It was filmed by humanitarian staff and freelance filmmakers from around the globe (over 50 contributors in total) with all time donated.

www.worldhumanitarianday.info

See you all again in August 2011!

Shona Witch Doctor in Zimbabwe

Once you have made sure you have all desired and required vaccinations for your upcoming trip, it is time to start packing your travel medicine kit. Below are three handy lists that I hope will help you complete your next packing endeavor.

Whether for SG Guatemala July 2010 or SG Ethiopia November 2010, this list applies to any trip to the developing world and remote places on our small planet.  Always visit the Centers for Disease Control website and enter your destination.  In addition, the CDC website has a search option to find a travel clinic near you.

‘The Traveler’s Medicine Cabinet’ by Dr. Richard Wenzel
Items that should be in every tourists first aid kit from Budget Travel Magazine
1. Antacid (Pepto Bismol, Pepcid Complete)
2. Bandages and First Aid Antibiotic Ointment  (Band-Aids, Nexcare, Neosporin, Polysporin, or Bacitracin)
3. Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, Nuprin)
4. Insect repellent with over 30% deet  (Ultrathon 34%, Ben’s 30% Deet)
5. Motion Sickness Remedy (Dramamine, Marezine, Hyland’s Motion Sickness-Homeopathic, Pepogest-natural, )
6. Anti-Diarrheal (Imodium, Pepto Bismol,
7.  Antihistamines or Allergy Medicine (Benadryl)
8. Sunscreen
9. Antibiotic (Zithromax, Cipro)
10. Anti-Inflamatory Cream (Cortaid, 1% Hydrocortisone Cream)

Some alternatives to the above list can be found at the terrific Vagabondish Travelzine.
‘The Traveller’s Medicine Cabinet’ by Robert Evans
1. Kratom- “an anti-depressant, analgesic, or a stimulant. It has immuno-stimulant properties and can also be used to treat diarrhea.”
2. Kava Kava- Acts as a numbing agent, also can treat social anxiety and stress.
3. Oil of Oregano- Combats intestinal parasites, fights the flu and colds, and relieves cramps.
4. Ginger Root- Treats nausea, diarrhea, and seasickness
5. Kanna- Robert Evans says Kanna is a “mood elevator and an anti-anxiety medication. It also works as an appetite suppressant, and can lead to tiredness and vivid dreaming. In other words, Kanna is the perfect pre-flight medication.”

And finally, here is what I carry in my kit:
-Psi Bands for motion sickness (I wear them on buses to prevent motion sickness), I also carry a small travel vial of Dramamine and Hyland’s Homeopathic Motion Sickness tabs.
-Ginger chews by either The Ginger People or Reed’s.  You can tell I am prone to motion sickness.
-Off-label versions of Advil (muscle soreness), aspirin (good for sunburns), and Aleve (headaches)
-Valerian Root tincture for adjusting to jet lag and time zone differences
-Band-aids in different sizes, a few alcohol swabs, Neosporin
-Benadryl
-Ben’s 30 Deet insect repellent
-Sunscreen for face, for lips, and another for body.  30-50 SPF, and always a sunhat and good sunglasses.
-Digestive enzymes
-Pepto Bismol travel size.  Not only for upset stomach but also to take before eating or drinking suspect food.  It can coat the stomach before a street food adventure and protect from mild bacteria invasions.
-Rehydration salts, and/or Gatorade and EmergenC packets
-Mini deodorent, toothpaste, dental floss, Q-tips, 2-in-1 mini shampoo
-Clean Well hand sanitizer it’s natural, and Wet Ones singles
-Travel pack tissues, I stash packs of tissues in every bag.
-Mini nail file, pack of matches, mini nail clippers and tweezers, collapsible hair brush
-Cipro
-Earplugs
-Red bull in the 3oz size for after a long haul flight

This year I am taking Robert Evans’ advice and bringing Kanna.  I took Klonopin on my long last flight which was to India and it made for very comfortable flying.  Kanna sounds fun and is natural! A great online store for all things mini and travel size is Minimus.biz.  If everything is mini in your pack you reduce baggage weight then you have left more room in your pack for gifts and mementos.

Please comment, add to this list your tried and true travel medicine kit items! Happy Packing!

Making Injera in San Francisco

Making Injera in Gondar, Ethiopia

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One of the fastest ways to feel like a local when traveling is to eat like a local.  And, sometimes you need to prepare to eat like a local.  In less than 5 months we are embarking on an important trip to Ethiopia.  We still have a few spots left, so its not too late to join us in working towards eradicating obstetric fistula and it’s causes by making media that matters.

One of the most exciting things about Ethiopian culture is the cuisine.  In Ethiopia, there are a few things to learn before sitting down to eat.  Traditional Ethiopian cuisine is eaten with your hand, your right hand, and you shouldn’t get food on your fingers above the knuckles, bad table manners.  Visit eHow’s How To Eat Ethiopian Food for a step by step set of instructions.  Then, go eat with your fingers at the Ethiopian Restaurant near you.  Listed below are Ethiopian restaurants in many of the American cities the current SalaamGarage Ethiopian Team members reside in, including Omaha, Nebraska where there is a much loved Ethiopian market and restaurant!

Common Vegetarian dishes

Where to go for Ethiopian Food…

New York, NY
Zoma
2084 Frederick Douglass Blvd (Harlem near Morningside Park)
Awash
947 Amsterdam Ave (Upper Westside)
Ghenet Brooklyn
348 Douglass St (Park Slope, Gowanus, Brooklyn)

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Seattle, WA
Tagla
4423 Rainier Ave. (Columbia City)
Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine
2000 S Jackson St (Central)
Saba
110 12th Ave (Central/Capital Hill)
Assimba
2722 E Cherry St (Central District)

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Bete-Lukas in Portland

Portland, OR…
Bete-Lukas Ethiopian Restaurant
2504 SE 50th Ave Ste D (Clinton, Southeast)
E’Njoni
910 N Killingsworth St (North Portland)
Queen of Sheba
2413 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd (Northeast)

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Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN…
Fasika
510 Snelling Ave N, Saint Paul (Hamline – Midway)

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San Francisco, CA
Assab Eritrean Restaurant
2845 Geary Blvd (NOPA)

Axum
698 Haight St (Lower Haight)

New Eritrea Restaurant
907 Irving St. (Inner Sunset)

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Omaha, NE…
Ethiopian Restaurant
2555 Leavenworth St. (between 25th and 26th)

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Los Angeles, CA…
Awash
5990 1/2 W Pico Blvd (West Los Angeles)

Merkato Ethiopian Restaurant & Market
1036 1/2 S Fairfax Ave (Carthay Sq)

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

And finally, the best places in the United States for Ethiopian cuisine is Washington, DC, where the largest population of Ethiopians live outside Ethiopia…

Dukem
1114-1118 U Street NW
(U Street corridor)

Dukem in Baltimore, MD
1100 Maryland Ave.
(Near Mount Royal Station)

Meskerem
2434 18th St NW (Adams Morgan)

Lalibela
1415 14th St NW (Logan Circle)

Etete
1942 9th St NW (U Street corridor)

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

a parting shot by Gary Edenfield while he was in Tigray, Ethiopia to drill a well with Charity Water…

Thanks Yelpers!  For more Ethiopian in the United States and Canada visit YELP! Please comment by including your favorite Ethiopian Bars and Restaurants anywhere!

Addis

“At age 11, Addis’ childhood was over. Her education was the first casualty.”

Kidan

“She has plans. But there are other plans. How do you choose between your child’s education and your family’s survival?”

The Girl Effect

“The Girl Effect, n.: The powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society.”

Below is a slideshow that was produced for NPR in 2007 that explains obstetric fistula and explores some of the causes.  At the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital lives and livelihoods are saved every day.  Every woman who comes to them with child birth injuries is treated completely free.

Hospital Gives Ethiopian Women a Chance at Care
by Brenda Wilson

Required viewing for all participants: The NOVA Documentary A Walk to Beautiful: “The award winning feature-length documentary A Walk to Beautiful tells the stories of five Ethiopian women who suffer from devastating childbirth injuries and embark on a journey to reclaim their lost dignity. Rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities, these women are left to spend the rest of their lives in loneliness and shame. They make the choice to take the long and arduous journey to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in search of a cure and a new life.” (available at Netflix instantly & by mail)

Click here for more from Brenda Wilson for NPR’s All Things Considered

Selam. Peace. Salaam. Shalom.

photo by Rolf Cosar

Yesterday the Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala erupted. Popular TV journalist Anibal Achila was killed by volcanic rocks, about 1,700 people have been displaced, and 3 children are missing.

In less than two months, a SalaamGarage team made up of a select group of citizen journalists (professional and amateur photographers, videographers, bloggers, etc) embark on an exclusive trip to the remote Ixil Triangle in Guatemala.  We are collaborating with NGO Agros International.  Agros provides economic stability and empowerment for farmers and families through land ownership.  The SalaamGarage team will have exclusive access to remote villages where we will create independent projects about the stories unfolding within. Those stories will raise awareness and increase support for Agros’ efforts throughout Central America.

There is 1 spot available for a media maker with the calling to make a big difference for oft neglected and under-served communities of Mayans and other indigenous people in rural Guatemala.  Although the deposit deadline has passed, it is not too late to get onboard. You must email megan@salaamgarage.com asap if you are interested.

Guatemalans always seem to be rebuilding. They have emerged from a 36 year civil war, recovered from landslides, and volcanic eruptions from one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Our stories will help with whatever the aftermath of yesterday’s eruption will be on the already struggling population.

Shot in Guatemala this last July, Noemi and her Mother explain why land ownership has changed their lives in this video: http://www.agros.org/video_gallery.cfm#agrosvideo-4

In addition to visiting villages, we will be exploring the churches and ruins of Antigua, climbing volcano Pacaya if it is safe, observing ancient Mayan rituals in practice at the Chichicastenango market, and staying in “Guatemala’s most magical hotel” on Lake Atitlan.  This is going to be a life changing trip and project.  SalaamGarage founder and internationally renowned documentary photographer Amanda Koster is leading this trip.

SalaamGarage will award the $300 Engage!Refund to 2 Guatemala trip participants who create and follow through on a plan of action utilizing their media production skills to support Agros villages.

All SalaamGarage participants get:
-A SalaamGarage “stories” site.  Stories.SalaamGarage.com is a media share site for those looking to organize and share media gathered during their trip. It works just like a wordpress blog but you get the broader audience.  An example is here: http://stories.salaamgarage.com/michael/
-Refer-a-friend $200 discount on your next trip.
-All past travelers automatically receive a $200 discount
-Free Blurb book, click here for more BLURB partnership info
-Special fund raising support and opportunities exclusive to SalaamGarage participants

Pacaya Volcano on a gentler day

Join us in creating media projects and raising awareness about Agros International’s unique land-lending model that is empowering rural families to pull themselves out of poverty.

http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=55297

Photographer Janat Horn and Journalist Daysha Eaton’s Vietnam landmines story published at Vietnamese English Language paper Thanh Nie News.  Congrats you two!

Exerpt:

50-year-old Cuc lives in Dong Ha, just west of Hue. She has called the dusty town of less than twenty thousand people home for most of her life.

She survived the war years unharmed. But about ten years later a remnant of the war changed her life forever.

“It was an afternoon in 1986. I was cleaning the garden with my father. There was a landmine and I was severely injured. I just lay there in the garden for about an hour and then my family took me to hospital.”

It all happened so fast that she doesn’t remember much about the accident, only that people said it was a cluster bomb.

However, she does recall the despair she felt when she woke up in the hospital. “When I woke up the next day, I found out I had lost parts of my body… people were frightened when they saw me. When my family brought my son in, he was one year old then, he was scared and cried and he just wanted to go home. I was downhearted and I didn’t want to go back to my family.”

Unfortunately, Cuc’s story is not uncommon in Quang Tri. Since the war ended in 1975 more than seven thousand people have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance, or UXO, in the province.

Thanks to SalaamGarage partner NGO Peacetrees Vietnam for being so instrumental in clearing Quang Tri Provence of UXO’s.  Please read further this powerful story reported on during January 2010 SalaamGarage Trip to Vietnam here:

http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=55297

The SalaamGarage India team that visited Vatsalya.org this past September are in high gear working on their stories, building a book, building multimedia.  To inspire us further, we found out today that Vatsalya bought a new, much needed water buffalo for Udayan through a donation from SalaamGarage’s ’10% of profit to NGO’ policy. So, our travelers bought this little guy! Their small herd helps with farm work and provide the children with training in dairy work, farming, livestock care, and of course isn’t it cool to own and care for water buffalo?  Udayan might someday have enough water buffalo to run a small dairy for income.

Check out Surili and her baby buffalo!

Unfortunately the event they fear most happened again this week.  Four men who were weeding at a coffee plantation near the former US military base at Khe Sahn were seriously injured Sunday Feb. 7, 2010 when they accidently detonated a hidden bomb.

Landmines.org reported, “‘My hoe hit the bomb while I was removing weeds from around a coffee tree,’ Chung said. ‘My cousins were all behind me. I don’t know what the ordnance was.’ Chung said he was in severe pain because all four of his limbs were badly injured. The explosion severed his right hand’s thumb and index finger. Open wounds could be seen on his left thigh and shin, and his right foot was badly injured.

For more on this story please visit Landmines.org

photos by Amanda Koster, 2010

On the SalaamGarage trip to India in September 2009, Lisa was moved like I rarely ever see. Everyone who travels with SalaamGarage gets to choose the story they are going to tell but for Lisa, it was she who was chosen.
Lisa Field-Elliot and Eduardo Sciammarella, 2 of the 10 participants on the India project, chose to report on the Women’s Self-Help Groups that Jaipur, India based Vatsalya.org runs. None of us knew how amazing and life changing this program was till we experienced it.

Lisa describes what it was like when she met Sugan: “She put her arm around me and called me sister. She gave me a beautiful Rajasthani dress, that may take her up to six months to replace, because she wanted me to wear it when I came to visit her home.”  Lisa adds, “Sugan knew that we are the same. We are women. We are mothers. We are curious seekers of beauty and connection. We enjoy laughter and tea. We want only the best for our children. We care for our homes and want to be useful outside them. Our hearts are open.”

“It only took a moment, an afternoon, for Sugan and I to really see one another. To see ourselves, reflected back, in the simplicity of who we are. What I learned from my time with Sugan in the rural Indian village of Shampura, is that, at the bottom of things, we are the same. That our stories collide in a meeting. My story about Sugan is as much about myself as it is about her. It is about connection, being seen, and helping a woman, a sister, realize her potential in this world.”

For more of Lisa’s beautiful and breathtaking words, please read about her visit to the Durgah Sufi Shrine in Ajmer India at her blog entry called “Thread”

Lisa Field-Elliot’s blog Doorwaystraveler
twitter.com/doorwaystravelr