The System

I have often wondered whether I am the type of person who works to change the system or simply works around the system. Now to those of you who have know me since my days in high school you may be laughing about how obvious this answer must be. But there has always been apart of me that feels that the nobler, and possibly more effective thing to do is to fix a broken system, take it head on and work for positive change.

I still believe that might be true, but here in Darfur the philosophical point seems a bit mute. Here my priority is to get the job done, system or no system. The job got done last week. After a bit of political maneuvering around the UN, we were able to partner with some wonderful medical INGOs who where willing to brave the road north with us and administer the medicine to battle the Cholera outbreak. We gave nearly 150 patients IV treatments in our school house turned clinic and distributed another 2800 Oral Re-hydration Kits to the community at large. The number of cases has begun to shift down wards and enough light has been brought to the plight of the people in the area to get people talking about a more permanent clinic in the region.

That’s not to say that the finger pointing and denials of responsibility don’t continue amongst the “Big Boys” of the humanitarian world, but at least in our small little corner the work got done, supplies where delivered, and lives where saved.

And lets not pretend I have really grown up all that much since high school…we all know how much I love working the system!

Special thanks to the medical teams that partnered with us, you’re the best!