About the author
Kerstin is an ex logistics manager turned Red Cross executive volunteer. She loves horses, anything with chocolate in it and trees.
More posts by Kerstin
From January 2012 on I’m Project Manager for a new Disaster Prepardness Project. The Project is called ‘Saving Lives in the Caribbean through Preparedness’ and is funded by USAID under the supervision of the America Red Cross. We also get support from the Red Cross Regional Head Office in Trinidad and Tobago. Besides Belize also St. Lucia and the Bahamas Red Cross participate in the program. So to start this new project, we had a kick-off meeting in Cable Beach/Nassau, Bahamas. Quite an experience for me!
It started with the preparation. In order to get to the Bahamas (or most any other countries) we had to travel via the US. And for that you need a visa. Yes, even when you do not set one foot outside of the airport. You’re breathing american air, so you pay for it. And get screened. If you do not get a visa approval, you have to take a (most likely 2 days) detour for example via El Salvador and/or Panama. Luckily the procedure for Germans is not as annoying as for Belizeans. Belizeans actually need to go to the embassy, apply for a visa, do a full screening incl. history of police records, pay over 150 USD and so on. Germans participate in the so called ‘visa’waiver program’. So we do not need an actual visa, but have to apply online (‘ESTA’) for what I call ‘permission to enter the USA’. So I did the well-known questionnaire, I still denied that I do not participate in money laundy, have not supported terrorists and/or plan pursue the business of prostitution during my 3 hours of layover in Miami. Then I paid 14 USD per credit card and was approved. Nice.
I expected some further questioning since a German living in Belize is not too common, so I played it safe by wearing the Red Cross T-Shirt. And it worked. The immigration officer just wanted to know if I’m a lifeguard (sorry buddy, no CPR for you today) and the typical blabla and that was it. Puh.
So I watched the rest of the second quarter of the 49ers football game (go 49ers!!) at the gate, boarded an ATR and less than an hour later arrived in Nassau. It was about 10:30pm, my head was killing me since I caught a pretty mean cold from a colleague the week before and just wanted to see my bed. There was literally no pocket on me or my backpack that was not stuffed with bacteria-filled-tissues…Urgs!
While waiting for my (slighlty destroyed) luggage I already met a few colleagues from Trinidad and St.Lucia. Very nice ladies (and one man). We left the airport and the first impression I got – were fighting taxi drivers at the airport. Great welcome. Whatever. 20 Minutes later we checked in at the Wyndham hotel (and yes, this is the place that gives the best rate for RedCross staff in case you wonder). It felt somewhat like Las Vegas (although I’ve never been to Vegas). The place is huge. And the first thing you see is the Casino. Since I guess the place was too big for service, it took us another 30min and getting lost countless times, until everybody found his tower and his room. Puh.
The workshop started the next morning at 8am at the Bahamas Red Cross Office. Besides the Director General, also the Bahamas head of the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO, yes, like the fish!) gave an inspring speach and then we started into a week full of work, planning, exercises, presentations, more planning and more exercises.
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The last day NEMO sponsored a bus so we could go on a tour through some of the communities our colleagues will work in. Quite frank, in Belize those communities would have been ‘not vulnerable enough yet’. Yes, they have the storm-marked-wodden-houses surrounded by trash. They do have the huge families living in too small houses. Maybe it was because we lived in the touristy-area but most of those beaten up houses where still surrounded by big, sturdy houses. Since we did not see all communities since the bus couldn’t go everywhere I’m sure there are worse areas than what we saw. I’m still convinced that those people are in need, I’m just saying that in Belize people suffer at a different level. But still, there are similarities like low-lying areas (highest point in Bahamas is not higher than 600ft I learnt) that suffer from every hurricane and every tropical storm. But also the non-wheather related problems are similar: Teenage-pregnancy (we just talked to a 13year old girl with her newborn child…), abuse, violence, crime, no-go areas and so on. And last but not least: Homophobia. We passed a school that was discribed as a school ‘with problems of lesbianism’ (who is surprised by that when most men seem to be abusive criminals in that area?). During our ‘private tour’ with one colleague from the Bahamas another similarity was clear: She seemed to knew EVERYBODY *haha*. Like in Belize, you just howler across the street if you see a person that you know, are related with or just want to tease. Overall, it was an interesting tour to see a lot of similarities as well as differences.
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The Bahamas Red Cross is well organised and it was impressive to see how well they handle not only the disaster management but also other areas like fundraising, volunteer managment or their feeding program. The Bahamas (or the small part that we’ve seen) seems very much ‘americanized’. Big mansions, fancy shopping, numerous fast-food-franchises and a lot more to please the rich and famous (and the tourists ;-) ).
Speaking of. Yes, we had some time off. Every day after 5:30pm (reaching the hotel by 6:00pm). That left us with 30min every day to enjoy the beach before it was getting dark. The beach was beautiful! White sand, no turtlegrass, warm water… NICE! The hotel gym was … well.. ‘small’ (really? 2 treatmills and 2 cross trainers for >500 rooms?!).. so we sticked to the pool area (although the waterslide was shut down after 5:00pm …*grmbl*), internet (in the lobby) and either dining-out or harassing the in-hotel-Starbucks.
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The week flew by quite fast and too soon we were back at the airport to return to Belize. Since we could do a pre-clearance in Nassau we did not need to go through immigration in Miami again. Which was nice, because I could use the 3 hours of layover for exploring and ‘shopping’. After 7 months in Belize I was quite surprised how happy I could be strolling through a duty free shop. Real chocolate (not melted and refrozen 28times), new clothes (no donated or overstock in weird sizes from the US), alcohol to reasonable prices (a bottle of Baileys is about 50 USD in Belize), food variety and last but not least hectic people in fancy suits and dresses (not that I actually missed them). Back at Belize International airport I shopped some more wine for a colleague (yes, here you can do duty free even when you entering the country… I won’t start a debate on the purpose of “duty free” in the duty-free-shop business model…ts..) and was back in 85F warm Belize City.
I truly enjoyed the trip. A lot of work, yes. Very interesting to see the work of other Red Cross National Societies. And yes, I enjoyed the ‘real’ white sandy beach (Belize has nothing like that), the Starbucks morning and night snacks and the karaoke with the other girls (I guess there is NO business in the world that does not go to karaoke a party as part of week long meetings and workshops *haha*), reactivating my Johnny-Cash-business-traveller-ipod-playlist and the sneaking into the ‘other’ world in Miami.
Maybe I come back to Bahamas. But then for vacation =)
P.S.: A news team from the Bahamas was there as well (I was actually giving a presentation and the camera man was in front of me…)