Seans' 18th Birthday

Today was a surprise party at the office for Sean. One of the office staff had a cousin who was a cake maker so a special cake was ordered for Sean. Kiru is our interpreter, driver and
NWMT security officer. When we first arrived he invited us to his villlage for a long weekend. We had a great time and his children all called Sean Hawwy Podder, "Harry Potter". The name stuck thus explains his special birthday cake. The office staff also got together and puchased a cricket bat and practice ball. Sat. is a mmeting in AM for me and then we hope to get to a cricket game in the
afternoon.

Sunday we'll head down to Hikkaduwa on SW coast to start the 1st EMT class. We'll teach it for 4 days then break for 4 days. We have planned a trip to Kandy an ancient capital city for their PERAHERA. A big Buddhist celebration with elephants lights, drummers, dancers etc. The pictures from that should be good.
I know Sean missed his Mom, Sister, Granddad, girlfreind Ginnie and freinds from back home, but he'll make up for that later.

A Trip toTrincomallee

The trip trip to the East coast was very interesting. Sean stayed in Colombo for this one due to security concerns. It took all day to get to "Trinco" were we spent the night a a lodging right on the beech. In the a.m. we were off and headed for a rual clinic NWMT opperates in Tyriai. It took a 2 hour drive N of Trincomalee, and a river crossing by " ferry", to get us to a restored building that is on the outer border of the government controlled the area. It is 200 yds. from one the most beautiful beaches in Si Lanka. There was very little else around except a small army checpoint on the side of the red dirt road. Animal life was a usual very cool! We spotted 10-15 peacocks, some big monkeys, (about 4 ft. tall when standing), about 20 of the usual medium size monkeysand some weird type of cranes in rice feilds.
Meeting some Veddah's. The coolest thing was a chance meeting with a indigenous man and his son. Our driver Kiru noticed them as we were driving down a sungle road. So we stopped and backed up to meet with them. They are called "Veddah" none are over 5 ft. and all speak a language no else understands. They live in the jungle just as they have for thousands of years and shy away from the normal Sri Lankans except to occasionally come into a rual village to trade for stuff. After tading some beeds and small carvings they had made the man extends both hands straight out to grab mine, says somthing twice in their language as he bow at the waiste. this apparently seals the deal....to learn mor about these little people you can go to www.vedda.org

The picture below is of a large cobra den that the local Hindu population built a shrine around. They worship the cobra, and will come by, place a raw egg at the shrine and tap the pavement, the King cobra comes out takes the egg and heads back to the den, (Kinda like the toys in the U.S. were you put the dime on the top of teh box and a hand comes out to grab it). I of course had no interest in "tapping" the cement. The trip to Tyriai clinic felt like Christmas time because the country director was handing out permanent contracts to the workers. They are all very happy because this represents secured income for them and everyone in there family for many years.

Geting organized for the EMT class

The Hikkaduwa ambulance service is funded and is run as a pilot project by NWMT International, with the blessing of the Ministry of Health of Sri LAnka. It covers an area of about 16 square miles of coastal and inland area on the SW tip of the Island. It is run 100% by local residents with a very basic level of training, and some ongoing training with a local RN/ public health nurse Their origional training was by an NGO Doctor and RN's from New Zealand and an Lady M.D. from England who were here from the Tsunami.They did a great job starting from nothing, but I don't think any of their training thus far has been done by anyone who has ever been a professional EMS person working from the inside of and ambulance. The ambulance workers do a great job with what they have but have very little and must reuse allmost everything they do have! Almost all the workers have been "on the job" since 26th Dec. 2004 when their homes were all destroyed and they started rescuing whoever they could. Quite an on the job training program! We've secured a large hall at a ruined but partially rebuit Buddhist temple to do the training, we'll supply 14 ceiling fans for a gift to the temple for it's use.

A week of meetings

The picture to the left and below are of the ER entrance to the 3000 bed Nation Hospital in COLOMBO.
The standard of care inside is excellent. Just like a level 1 trauma center in U.S. All hospital care is free in Sri Lanka.
.......... Getting there is the problem...........
This week Carol, (the director of all NWMT operations in Sri Lanka) dragged me around to meet the important physicians, heads of NGO's (Non Government Orgonizations), and various government officials with an interest in the EMS side of medical care in Sri Lanka. Carol has worked in many third world countries and is an pro at networking and otherwise getting things done. She has done a huge amount of foundational work on the EMS project over the last year and a half since the Tsunami. She is hard to keep up with. I'm finding that getting this project off the ground requires meeting with lots of people. Many of whom have been working for, and advocating the development of an EMS system allready. She has a very full plate and is trying to pawn all the EMS stuff off on me. The meeting with the Ministry of Health required a prearranged pass, bomb check, and no cameras. Most of the other meetings required less security. But there is allways lots of security people everywere.


The picture to the Right was taken in the hill
country on the weekend. The mother on the left in the Tuk Tuk,(tri shaw), was holding her limp and in my perception soon to die 10 y/o or so, daughter in her arms, (purple dress). There was also a 3rd person in the back helping. The mother had just run out to the nearest street and walked in a circle trying to block traffic until someone driving a tri shaw stopped and was willing to take them to the nearest hospital. I'm pretty sure the mom took the time to dress her daughter and herself in their best cloths to get them a better chance of a ride/the appearance of money. This, tragically, is typical of how acute medical and traumatic emergencies are delt with at the prehospital level for the vast majority of the 20 million people in this country. After 25 years as a paramedic I found it very difficult to hold tears back after witnessing this sad pathetic scene play out.

A weekend trip to Kiru's Village

Every full moon is a Budhist holiday in Sri Lanka. So this last weekend Kiru invited us to spend the long weekend with his wife and kids at his family's village a few hours drive East of Colombo. On the way there we stopped at the elephant orphanage in Pinnewella. A 1/2 hour from Kandy. There are over 100 elephants there. You can walk right amoungst them as you see in the picture. There are "mahouts" there to keep an eye on everything. There are feeding times for the babies, and a bath time in the river which hopefully we'll see next time we go. Some of the pictures above are of the Royal Kandy gardens, a British enclave in Ceylons Tea hey days. The pictures below are of the Tea plantations . The ladies picking tea make 1 american dollar /day....as long as they don't die of snake bite, (thats what the 6 ft. long stick an the left middle, of the picture is for). Also on the way to various locations we mixed a little a little buisness with pleasure and visited a regional rual hospital with a local polititian. We spoke with 1 of the 2 doctors that work there and discussed his needs and talked about EMS. He also gave us a full tour of his 5 ward 70 bed hospital.

S0me of problems with the rual delivery aspects of EMS in in Sri lanka are access issues. The "bridge" you see below is the only way to get to a village of over 300 people. As you'll note by the picture below the sign leading to the "bridge" states it's rated now for 3 people. It was over 10 but has broke several times so it's load rating was dimnished on each occasion.

This is the same river were Bridge on The River Kwie was filmed. That night the power went 0ut at Kiru's house and what would have been a great sleep under a mosquito net with a fan, turned into an exercise for a reality show on t.v. Never the less the next morning we felt great with the cool mountain air breezing through the front patio and we were off to a national park located at 6,000 ft. elevation. More of the tea district, and monkey troups.

As often is the case the evening trip home to Colombo for the work week had 14 people in the NWMT van so some doubling up was required.

Getting started in Colombo

24 plus hours of flight time had my son Sean and I arriving in Sri Lanka on July 3rd after leaving Seattle on the 1st. We had a 9 hour layover in Hong Kong that was a pleasant break. It allowed us and two other team members that we met at the airport to go sight seeing, walk in a forrest park, visit the zoo, get a good lunch, a Starbucks coffee. Our driver "Kiru" picked us up for the of first experience of Srio Lankan driving. It is harrowing, sweat filled, jaw dropping, and generally just scarry... it also was accented by a torrential monsoon downpour. Prior to leaving I thought it would be a good idea to rent a car while in Sri LAnka. I no longer have any interest at all in this idea. An hour latter at the team building we all rapidly took to our rooms and slept/passed out. Outside it's very hot and humid as Colombo is just a little north of the equator. Our bed rooms are located on the 4th fl. at the NWMT office in Colombo, and are air conditioned thank God. The team offices are located on the 2nd floor of the same modern five story office building that is as nice or nicer than most modern office buildings in any large modern city. The office runs with a staff of about ten people. The NWMT country coordinator "Carol" was nice to me and gave me a few days of easy work. This gave me and Sean time get a little oriented and rested. Sean and I went with Kiru our interpreter/lifesaver, and our driver "Renga" for a day trip to the South West end of the island to a small town called Hikkaduwa. It is a popular tourist area and surf spot. While there we met and talked with the people at the ambulance service/dispatch center which is sponsored and run by NWMT. The Hikkaduwa ambulance/dispatch center is run as a pilot project and hopefully will become a model for the rest of the country . The picture associated with this post shows the building they work out of. Try to immagine a Tsunami wave over the roof of this building. The picture also does not show the train that was about 100 yds. behind this buiding that was flipped over killing more than 2500. (All trains in Sri Lanka are overloaded, as are all buses and all vans). The tsunami waves hit the opposite side of the Island, and then wrapped around the South and North end to cause massive dammage to the West coast as well.


The people at the ambulance quarters were fantasic. Very humble, generous, and wanting to learn more EMS stuff. They, as most people in Sri Lanka, are extremely poor. Which makes thier generosity all the more touching. Many of them suffered through the Tsunami and were then inspired to be a part of this pilot project.