As I have mentioned in previous posts about my recent trip to Sri Lanka, we lived in a refugee camp. Our team brought in two sleeping tents, one for the ladies and one for the men. The other tents were arranged for in country.
Our time in the camp was filled with hardships (as I have already mentioned) but also some good times. The usual day started around sunrise. This was partly because of the work that needed to be done in camp and partly because our Sri Lankan neighbors were noisy at that time of day. After shaking the cobwebs out of the old noggin, and the stretching the bones, our first priority was usually the making of coffee. Fortunately a French Press coffee maker was donated to the team. This was an incredibly important asset. Sometime after the first pot of coffee and the second, we began to scrounge around to make breakfast, usually either toast or oatmeal, but occassionally scrambled eggs. We would then tend to personal hygeine which usually consisted of brushing teeth and maybe using a bucket of water to at least wash our hair. Then, we would have our morning devotions and team meeting.
Around 9am our clinic would start. Usually during this time some water had to be filtered and purified. This was usually a time consuming task. However, when you consider that I was drinking about 4-5 liters of fluids a day just by myself, you can imagine what it took for the whole team.
Sometime around noon, lunch would arrive. This consisted of fried breads stuffed with meat, vegetables, or potatoes. They were usually very spicy. But they satisfied the hunger created by the hard work. Around 1pm most people would look for a chair and shade to take a little siesta before clinic started again at 2pm.
The afternoons were hot and humid. We had "water nazis" who would go around and make sure everyone was drinking enough fluids. This kept the team from getting sick. Although we would "close" triage around 4:30pm, we usually never finished seeing folks until around 6pm.
After eating some good Sri Lankan dishes for supper (a cook was hired to cook supper at the camp) we would usually have a team meeting around 8pm for debriefing. However, we usually found the evenings busy taking care of the sickest patients who came during the day or who showed up at night.
Life would have been extremely stressful in that setting if it had not been for the make up of the team. We had a great team with lots of short term mission experience. Several had a lot of disaster relief work. The Advance team was only with us a few nights; they included two mental health counselors, a trauma nurse, and an engineer. Our team was made up of a Neonatalogist (NICU doctor), a Internist/Pediatrician who was also a retired astronaut with NASA who had 4 space shuttle flights to his credit, a retired radiologist who loves to fly planes, and two family docs (of which I was one). We also had a physician assistant student (who came from a family of 9 sisters and brothers) and a medic in the special forces who starts medical school this year. We also had a NICU nurse, a retired neurosurgical nurse, and a family nurse practitioner. We also had a few nonmedical folks who literally kept camp going.
Life was interesting in those conditions and having good teammates made all the difference.
Hi Tim,
That is a great post. I know I certainly loved hearing about the individuals that made up your team and what the day to day tasks looked like.
Thanks for sharing, and thanks even more for being willing to go and serve in light of such tragedy.
Blessings
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