January 5, 2005: Headlines: COS - Sri Lanka: Service: Tsunami: Columbian: RPCV Paul Bollinger heads for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Thailand: Special Report: 2004 - Tsunami hits Southeast Asia: January 5, 2005: Headlines: COS - Sri Lanka: Service: Tsunami: Columbian: RPCV Paul Bollinger heads for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love
RPCVs and Peace Corps provide aid  Date: January 3 2005 No: 362 RPCVs and Peace Corps provide aid
Peace Corps is making an appeal to all Thailand RPCV's to consider serving again through the Crisis Corps. RPCVs: Read what an RPCV-led NGO is doing about the crisis an how one RPCV is headed for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love. Question: Is Crisis Corps going to India and Indonesia?
Peace Corps issues appeal to Thailand RPCVs Date: December 30 2004 No: 354 Peace Corps issues appeal to Thailand RPCVs
Peace Corps is currently assessing the situation in Thailand, anticipates a need for volunteers and is making an appeal to all Thailand RPCV's to consider serving again through the Crisis Corps. Also read this message and this message from RPCVs in Thailand. All PCVs serving in Thailand are safe. Latest: Sri Lanka RPCVs, click here for info.


By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-43-253.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.43.253) on Monday, January 03, 2005 - 5:40 pm: Edit Post

RPCV Paul Bollinger heads for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love

RPCV Paul Bollinger heads for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love

RPCV Paul Bollinger heads for Sri Lanka to help a nation he grew to love

Volunteers Head for Sri Lanka ; Ex-Peace Corps member returns to help a nation he grew to love

Jan 1, 2005

Columbian

Caption: General view of Ton Sai Bay in Thailand's Phi Phi island, December 28, 2004 after a tsunami hit the area. Nations bordering the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to Sri Lanka clawed through the wreckage of a quake-triggered tsunami for bodies to bury on Tuesday as fears grew the toll would exceed the 50,000 now reported killed. REUTERS/Luis Enrique Ascui

by Tom Vogt, Columbian Staff Writer

Paul Bollinger has been watching news video of the Indian Ocean washing over a street in Sri Lanka.

The street might be 10,000 miles away, but it isn't some "Where's that?" abstraction for Bollinger.

"I've stood on that street corner," said the executive director of the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington.

Bollinger was in Sri Lanka with the Peace Corps a few years ago. He's heading back to the island nation this weekend as part of the global response to Asia's tsunami disaster.

Bollinger volunteered for a three-week assignment with Northwest Medical Teams.

So far, the Portland-based relief agency has mustered more than 30 volunteers for medical teams that will go to work in several stricken Southern Asian nations.

The death toll has topped 121,000 and is rising every day while millions are homeless and threatened by disease.

"The rescue phase is about over," Bollinger said Thursday at the area's only free medical clinic, which is housed in the Jim Parsley Center.

"Now it's about figuring out where to put the dead, where to get clean water, how to handle the sewage."

Bollinger's team, which was scheduled to leave this morning, will include another Clark County volunteer. Anne Blaufus of Camas is an emergency room nurse at Portland Providence Medical Center.

Blaufus recently came back from a three-week volunteer assignment in Haiti. She hoped to help out in the tsunami crisis, but wasn't sure if her colleagues would be able to cover for her again, after they'd filled a three-week hole in her October work schedule. But within hours, enough co-workers stepped forward to fill her scheduled shifts, allowing Blaufus to join the Sri Lanka team.

Bollinger did an internship with Northwest Medical Teams a few years ago and was recruited for this team because of his knowledge of Sri Lanka.

The 38-year-old public health official was in the country formerly known as Ceylon for five months in 1997-98, until a civil war forced the Peace Corps to end its program there.

"It's an absolutely beautiful country," said Bollinger, a Portland-area resident.

But that isn't what's bringing Sri Lanka to prominence now.

"I'm really concerned. When I watch the TV news, I see streets I've walked on. I see waves washing over a bus stand," Bollinger said. "I've spent hours standing there."

This time, Bollinger will be more of an administrator than a hands-on health worker.

"My role will be to partner with other volunteer groups, and figure out needs for the future. I won't be doing direct patient care.

"I'll be doing my work with a satellite phone, a laptop computer and lots of paperwork," he said, and that will be crucial, too.

But there are a few people Bollinger wants to see, near the southern town of Galle.

"There is one family I'll try to find," and he really hopes their village wasn't wiped out, Bollinger said. "I lived with them."






When this story was posted in January 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Peace Corps issues appeal to Thailand RPCVs Date: December 30 2004 No: 354 Peace Corps issues appeal to Thailand RPCVs
Peace Corps is currently assessing the situation in Thailand, anticipates a need for volunteers and is making an appeal to all Thailand RPCV's to consider serving again through the Crisis Corps. Also read this message and this message from RPCVs in Thailand. All PCVs serving in Thailand are safe. Latest: Sri Lanka RPCVs, click here for info.

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RPCVs host Exhibition at University of Rochester 28 Dec
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Story Source: Columbian

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Sri Lanka; Service; Tsunami

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