3 Day Simulation in the "Field"

Well ,  back from the woods! 3 days in the forest in Andover, MA which was turned into the Chad/Sudan border for our Humanitarian Studies Class.  This was the final test for the course I took in January at Harvard. We were joined by new students who were taking an accelerated 2-week program for more experienced field workers. A week before 'deployment' we had a briefing where we were given a very limited situation report and met our team. I was placed as the 'shelter specialist' for MSF (Doctors Without Borders). 


Friday I got to the 'airport customs' a bit late, with a carful of classmates who all had to stay for a class in the morning. We were a bit lucky in that we didn't have to wait for 2 hours in line at the customs line that morning! When we arrived we hiked into the woods, with our smuggled cell phones, texting our teammates for their location, which was really just 'walk towards the lake' haha. 

After a while we made it to the NGO campsite where everyone had set up their tents with their respective teams. We had CARE, MSF, OxFam, IMC, Merlin, ICRC, IRC, and many more that I can't remember right now. 


Each team was pouring all over the woods searching out all of the refugee camps which were marked by posts with different stakes with diff. color codes.

 There were militia roaming around, robbing people and got a hold of cell phone numbers which meant the phone lines were all comprimised. 

militia raiding our camp on the other side... us "getting off the X"

That night we all had to get to the 'UN Ops' tent where we were debriefed and told we would have an 8pm curfew. Back at camp, we had dinner (MRE's) and warmed up at the fire. It was FREEZING out. Luckily our group decided to eat first then have our meeting back at the tents b/c at around 9pm the camp was raided by militia. We had to dive into our tents, turn the lights off and keep low. Even though we knew the AK-47s were fake, it was super creepy laying low in a cold tent with ppl you barely know, while you hear the crunch of leaves walking by your tent and the zipping and unzipping of diff. tent doors. You could see the shadows of the guns jumping around the sides of the tent.   There were raids later that night again, so suffice it to say, we were not bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning.


Saturday morning we had a 9am brief,

 and then began our days work (after being told we should have started when the sun was up-- oops!) On top of getting through our camp assessments, we went through 5 different skills sessions:


1) Learned how to stabilize a landmine victim, and get them on and off a stretcher and use a tourniquet. 

2) Got a lesson in water sanitation, how to deal with a a bunch of mediocre options-- chlorine, tastes, side-effects, shelf-life, various purifiers, etc. 
3) Built a trench latrine
4) Came up with a 30x30 Survey
5) Shelter workshop

So overall, it was very interesting. I can tell you more if you would like to know :) Back to studying for me. Just turned in my final paper last night for my gender class, and have 2 more finals to go!! Unreal!! Can't wait to party... this Friday is the Diplomat Ball!