Acupuncturists Without Borders Trip

It has been difficult to put into words the experience that is the current Gulf Coast. If you never got to see New Orleans before Katrina, you are just like the rest of us that never got to see Pompeii before Vesuvius. A city once home to millions has now been reduced to what feels like 15,000 displaced residents and relief workers. The scene is surreal to say the least. Skyscrapers have plywood where glass once was; the roof of the Superdome has had men working on it for weeks, looking like half a dozen tethered aphids.

I wanted to help, and strongly felt the need to do more than send the few dollars I could spare. I found a group looking for volunteers, Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB), which has been going out to communities with an effective grass roots organization called Common Ground. AWB is essentially rolling teams of 4 - 6 acupuncturists from the US and Canada, devoting at least a week to help. Both groups were founded recently and have become quite valuable to the residents and relief workers.

Common Ground was started by a resident, Malik Rahim, and runs out of his mosque in Algiers, a neighborhood of New Orleans. AWB treated patients every day at their medical clinic and went with their mobile unit to other areas of the city. Part of our mandate at AWB has been to treat the relief workers as well as the residents. The Common Ground staff, who were also distributing food and clothing, often referred patients to us, explaining how our acupuncture treatments kept them going.

Following the Common Ground mobile unit, we were able to help the largest number of residents. In one instance, I was in the 9th ward under a Red Cross tent. At first, the Red Cross did not want us performing acupuncture treatments, but they were eventually intrigued. A few were treated and felt the relaxing effects. They gave us an area to set up, and invited us back. The venue was difficult on a mental and physical level. The 9th ward was one of the most devastated areas, and one of the poorest to begin with. The flies were unreal and the smell unbearable. The sidewalk had to be washed with bleach to clear the maggots before we could set up the acupuncture clean field.

The smell was a ubiquitous foe to be dealt with across the city. After a day or two, you learned to discern rotting garbage, from mold, from sewage, from the unmistakable stench of death and decay. Besides the flies, small bugs stuck to the sweat on your body, making it rather itchy. Bulldozers were clearing neighborhoods of downed trees and debris; the dust and mold flew everywhere, into your eyes, nose and ears.

Many are without gas or electricity even if their property was not badly damaged. An outdoor kitchen was set up in Washington Square Park by the Rainbow Family, an eclectic group of tattooed and pierced do-gooders, cooking for the entire neighborhood and providing whatever medicine and clothing they could. As we treated residents outside in the park, it looked like a scene from the days of Haight - Ashbury. It was a great novelty treating outdoors on a beautiful day, until a city employee came by to cut the lawn just after I had put needles in three patients. It was a challenge to get the needles out and move the patients and the treatment area before we were literally mowed down. That was one of many “firsts” that week.

There is a little café in Algiers that has become the town center, with the Army Corps, contractors, etc. making it their office. It is quite a scene as it continues to be one of the only businesses open in the area. We were treating in another smaller park across the street from the cafe on Fridays, joined by local massage therapists who were also giving their time. The sense of community here was amazing. Everyone knew each other and checked on each other. It harkened back to a 1950's rural community more than modern day city.

Saturday brought us to the 7th ward and exhaustion was already beginning to settle in. Again we were with the Common Ground mobile unit treating many residents who were surveying the damage to their homes for the first time. We treated more than forty people with acupuncture that day under a highway off-ramp. The only advertising was a few crudely spray-painted signs reading "Free Clinic".

We also treated FEMA staff, government officials and their families. The lucky ones had been on a cruise ship for weeks, docked on the Mississippi. The accommodations there are slightly improved compared to most in the community. One of our staff thought it most gracious of the cruise line to “donate” ships like that. It was later released that the line received $250 million for their hospitality.

On Sunday we were invited to a Vietnamese community, (Queen Mary of Vietnam Catholic Church) where hundreds have just returned to the devastated area of Michaud. Many were refugees from Vietnam and now could not stay in the homes they made here. They were back to start cleaning up, so two thousand people were there for the sermon, "We will survive and rebuild!" As the sermon ended, everyone headed toward us for food from the Red Cross, inoculations from Common Ground, and acupuncture. It was a bit chaotic, but we were able to treat 60 people in less than 2 hours, and they were incredibly grateful. I am not terribly religious, but I was personally blessed by a nun who was being treated, and it felt pretty good.

To convey the devastation, neither pictures nor words do it justice. It will be many years before New Orleans is back to any kind of a functioning city. Everywhere you go there are crumbled houses, boats far from navigable waters, refrigerators in trees, cars on roofs, electric wires still down. Very few streetlights are working, so the only way to get around safely is to treat every intersection as a 4-way stop. Even with extra care and so few people, there are an incredible number of traffic accidents as residents start to return, and dazedly witness the devastation for the first time.

The X spray painted on each house looks innocuous enough until you get closer and read, "...," who or what was found inside. I have actually blocked out of my mind a lot of what I saw written. It was very difficult to deal with not just the humans, but the animals that were powerless against the force of the storm and the wait for help. I almost took a skinny puppy home from Washington Square Park until I realized it was being cared for. The difficult logistics of adopting the animal were far from my mind at the time.

We stayed in a huge tent encampment in Algiers set up by FEMA and the National Guard. We were surrounded by M1 assault rifles and Humvees, eating high calorie, meat-based meals provided by the Cattleman's Meat Packing Co, out of Missouri. You just never knew where your next meal would come from, so you had to stock up or subsist off of ‘Balance’ bars. We were grateful for the accommodations but it took some of us a while to get used to diesel fumes, generator noise and army cots. The camp was housing all sorts of other responders so we treated everyone there also. Our camp neighbors were wary at first, but as word got around how good you felt after a treatment, we were treating twenty at a time.

You have to take care of yourself to do this kind of work. The acupuncturists tried to cover for each other to take breaks, and we treated each other. It gave us the ability to listen to the harrowing tales of our patients. One team member was told about an 11year old boy having constant night terrors. Shortly after hearing this, the acupuncturist unfolded a clean cardboard box, set it on the ashen ground, and sat in the sun while I continued to treat patients. It was one heartbreaking story too many for him. I did not take many breaks and did not get treated until my last day, and I paid the price for several days after my return.

I have not really let go of the experience yet. I still see all the faces and remember the stories. One local responder with a sprained shoulder had just a few payments left on a home that no longer exists. A team leader who had pulled bodies out of Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center was now doing it again in New Orleans. He did not even seem to mind that after falling out of a moving truck, he could not move his left arm. With no MRI available, I treated him and though he was not entirely out of pain, he had use of his arm the next day. A resident who passed out at the Vietnamese church from heat exhaustion was revived with just acupuncture, ice, water and a little food. Almost all the residents had high blood pressure and the chronically ill had run out of their medications. We constantly recommended patients go to what hospitals were open, but with the exception of Common Ground staff, we were often the only healthcare providers around. Acupuncturists have some medical training, but few of us will ever be as close to emergency medicine as we were in New Orleans.

In the final tally, I treated nearly 100 residents and relief workers in five days. That translates to my team treating 500-600 people in those five days. It would not have happened without the assistance of the Inner Strength Yoga community.

Those we treated were very grateful for the help and respite that acupuncture offered. While they were being treated with acupuncture for the first time, many survivors wept for the first time. Some venues we visited daily. The next day people would tell us it was the first real sleep they had had in weeks. Thank you for helping me get down there to do whatever I could to assist them.

Acupuncturists Without Borders only has the funding to stay in New Orleans until December. We really need to keep this going. Other volunteers have been posting their stories and experiences on the AWB website at acuwithoutborders.org. You can also find more information on Common Ground at http://www.commongroundrelief.org/.

Thank you for your interest and support.