After Haiyan

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Enrico “Rico” Selga is a well-known figure to many at Clark College. Either they recognize him from his time as a nursing student here during the 1990s, or they saw him receive the Clark College Foundation’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 2010, or they’ve ordered a latte from him at one of the two coffee kiosks he and his wife, Jennifer, run on Clark’s main campus. However, not everyone knows what he does with his “off” hours: For years, Selga has volunteered with the church-based nonprofit Medical Teams International in areas stricken by disaster or conflict. He’s done so much of this work that MTI now sends him as a “First in Team” member, tasked with scouting the area and organizing resources before the rest of the medical team arrives. When the Philippines were hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan on November 8, 2013–demolishing buildings and killing thousands of people–Selga, who is originally from the Philippines, was one of the first volunteers to land in the hard-hit town of Guiuan. We wrote about Selga’s trip to treat earthquake victims in Haiti in a previous issue of Clark 24/7; here, Selga describes his latest experience in his own words.

Looking from the small window of the Australian Air Force C-130 airplane one week after Super Typhoon Haiyan, the community of Guiuan looked like it had been bombed. Houses were flattened; trees were uprooted or snapped in half. Once I was on the ground, I could also see that all the vehicles were damaged and that the people were wet and dirty. Locals told me that some people had resorted to eating dogs for food, while others had looted stores for food or items to trade for food. Survivors created shelters from scraps of wood or tin. Others used tarpaulins or plastic bags. During the nights, the wind would blow so hard that the rain went sideways. It was impossible to stay dry, and the combination of wetness, hunger, and thirst made it close to impossible to sleep.

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Guiuan residents line up to use the phone.

Under normal conditions, Guiuan is a tropical paradise, filled with picturesque white sand beaches perfect for surfing and diving. But Haiyan left nothing standing. Houses were demolished beyond repair. Hotels and resorts were reduced to sticks and rubble. Wells that normally provide safe drinking water were contaminated. Fallen trees and power lines made the streets unpassable by car.

The children walked around the community with their parents, checking on their neighbors. I could hear the children telling their parents that they were hungry and thirsty. I tried my best to hold back my tears because I too have a child. I knew that children ages 6 months to 2 years would be particularly vulnerable because there was no milk or safe water to drink. Inevitably, many of them would get sick or die from the conditions. I cannot imagine how helpless their parents must feel. I know that if the roles were reversed, I too would be looting and stealing.

Yet these same people who looted were the first ones to share their food. Food rations were scarce, but people still shared them with their neighbors. Despite the catastrophe people found ways to smile and laugh. It was beautiful to observe the people banding together to help each other. And then one of them helped me.

On my first day in Guiuan, I met Klaus Engesvoll, the man who became my savior and best friend. I was sitting on the bench at Viva grocery, which had become the relief center of the town. There was a long line outside the looted grocery for the only functional satellite phone available to call the outside world. People were given 60 seconds to talk to someone. Each person was given three chances to dial a phone number. If nobody answered on the other side, the person lost his turn. The free telephone service was available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but lines started forming at 5 a.m. and the last calls were made after 9 p.m. Listening to the conversations was heart-breaking. One woman narrated the story of how she lost her husband and children. Another woman kept on repeating, “Food is so hard.” For 60 seconds all she could muster up to say was, “Food is so hard.” It was painful to hear their 60-second stories of tragedy, but the ability to share their stories gave them hope that soon help would arrive. The last caller of the day was Klaus. He called his sister in Norway. After his call, he invited me and my colleague to stay in his house.

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Klaus Engesvoll and Rico Selga

Klaus came to the Philippines from Norway on a vacation many years ago. He never left. Eventually, he married Amy, with whom he has two children who speak four languages fluently. Klaus told me how his family and 60 other people were saved by hiding in the laundry room and garage of his house. He said that if the wind had blown for another hour, they too might not have survived–and that when they came out after the storm had passed, they did not know if anyone else had.

The day after the storm, Amy cooked all their food and shared it with their neighbors, a move typical of her and Klaus’s generosity. After knowing me for only a day, Klaus invited me to stay in his house, where he and his family shared their scant amount of relief goods, water, and food with me. This was uncomfortable for me because I was supposed to be there providing help to them. In the end, our team would not have been able to function without his hospitality and willingness to share everything with us.

Klaus and I spent 24 hours a day together, brainstorming and helping the people of Guiuan. We would go to bed at midnight and stare at the ceiling, waiting for daylight so we could start working again. I would get up from my cot at 5:30 in the morning to go to his room, where I would see him crammed in his bed with Amy and their children–his eyes open. He would turn to me, nod, and get up without waking his family.

Around us, everything was sopping wet. In the living room at least six of his neighbors slept on wet sofas. Some nights, there were three inches of water all over the house. His stairs looked like a waterfall with the rain coming down hard from the second floor, where the roof had been torn off by the storm. Debris filled his house. Mud and grass peppered the walls and ceiling.

The first priority of each day was to find water, food, medications, and gasoline. Without gas, we could not send Doctor Alan out to see the patients. Without water and food, we were finished. In a disaster-hit community it is difficult to find the most basic necessities. Klaus and I had to go around town scavenging from other international aid agencies and the local market. We also needed to find a tarpaulin to cover Klaus’s blown-off roof–with more volunteers arriving soon, we needed a place for them to stay.

Once, we spent the whole day just begging for one liter of gas–and got none. We spent countless hours networking at United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to procure gas and diesel. The diesel was important to keep our van moving. The van was by no means comfortable–it was missing a windshield and the engine had issues–but it was moving. I borrowed it from a neighbor on a handshake promise to pay him at a later date. This neighbor had three vans that at one point became shelter for 23 people.

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Dr. Alan, far right yellow shirt.

On that same day, the first baby was born in a tent hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). The crowd in the OCHA meeting clapped in jubilation. We had also scored enough tarpaulin to cover our house and one clinic. The tarpaulin was a gift from International Organization for Migration (IOM) and MSF. On this same day we also received a water filter from Guiuan Disaster Relief Coordination (GDRC). We could now filter enough water for 100 people daily for five years. It was a happy day for the community and for our organization. Klaus and I celebrated with a drink of rum, but neither Klaus nor I slept well because we both knew there was more work to be done.

The next day the carpenters worked at a feverish pace to finish putting tarpaulin on Klaus’s house. It was a dangerous job because the tarpaulin was slippery and any mistake would send them falling from a two-story house. Meanwhile, thanks to neighbors, the inside of his house was miraculously cleaned of wood, metal, and glass debris in five days.

There were other signs of hope that day–and new challenges. For the first week after the storm, there was no food for sale in the market. Almost two weeks later, on the Thursday that Klaus’s house got covered, the markets began selling more varied food again. Disappointingly, the prices for that food skyrocketed as more international aid workers (aka “rich foreigners”) arrived. The day before, we had bought a kilo of potatoes for $1.50; now a kilo cost $3.50. This is an unintended side effect of the arrival of the relief agencies, one felt most keenly by the locals. The average salary of an unskilled laborer is about $5 per day. I paid the men fixing the roof about $5 per day. I paid the foreman about $9 per day. These people cannot afford a 300-percent increase in food costs.

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By Friday morning, we had welcomed 12 volunteer doctors, nurses, and paramedics. We were in full capacity to treat patients. Doctor Alan now had a complete team with him when he went out to the villages. Our team immediately went to work treating patients in Guiuan, Mercedes, and Salcedo. In one day, we were able to see more than 200 patients and provided them with essential medications.

My job with the ‘First In Team’ was finished. We had shelter, food, water, volunteers and clinics. This was good news, but my heart sank because it also meant that soon I would be sent back home. Klaus felt it too. He kept saying, “It will be strange without you, Rico.” For nearly two weeks, I had spent my days and nights with Klaus. He had an uncanny ability to make friends and get things done. I admired his strength and perseverance, growing to love him like a brother. I knew that he would give his life for me–as I would for him.

Before departing I asked Klaus, “What are you going to do after all of this is done?” He told me that he was not leaving, that Guiuan is forever his home. But then he added, “I do not know, Rico. For the first time in my life, I care only about others. I do not care what happens to me. I have never felt this way before. I will only leave if my children cannot go to school. If the schools are not rebuilt, I must return to Norway for my children.” I could see in his eyes that he is deeply worried. I felt guilty for leaving him and going home.

I believe in the power of dreams. It will triumph over adversity. Dreams have the power to transform despair into hope. Dreams keep us taking the next step forward. Dreams turn the impossible into reality. Today I dream of rebuilding a school. I have never rebuilt a school. This is a dream I cannot accomplish without help. I need a small miracle. Twenty-three years after evacuating my home in a US Air Force C-130 plane due to an earthquake, and after 13 years of volunteering in disaster-stricken and war-torn areas like Kosovo, Liberia, Uganda, and Haiti, I am needed now in the land of my bones, Philippines.

Photos: Rico and Jennifer Selga




Green Penguins with Wet Feathers

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Environmental Biology students take a break before planting a Chinese Pistache in Scarpelli Circle to smile with Instructional and Classroom Support Technician Tim Carper, who organizes the annual tree planting at Clark.

As Kermit the Frog once sang, it’s not easy being green. Admittedly, Kermit probably wasn’t talking about shoveling dirt in a cold, quintessentially Pacific Northwest drizzle. But members of the Clark College and greater Vancouver community banded together on November 6 to do just that during the college’s annual tree planting. These plantings help maintain the main campus’s arboretum, as well as its status as a Tree Campus USA.

The group that gathered under rainy skies to plant trees included students from Clark’s Environmental Biology class; members of the Clark College Environmental Club; participants in the Washington Conservation Corps; members of the college’s Tree Advisory Committee; and representatives from Vancouver’s Urban Forestry. Staff from Clark College Facilities Services also assisted in the project.

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Volunteers clear Scarpelli Circle of non-native plants and prepare it for having a new tree planted in its center.

The group planted four trees. Two of them–an American Yellowwood and a Chinese Pistache–were donated by Urban Forestry and are new species to the arboretum. The group also planted a Knobcone Pine; this tree was actually an offshoot from an older tree on campus that died and was removed. “So technically, it is a new tree to campus as well, because the parent tree had died and been removed from the inventory,” said Instructional and Classroom Support Technician Tim Carper, who has organized the tree planting and Tree Campus USA activities at Clark for the past four years.

Carper noted that the Yellowwood and Pistache weren’t just new species to the campus–they were entirely new genera. “We are very close to having trees representing every genus that will reasonably grow in our climate and is available to us,” he said. “That has been kind of the guideline for adding to the arboretum.”

The fourth tree, a Snake-Bark Maple with colorful leaves and bark, was appropriately enough planted near Frost Arts Center.

 Photos: Clark College/Hannah Erickson

 

 




Penguins in the News

Rick and Jeri Kemmer

Rick and Jeri Kemmer in Tanzania, where they first learned about the moringa tree.

In 2012, Clark 24/7 profiled BEECH Administrative Assistant Jeri Kemmer for the work she and her husband, Rick, have done to create a nonprofit planting moringa trees in developing countries. The moringa tree can be of great benefit to people living in marginal economies; its leaves and green seedpods are nutritious, its dried seeds have coagulant properties that can help filter contaminants in dirty water, and its ripe seeds produce an oil that can be used as machinery lubricant.

At the time of our article, the Kemmers’ nonprofit, Strong Harvest International, was just getting going. Recently, however, it’s been gaining more publicity; the Columbian ran an article on Strong Harvest earlier this month, and just last night KATU aired a segment on Strong Harvest and the moringa tree. Kemmer, meanwhile, says she and Rick plan to continue growing the nonprofit, eventually expanding into Tanzania and Haiti. (They currently operate in Nicaragua and Mexico.)

 

Photo courtesy of Jeri Kemmer




Doing Good in the Worst of Times

DSCF0229On Jan. 13, the day after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the island nation of Haiti just 16 miles outside of its capital, Port-au-Prince, Enrico “Rico” Selga received a call from Medical Teams International (MTI), a church-based nonprofit offering medical assistance to countries in need. Selga, a nurse, has volunteered with the group for about eight years and is on their “on call” list to respond to disasters right away. Immediately, Selga began preparing to leave for three weeks in Haiti–negotiating time off from work, gathering supplies, and squaring things away before his departure.

Nothing, however, could truly prepare him for the devastation he encountered when he arrived in Port-au-Prince on a United Nations plane. “You have to realize, after the earthquake 230,000 people died instantly,” he said. “But then there’s another half million homeless people, living in makeshift camps. They’re refugees inside their own country, living in tents, huts, cardboard boxes, most of them with just sheets to cover themselves. And we’re seeing 27 new camps start up a day. You can imagine the kind of chaos that brings.”

Selga is a familiar face at Clark College. After graduating from Mountain View High School in 1993, he attended Clark for two years, earning an Associate Degree in Nursing before transferring to WSU Vancouver to continue his education. With his wife, Jennifer, he owns the Coffee Lounge espresso stand in Foster Hall.

But while many Clarkers know Selga as an alumnus and a business owner, fewer know about Selga’s frequent trips–about one a year–to provide medical relief in some of the world’s most traumatized and impoverished nations. And fewer still realize what a toll his most recent trip to earthquake-stricken Haiti has taken on him and his fellow volunteers.

“I think the adjustment coming back is a lot harder than the adjustment you make going there,” he said during an interview just days after his return on March 1, pulling off his battered wire-frame glasses to rub his eyes wearily. “You always have a reverse culture shock. When you come back, everything’s hunky dory, people are walking around like nothing’s happened. And I–I just had my
soul shaken.”

DSCF0648Crowded together in unsanitary conditions and without access to clean drinking water, Haitians were easy prey for every kind of disease imaginable: malaria, fevers, diarrhea, infections. Additionally, even those who survived the earthquake often sustained serious injuries, and these were now becoming infected. And with the country’s infrastructure and medical institutions decimated by the quake, people had nowhere to go for treatment.

That’s where Selga came in. Working with a team of three other medical professionals, as well as with American and Nepalese military personnel to provide security, he set up a temporary clinic in one camp. “Instantly, you have a line of 200 to 300 people,” he says. “Even in the morning, it’s 85 degrees, totally humid, and people don’t care, they’re desperate for help.”

Selga and his teammates would work until it became too hot for them to function. Most of his colleagues got sick during their time in Haiti–either from heat stroke, dysentery, or plain exhaustion. “You get sick, and you just keep working,” Selga said. “You put yourself in a situation where people are suffering and you can help, and it becomes: Every second you don’t work, that’s people you could help, but aren’t.  You forget to eat. … Of course you get dehydrated. We had to start IVs on our own teammates.”

Back home, Jennifer Selga worried for her husband’s safety, but kept upbeat as she apprised Coffee Lounge customers of his work. Many patrons had learned about Selga’s trip when, just days before he left, a note on the Coffee Lounge tip jar explained that he would be donating all tips to Hatians. “Between Tuesday and Friday, we collected $200,” Jennifer Selga said.

That wasn’t the extent of Clarkers’ support. History professor Dr. Anita Fisher, who met Selga when he was part of Model UN as a student, mentioned the Haiti trip to the History Club, whose members quickly arranged a rummage sale to raise funds for Selga to take with him. Between the sale’s proceeds and Fisher’s own personal contribution, they were able to give Selga another $140, which he then distributed to Haitians personally when he got there.

Fisher has stayed in contact with Selga over the years. “He was a serious student,” she recalls. “He always did his work, and he was always interested in other people’s cultures. He was just a natural humanitarian–you just got that sense right from the beginning.”

Jennifer Selga said that she has grown accustomed to her husband’s giving away all his possessions on these trips–which, sure enough, he did before he left Haiti. “I’ve learned to give him presents for his car,” she said. “He can’t take his car with him.”

DSCF0468But Selga’s missions of mercy cost him more than just luggage. He’s taking unpaid leave, so he’s lost a month’s worth of salary. He comes home exhausted. And this time, he also lost something more precious than money or sleep: He lost a friend. One of Selga’s teammates, Issaquah nurse Matt Bouthillier, died of cardiac arrest on March 1, the day Selga flew out of Haiti.

“We heard about it when we touched down in Dallas,” Selga said. “I thought they were joking. I’d spent the whole last evening there with him, talking and laughing. … He looked healthy. It just happened so fast.”

Despite this grim reminder of the perils of his volunteer work, Selga doesn’t plan to quit anytime soon. In fact, he’s planning on returning to Haiti in the summer–and Fisher is considering going with him.

“There’s nothing that’s as rewarding as helping other people,” Selga said. “You could see it in the Haitians’ eyes, the gratitude; they didn’t have to say a word. They’re very gracious people, very kind and hospitable.”

Selga offered one last note of caution to people who might be tempted to forget about Haiti’s plight as it fades from the top of the news headlines. “This is the calm before the storm,” he warned. “The rainy season is coming, and people still don’t have shelter. You’re going to see a lot of people die.”

And somewhere in a tent, or a half-demolished church-turned-clinic, or a makeshift shelter in the middle of a refugee camp, Selga will be there, trying to stem the tide.

The photos accompanying this article were taken by Enrico Selga during his trip to Haiti. For those who would like to donate to Haiti relief efforts, Selga suggests choosing a “good charity that fits their values.” A good first step is to visit a site like Charity Navigator that rates charities’ effectiveness.