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
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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 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. |
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 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. |
| The World's Broken Promise to our Children Former Director Carol Bellamy, now head of Unicef, says that the appalling conditions endured today by half the world's children speak to a broken promise. Too many governments are doing worse than neglecting children -- they are making deliberate, informed choices that hurt children. Read her op-ed and Unicef's report on the State of the World's Children 2005. |
| Our debt to Bill Moyers Former Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers leaves PBS next week to begin writing his memoir of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Read what Moyers says about journalism under fire, the value of a free press, and the yearning for democracy. "We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia." |
| Is Gaddi Leaving? Rumors are swirling that Peace Corps Director Vasquez may be leaving the administration. We think Director Vasquez has been doing a good job and if he decides to stay to the end of the administration, he could possibly have the same sort of impact as a Loret Ruppe Miller. If Vasquez has decided to leave, then Bob Taft, Peter McPherson, Chris Shays, or Jody Olsen would be good candidates to run the agency. Latest: For the record, Peace Corps has no comment on the rumors. |
| The Birth of the Peace Corps UMBC's Shriver Center and the Maryland Returned Volunteers hosted Scott Stossel, biographer of Sargent Shriver, who spoke on the Birth of the Peace Corps. This is the second annual Peace Corps History series - last year's speaker was Peace Corps Director Jack Vaughn. |
| Charges possible in 1976 PCV slaying Congressman Norm Dicks has asked the U.S. attorney in Seattle to consider pursuing charges against Dennis Priven, the man accused of killing Peace Corps Volunteer Deborah Gardner on the South Pacific island of Tonga 28 years ago. Background on this story here and here. |
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Story Source: Columbian
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