3 Weeks in Haiti: An extraordinary true story of service, friendship and hope.

By Michael Andrew

A group of friends and strangers unite to help hungry orphans in Haiti after the devastating Jan 12th, 2010 earthquake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9780983830009

Book preview

3 Weeks in Haiti

An extraordinary true story of service, friendship and hope.

By: Michael Andrew

www.michaelthemaven.com

3 Weeks in Haiti

By Michael Andrew

www.michaelthemaven.com

1st Edition – Submitted October 6th 2011

ISBN Number – 978-0-9838300-0-9

Maven Press

For Mark

The price you paid for freedom will never be forgotten.

www.markaforester.com

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

1- Tuesday, 12 January 2010

2- Who I Am and What I Do

3 – Thursday, 14 January 2010

4 - The Problem with Large Wheels

5 - Disaster Tourism

6 - Being Self Sustained

7 - Guerilla Welfare

8 - The Decision to Go – Friday, 15 January 2010

9- Friday 15 January 2010

10 - Brian Henry, the Notebook, and the Pencil

11 - The Dark Path Analogy

12 - Saturday 16 January 2010

13 - The Plan

14- Exit Strategies and Doubts

15 - Brian Owen

16 - Monday, 18 January 2010: Communication

17 - State Department Warnings

18 – Tuesday, 19 January 2010: A New Emergency System

19 - Heading to the Airport

20 - How The Matrix and the Fox TV Series 24 Helped Me in Haiti

21 - Meeting Brian in Orlando

22 - Wednesday, 20 January 2010

23 - A Potential Comedy of Errors

24 - The Norwegian Truls and Rick Davis-

25 - Super Heroes and Super Villains

26 - Mathieu Louis

27 - Sometimes Helping Does the Opposite – Part One

28 - Why They Riot

29 - Haitians Have Rules

30 - Sometimes Helping Does the Opposite – Part Two

31 - Into Port-Au-Prince

32 - UN Campground

33 - First night in Port-Au-Prince

34 - 21 January 2010, Thursday – First Morning in Haiti

35 - Piranhas at the Gate

36 - Target Glance

37 - Fear

38 - Moped Ride

39 - Haitian Communities

40 - Perceptions vs. Reality

41 - Tap Taps

42 - Invisibility Beats Guns and Armor

43 - A New Set of Problems

44 - Escaping the Airport

45 - Even More Problems

46 - Assets and Power

47 - The Hike

48 - Bob Poff and The Salvation Army

49 - More Aftershocks

50 - Our Camp Under Attack

51 – Friday, 22 January 2010 - First Assessment

52 - Unwanted

53 - Conflict and Division

54 - Stressed Out of our Minds

55 - What To Do In a Crisis Situation

56 - Hotel Montana & the United States Embassy

57 - Saturday, 23 January 2010, – The Amazing iPhone

58 - Choosing the Team

59 - The Task at Hand

60 - The Blame Game

61 - A Crack in the Wall

62 - Sunday, 24th January 2010

63 - If it Gets the Job Done, Nothing Else Matters

64- Misleads

65 - Monday, 25 January 2010

66 - Hustle and Flow

67 - Tuesday, 26 January 2010 - Sleeping with An Enemy

68 - The Perfect Partnership

69 - A Conflict of Interest

70 - Casey’s Orphanage

71 - The Orphanage Business

72 - Playmakers and Deal Breakers

73 - Use the Right Tool

74 - The Burden of Proof

75 - Wednesday, 27 January 2010

76 - A Time and Place to Give

77 - More Bottlenecks

78 – Care Package – Part 1

79 - Thursday, 28 January 2010

80 - Friday, 29 January 2010

81 - Hide and Seek

82 - Lost and Found

83 - Emergency Delivery

84 - Saturday, 30 January 2010

85 - Validation

86 – Sunday, 31st January 2010

87 - Meeting With Fate

88 - Care Package – Part 2

89 - The Mother Load

90 - Monday, 1 February 2010 – The Calm Before the Storm

91 - The Waiting Game

92 - Stress is Relative

93 - Problems Galore

94 - You Take Care of You

95 - Find a Way

96 - Make A Play

97 - Four Angry Gun Barrels

98 - Tuesday, 2 February 2010

99 - The Showdown

100 - Wednesday, 3 February 2010

101 - GPS > Street Addresses

102 - Thursday, 4 February 2010,

103 - Friday, 5 February 2010

104 - Filter Pure Filters

105 - Saturday, 6th February 2010

106 - Sunday, 7th February 2010

107 - Super Bowl

108 - Monday, 8th February 2010

109 - Sow A Seed

110 - Tuesday, 29 February 2010

111 - Sow a Seed: Part 2

112- Wednesday, 10th February 2010

113 - Aftermath

114 – Epilogue

115 – Special Thanks to AT&T

Appendix A: Michael’s Laws of Guerilla Welfare

Appendix B – Michael’s Disaster Go List

Appendix C – Playmakers in Haiti (Groups or Aid Organizations who directly aided our efforts)

Appendix D - Predicting What You Can Expect During a Catastrophic Disaster

Foreword

Three weeks may not sound like a very long time, but when you are on an emotional roller coaster ride day in and day out, three weeks feels like an eternity. I have never grown so much personally at any point in my life as I had during this time.

There are a number of reasons for writing this book:

First of all, the struggle for life in Haiti remains and will for years to come. It seems that we hear less and less about the trials of our Haitian brothers and sisters until calamity finds them again. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The average life expectancy of Haitian males born in 1996 is 47 years of age. It is a country that has been and will be plagued with natural disasters and diseases for years to come. I do not pretend to have answers for Haiti’s challenges and struggles, however if by writing this book I can somehow raise awareness to their situation, then it would be worth it.

Secondly, Haiti was a tremendous learning experience for me, not only about Haitian culture but also about disasters. We struggle as a society to respond to these enormous challenges and we are not prepared. There have been many disasters in recent times that have proven this to us time and again. We have the technology and means to get to where we need to be, but it will require a concerted effort. I do not pretend to have these answers either but I do have a few ideas and feel that there are important lessons to be shared about disaster preparedness in the following pages. If anything I have written can somehow educate or help prepare others for a disaster, then writing this book would also be worth it.

Third, there are a number of very important people and organizations that stepped up to the plate and made things happen in Haiti. Not only do these people deserve recognition, for their sacrifices and effort, but they illustrate the importance of how powerful synergy is in disaster problem solving. Most of the playmakers mentioned in this book are identified by their actual name, while in some cases I have changed their name for various reasons. There are countless more individuals who made tremendous sacrifices in response to Haiti’s earthquake, most of whom we will never hear about. They all deserve our gratitude and appreciation. I am deeply appreciative to every individual who contributed to the success we had in Haiti, as well as those who have encouraged and supported me in sharing this story. You all know who you are.

Most importantly; service is a true principle to lasting happiness. There is a palpable refining process you experience when you dedicate yourself to the service of others in true need; and it can be one of the most fulfilling experiences of a lifetime. It’s my desire in writing this to demonstrate that when you serve others, your own problems are diminished and life isn’t as bad as it seems. If my experience in Haiti can somehow inspire just you- then writing this book would be worth it to me.

I should warn you that narrative writing is one of my weaker creative skills. I expect my spelling, grammar, storytelling, analogies, side commentaries, observations, style and everything else involved in writing this to be a train wreck. Despite my very best efforts I also realize there will be unintended mistakes which I will need to fix in future drafts. I am going to do my best anyway, because volunteering in Haiti was one of the most risky and dangerous, yet rewarding and fulfilling things I have ever done in my life.

Please know, I am writing this from the heart and with the sincerest of intentions.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Red Lightning (www.redlightning.com), a Non-Profit Charity Organization (of which I am the founder) whose mission and goals are based on my experiences and lessons learned in Haiti, as well as other disaster events.

Introduction

Tuesday January 12th at 4:50pm local time, Evan Monsignac was working his rice stand at a market in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He had probably been there since the early morning and was probably looking forward to ending his workday and going home. Suddenly, the ground shook violently. Evan may have had just enough time to see a giant wall falling in his direction. Evan would be so completely buried in the rubble that rescue workers would never be called to look for him. He, like so many others that day, was buried and lost.

That earthquake, a massive 7.0 on the Richter scale, would kill nearly a quarter million people in just 35 seconds. In the aftermath, over a million more would find themselves homeless. The popular Hotel Montana pancaked on itself, meaning the floors collapsed upon themselves in seconds, killing an estimated 200 people instantly.

Some survivors buried beneath tons of debris may have heard the screams of other calling for help. It is very probable that there were many, perhaps hundreds, of survivors trapped in the rubble who would later die either from their injuries or agonizingly over a period of several days, slowly suffocating or starving to death. As of this writing, countless bodies still lay in the rubble and will do so for years to come.

There are many stories of amazing rescues that would take place in initial hours following the quake: stories of heroes, survivors, rescue workers, doctors, nurses, military men and women, and civilian volunteers who would donate their time, talents, and energy tirelessly in the aftermath of the destruction. I met many of these heroes and am humbled to know that we have so many truly good and selfless people in the world. You will meet many of these people in the following pages. While I use real names in some cases, many names have been changed or abbreviated to protect the identities of those concerned for various reasons.

I am not an aid worker, rescue expert, doctor, or nurse. I am a photography instructor and someone who wanted to help. This book is a first-hand account of what I saw, did, and learned in the weeks following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Many of the things I am about to tell you I personally would not have believed if I didn’t see and experience myself firsthand. To the very best of my recollection, everything you read on the following pages is true.

I now invite you to join me on the wild journey that was my 3 Weeks in Haiti.

1- Tuesday, 12 January 2010

When I first heard the report of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti, I was sitting in a hotel room, editing an instructional video for photographers. A television News Report stated that there had been an earthquake in Haiti and that was it.

I didn’t really know how serious the resulting damage was, but I remember thinking, Didn’t they have some massive storms tear through there last year? My good friend Michael Madsen posted the following message on his Facebook Wall: God Bless the people of Haiti. And that was it: I didn’t give Haiti a second thought for another two days.

2- Who I Am and What I Do

This story will only make sense if I introduce myself and explain how I got to the position in life I was in when the earthquake hit. It will help to explain what led to my decision to go to Haiti a few days later. Even now I can’t help but wonder: "What the h--- was I thinking?"

I grew up in the relatively small Northern California town of Rohnert Park. I was active in sports, student government, Boy Scouts, and my church. In high school, I played football and ran track, and was a team Captain on both squads my Senior year. We lost every football game that year, 0-10. We lost most of our track meets, too.

Later I attended Brigham Young University (BYU) and was a walk-on for the football team, mostly as a live hitting/tackling dummy (Rudy ala Mode) all five years I attended. I remember my first year hearing the members of the starting offensive line laughing as they watched my performance in tapes of our practices. Apparently they had a little contest going among themselves to see who could launch me the farthest, even if I was just a 195-pound Freshman filling in as a nose guard during practice. Some of those guys weighed more than 315 pounds. Those first two weeks of twice-a-day practice sessions were some of the most physically and mentally agonizing of my life. Truly humiliating.

Between my Freshman and Sophomore years, I served a two-year mission (1992-1994) to Moscow, Russia. It was a wonderful experience and also very tough (and cold!). At BYU, I double-majored in Pre-Med and Russian. Upon graduation, I attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where I taught undergraduate Biology as a grad student while getting a Masters in Molecular Biology, an MBA in Biotechnology, and almost a PhD in Developmental Genetics. When I say almost, I mean I spent five years on a dissertation project, passed my qualifying exams, and finally decided to drop out when my project wasn’t getting consistent results. I had taken a chance on a risky project and it didn’t work out. It was a painful experience not to receive that degree and it has haunted me since.

When I dropped out of grad school, I decided to go into business for myself and started an online photography school. I figured that my teaching skills, combined with a knowledge of cameras and problem solving (acquired during grad school) would be enough to help me make ends meet. They did: the business took off and, as a benefit apart from just making a living, it gave me tremendous amount of personal freedom. I worked when I felt like working and when I wanted time off, I could take time off.

If my PhD project had yielded the desired results, it is likely that I would have ended up in the biotech industry somewhere and wouldn’t have that freedom. Failing my PhD ultimately led to me being able to go to Haiti and get involved in a meaningful way. 

Failure can be the seed of opportunity we wouldn’t have seen or chosen otherwise.

In short, all these seemingly insignificant life experiences, including scouting, my mission, school athletics, and higher education provided me with a very unique set of skills I needed to help others in Haiti. There is no way that I could have otherwise planned or been prepared for that crisis in the way that I was. It was almost as if life had been toughening me up a little. Being a walk-on and getting beat up all those years prepared me physically. The years of failures in the lab actually taught me to pay close attention to details, carefully observe my surroundings, and overcome obstacles as they arose. My mission and teaching experience helped me to understand people. I never would have guessed or understood why these things were happening to me at the time, but looking back now, I sure am glad they did. 

We all have painful experiences and failures, but I am sure that they are for our benefit. We may not understand them now or ever, but there has to be substance behind struggle. It’s good for us. 

Failure = Strength & Opportunity.

3 – Thursday, 14 January 2010

Anyone watching the news over those first few days after the earthquake remembers the images of military helicopters kicking food out to locals on the ground. By now some of the estimates of deaths were coming in and it was at this time I started to take note. Some estimates were as high as 80,000 dead or more, which was hard for me to comprehend. It felt terrible to know so many lives had been lost so quickly. President Obama initially pledged 100 million dollars for disaster relief. Former Presidents Bush and Clinton would soon appear on television saying that what Haiti needed more than anything was monetary donations.

While some UN and Military forces were already on the ground, aid was not readily flowing to the survivors. There were also problems with looting, as well as gang members and other criminals roaming the streets. The Haitian police were given orders to kill anyone caught looting on the spot and they did.

An overwhelming sense of déjà vu entered my mind. We have seen this before. Katrina. The images of a convoy of large military trucks pulling up to the Super Dome in New Orleans days after the hurricane devastated the Gulf Coast states are not easily forgotten. Although these two massive disasters are different in nature as well as location, some things remained predictably consistent, and I started to make a list of characteristics common to both.

Lawlessness and looting; aid moves slowly.

Lawlessness and looting made perfect sense to me. Law enforcement agencies were overwhelmed by the disruption of the local infrastructure, and in the resulting chaos opportunists seized the chance to grab food, merchandise, or anything else they could carry off. It’s easy to see that, given a similar set of circumstances, it might be possible for anyone to believe that the end of the world as we know it had come. Believing this, would anything stop you from taking extra supplies or food in order to survive? Absolutely not. What was so amazing to me was the fact that this can happen so quickly. During Katrina, this occurred within a range of 24 to 48 hours. This is mind boggling. One moment, life is as we have always known it, but within the space of a few hours we may be looting just to survive. Not exactly a comforting reality of human nature to have to consider.

Why does it always seem that aid is so slow getting to disaster areas?

Days after the initial shock of the quake, I heard reports of the air traffic bottleneck at the Port-au-Prince Airport. Despite amazing efforts of the US Air Force taking command and increasing its capacity to over 1400%, there just wasn’t enough space or time for all aid planes to land there. This was a logistics nightmare. Inbound flights were eventually limited to certain aid groups, and others were being turned away. There were also reports that several search-and-rescue teams were sitting in the departure lounges of their own outward-bound airports waiting to be allowed into the disaster area. Some would never arrive, and after many days would return to their home bases.

Tremendous needs, unused assets, a waste of resources.

Still later we would hear reports of several thousands of tons of food aid offloaded but sitting on the tarmacs at the Port-Au-Prince Airport, still strapped to the original cargo pallets and it wasn’t moving. This is when my interest in the plight of Haiti really began. The scenes of devastation aired on television and other broadcast media was undeniable; it was obvious that the crowds of quake victims were hungry and frustrated with the whole situation.

Inexplicably, a lesson from physics education appeared in my mind and at that moment I understood the problem.

4 - The Problem with Large Wheels

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the physics behind the relative efficiency of different wheel sizes, it is well worth conducting the following experiment on your own because the theory is powerful and applicable to the problem described earlier.

Set up a ramp or any inclined planar surface. Obtain a large ball or wheel and a smaller ball or wheel of similar type and material and let them go at the same time at the top of the ramp. What readily becomes obvious after a few attempts is that the small wheel accelerates at a faster rate than does the large one. The reason for this is simple: A large wheel, due to its size and inertia, cannot accelerate as quickly as a small one.

The simple definition of inertia is that an object at rest tends to remain at rest until another force acts on it causing it to move. Conversely, any object in motion tends to remain in motion until another force acts on it to make it stop.

With aid agencies involved in a disaster area, it’s also a problem involving inertia: very large aid organizations cannot move as quickly as a relatively small one. Its very size makes it less efficient.

I am NOT saying that large aid organizations are useless or unnecessary: in fact, they are really the ones who make the long term relief efforts work. They have the capacity, manpower and resources to go for years. What I am saying is that the bigger the organization, the harder it is for it to accelerate quickly to respond to a major disaster.

Additionally, the bigger the magnitude of the disaster in question, the more natural it is for all concerned to assume that the only people who can help are those plugged into large military services or large aid agencies.  

Small wheels accelerate quickly.

Think about it: an aid agency comprised of several thousand individuals managing the transportation of thousands of tons of food, supplies, equipment, and material cannot just pack up and go at a moment’s notice, unless it is essentially in a perpetual state of preparedness. The only organization I know of with this size and capacity is the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, with whom I would communicate and learn much about first hand.

5 - Disaster Tourism

It was at this point I began to feel a deep desire to help beyond donating money. I have some freedom and time I can afford. On the other hand, if I was going to help, I didn’t want it to take weeks or months to get started. I wanted it to happen right now. If so many people in Haiti were hurting, the sooner I started, the sooner I could hopefully help someone. I needed to accelerate quickly.

Not fully certain where or how I could help, I began my frantic search of the Internet and found a multitude of aid organizations supporting relief efforts in Haiti, some of them asking for volunteers as well as donations. What was baffling to me was they only wanted doctors or nurses. Surely there would be a need for thousands of able-bodied volunteers to help with the clean up, move supplies and equipment, etc.?

I soon discovered that the reason there is not a general call for volunteers in the first few weeks following a disaster was that too many of those who volunteered would be Disaster Tourists. I saw many examples of this bizarre human behavior during my first week in Haiti. They are literally tourists who sign onto a relief effort so they can experience the thrill of seeing an actual disaster.

That’s exactly what we call them, too. a Salvation Army Team Leader later confided to me. He would explain that although they come with the intentions, at least in their minds, of delivering aid or helping, when in actuality, they have no real skills or assets they can provide, and become liabilities because they cannot even provide for or support themselves. They end up slowing down the aid effort.

There is no clear-cut way to identify a disaster tourist. I spoke with a hospital administrator who was furious over the fact that all of the American doctors who came didn’t bring any of their own food, and were depleting the hospital’s food supply, which was meant for patients. I would conclude that these doctors were not disaster tourists because they were supplying critical skills to the hospital in a big way.

The following is a list of the most common characteristics of disaster tourists. While 1-2 alone typically aren’t enough to qualify someone as a disaster tourist, I think if an individual has four or more of these traits, you can safely mark them down as one.

1. They are liabilities to others. (This includes becoming victims themselves.)

2. They are non-self sustaining. They do not have their own food, shelter, money, means or a plan to take care of themselves.

3. They have few useful or appropriate skills.

4. They usually only stay on location for very short periods of time (typically 1 or 2 days).

5. They feel drawn to visit specific locations sensationalized by the media coverage.

6. They photograph themselves in front of typical disaster locations with smiles on their faces.

If you ever feel inspired to volunteer for a rescue or recovery effort, make sure you do not become a disaster tourist. You should be prepared and ready to go with a plan, the appropriate skill set, and your own personal supplies, money, food and shelter before you depart for the scene of the disaster.

6 - Being Self Sustained

After both hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Katrina (2005), I had several opportunities to help clean up efforts with my church in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama. While these trips really weren’t that significant in the grand scheme of things, what I did and saw while volunteering left a strong impression on me. Our group leaders reminded us that when we were going into a disaster area to help, and we should be able to provide for ourselves on every level while we were on site. That admonition didn’t make a lot of sense at the time: I think I just assumed that if I was going as a member of the church group, the church should be able to provide food, water, shelter, and anything else I needed while working. Although this at first appears to be a perfectly reasonable assumption, it is a flawed (and unhelpful) attitude for a volunteer to adopt. As soon as you start thinking that it is someone else’s job to provide for you, you have doubled a problem and divided your freedom. Not only are you not taking care of yourself, you are shifting that responsibility to others who should be focused on the task at hand or taking care of themselves. The more you are able to provide for yourself, the more freedom you will enjoy because you do not need to rely on anyone else. Being self-sustained increases freedom.

My church’s trips to the Gulf Coast states were usually for no more than a day or two at a time. We stayed in the tent cities comprised of large numbers of church groups whose members were camped out for weeks, and in some cases, more than a month. Some of the church-sponsored camps were just fields of tents. Pretty cool, when you think about it: here’s a group of men, probably all with families and jobs, who traveled there at their own expense, all providing for themselves, in order to do some of the most difficult manual labor imaginable, and they are sleeping in tents… for weeks! So awesome!

Seeing those tent cities and their selfless occupants also left a lasting impression on me: if I intended to go to Haiti, I would need to be just like those campers. I would have to provide food, shelter, water and anything else I would need while in-country. Even if I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get to Haiti or what I would do when I got there, I did at least accept the concept of total self-sufficiency wholeheartedly.

There is a second part to this concept of self-sufficiency. Shortly after I dropped out of my PhD program, I was struggling with a lot of life-direction issues. At the time, a stranger gave me a useful piece of advice: You take care of YOU. There is a lot of power in that phrase. Not only does it mean to provide for yourself, it implies that when things go wrong, when you screw up, when you are in a bind, you are able to blame yourself for it.

I know blame is a harsh word, but blaming yourself means you acknowledge responsibility to not only make it right, but to avoid it in the future. Continual change and reform lead to freedom from that problem. So what I am saying is: to experience complete freedom, we must learn to blame ourselves for our own shortcomings and discomfort. Accepting responsibility for our failures and shortcomings also increases freedom.

These days, it’s a rare thing to see anyone step up and admit to being responsible for their own well being, as well as their own actions. Government bailouts, abuse of welfare benefits, frivolous lawsuits, and the expectation that someone else should solve their problems for them is commonplace. Shifting the blame is not just a common strategy in politics and law; it’s become a part of human nature. It’s used to remove or avoid responsibility, and it doesn’t solve the real problem at hand. I know many, many people who are absolute problem magnets, who honestly believe that they are really just victims of life, when in fact it is their own actions (or lack of) that brought these very problems. They will live their entire lives thinking that life is just dealing them one bad card after another. Once individuals realize that they alone have complete control over their own actions and decisions, they are empowered to change their lives.

Refusing to change anything in your life that you do not like is the same as choosing to have that thing in your life.

This idea relates to my time in Haiti in a number of ways. I didn’t like what I was seeing on television, and I wanted to do something about it. Additionally, if something happened to me in Haiti, if I was injured or became ill, it would be my own fault because I put myself in that situation; it would be my responsibility to either evacuate or find a way to not be a burden to anyone else. This was a reality I had to accept.

7 - Guerilla Welfare

Law 1: Do not become a target or a liability.

This is the First Law of Guerilla Welfare. Guerilla Welfare is a bit of jargon I coined to describe the activities of the many individuals I met who regularly frequent disaster areas on their own dime, intending to serve as volunteers. There is something in the human genome that, when we see tremendous suffering in others, we feel compelled to go to the rescue.

The Spanish word guerilla literally means little war. Guerilla Warfare is defined as a set of military tactics employed by small groups of non-military citizen combatants against large standing armies. These strategies include ambushes, hit-and-run raids, and sabotage. One advantage guerillas typically possess is extreme mobility, because they are small.

Guerilla Welfare, to me means Little Welfare. It is typically defined as military tactics used by small groups of citizens against large disasters. The strategies include use of small or micro-aid deliveries, gathering on the ground intelligence, and using local transportation and supplies to accomplish a mission. The guerillas do not care how help gets done, as long as it gets done.

Guerilla Welfare Warriors (GWWs) are a motley group of skilled individuals who put their lives on the line to serve and volunteer. I have never seen so many people, from so many different backgrounds, united under the banner of service. I was amazed at the wide variety of religious beliefs and political philosophies of these individuals, and how well and completely they formed a common bond despite these differences.

It would be dangerously irresponsible for the average person to jump on an airplane bound for a disaster zone without sufficient training, security, connections, or resources. I should know because I suffered the consequences for not doing so. Of course every situation is different, but anyone who does this needs to have a clear understanding that they could be putting their own lives, as well as the lives of others in great danger.

On the other hand, I have also witnessed how powerful a pure desire to serve can be when channeled into a well-prepared plan. Never underestimate your ability to step up and help, you are capable of more good than any of us can comprehend. Ultimately, it will always be your responsibility to decide if, how, when, where, with whom to volunteer and that you are doing so at your own risk. 

During the time I spent with the Haitian quake relief effort,