects, all aimed at dialogue, conflict resolution, and human rights work. I have to be honest and say a lot of it works better in theory than in practice. I’m too much a pessimist to believe that as more people inhabit the world, and resources become more and more scarce, that conflict won’t become more common. It’s a scary thought, especially as you see forests disappearing, deserts spreading, and land and water becoming more and more scarce everywhere. I see the impacts of those shortages just about everywhere I go, particularly in Africa and Asia, and I fear that the more environmentally off kilter the earth becomes, the more acute those shortages of resources will become, and the more conflict will subsequently arise.
But the premise of what I saw this week here in Mindanao was dialogue. The central and western regions of this island have been racked by decades of violence between indigenous groups and settlers of different religions. There is widespread mistrust here among all of the players, and that has lead to eruptions of violence in 2003 and again in 2008 that saw as many as a million people displaced. What the work CRS is doing here is designed to do is bring people of different backgrounds together – Christian and Muslim. It sounds easy, but when you look at most communities around the world, including in the US, there are relatively few places where that occurs. When we don’t understand one another, stereotypes and mistrust are the natural byproduct, and I think we’ve seen much of that in the US in the last 10 years. At least if people are talking, there is some hope.
June 20th, 2010 | by David in Travel
Halfway through a trip with CRS here in the Philippines. My first time here, and I’ve wanted to see it for a few years now so glad to make it. Spent last week looking at some agriculture projects, and came down today to the area of Pikit in Mindanao. It’s one of those no-go areas according to the US State Department website, which in case you’re reading mom pretty warns every American in every country in the world to lock themselves in their closets immediately. Lots of Muslim/Christian violence here in recent years in particular, so looking at some protection and peacebuilding projects CRS is supporting. If you can get past the passive voice and aid speak of peacebuilding work (“The creation of Spaces for Peace zones will be facilitated”) the work is actually fairly interesting, as groups affected by the war pretty much told the governmet forces and the rebels they’d had it with all the fighting and created areas, with buy in from both sides, where there would be no fighting. Doesn’t seem likely when two sides are trying hard to kill each other, but it worked.
Here for a few more days then back up to the city of Davao and out early next week on a brutal 6 am departure for the US.
June 16th, 2010 | by David in Travel
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