This is a hard one – 9.24.2023
There is a shortage of medical care here as all the hospitals were destroyed. Woah … it is so hot today! It will be 97. The mosquitos are bad. We all have bites all over us. We are about halfway through our Türkiye commitment for team 1. Team 2 arrives Oct 6 and I leave for Istanbul Oct 8. This [...]
The Bus – 9.20.2023
Extraordinary ways people are helping people Imagine having severe physical disabilities and because of the invasion you are making the decision to leave family and country with the likelihood you may never see them again. Crossing the border from Poland into Ukraine we met Lucas (lives in Poland near German border), Paulina (Ukrainian living in Poland) and Matin (from Warsaw) [...]
Team 1: Hatay Türkiye – 9.16.2023
The immensity of the tasks to recovery will take years and are overwhelming. We started in another Syrian camp where there is a lot of healthcare needs and the police came and told us to leave. We still seem to not have permission to help the neediest - which are the Syrian refugees. We packed up and went back to the [...]
Working in Turkey – 9.15.2023
SETTING UP IN TURKEYThe Middle East is in turmoil: earthquake in Morrocco , floods in Libya. It has changed our plans a bit as medical first response teams in Turkey needed to leave for those new disaster zones. Our team split up. Hands On Global has sent three people to deliver supplies in Ukraine and then fly to Turkey. I [...]
Reflections in Lviv, Ukraine – 3.16.23
UKRAINE CONFLICT This morning I was on my own in Lviv, a large urban city in the Ukraine. It feels no different like being in a city center like San Francisco, Budapest, Vienna, Hamburg, etc. I’m thankful we have a place to stay in the city center as it is so easy to be just another person in the shuffle [...]
March 21: Reflections from a Cemetery
UKRAINE CONFILCT Reflections on walking through a cemetery of fresh graves of Ukrainian soldiers.We did not start out looking for this place. Had we known we were going to come across it, we might have shied away. We just walked around a corner and there it was - we were shocked, yet drawn in. A mixture of numbness and nausea, [...]