uprooted by war

An estimated 33 million people around the world have been uprooted and forced to flee their homes seeking refuge. Today Alison, Carol, and I visited a model refugee camp set up in Central Park by the Doctors without Borders organization. It was quite interesting, and it made the reality of the situation sink in. Some things I learned:

* According to international law, refugees who flee their homes and find safety in another country have certain rights, including the right to seek asylum, the right to protection, the right to receive assistance with food and medicine, and the right to a lasting solution. Refugees who seek safety within their home country (internally displaced persons, IDPs) have none of these rights.

*Aid workers seek to provide refugees with five gallons of water per person each day, though in emergencies, each person may only receive one or two gallons. The average American uses 100 gallons of water each day. (These containers hold about five gallons.)
* If ample food is not available, aid agencies may supply BP5 bars for refugees. Each grown man would receive two bars each day, for a total of 1200 calories - the bare minimum needed for survival. We tasted the bars today, and they're very bland, but not too bad. Unless, of course, it were all we had to eat every day for months.

* To protect refugees from disease, aid workers fly vaccines into the countries where they are working. Most of the vaccines must be kept cool, so they are packed in special boxes with insulation and ice packs, and each box has an electronic thermometer that tracks the temperature changes. It's difficult for aid workers to predict which medicines will be needed, where, and when.

* Children under the age of five are at the greatest risk for malnutrition because their bodies are growing and their immune systems are fairly weak. Workers use a band to measure the upper arms of the children to determine the most severely malnourished. They may provide parents with packets of a brown paste called Plumpy'Nut (the packets look like ketchup and the paste looks similar to peanut butter) to feed their children.

After touring the camp, we went to Union Square at 14th Street in hopes of finding the farmer's market, but it seems the weather drove them away before we arrived. So we opted to grab a table at Au Bon Pain and get some warm drinks. Then we visited Designer Shoe Warehouse so the California girls could look at snow boots. Winter is indeed on its way! On the way back to school we stopped at the Garden of Eden grocery store for some fresh fruit, and then finally trekked back to school. We decided to head right back out again for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant, since earlier in the day Carol revealed that she is Vietnamese-American. She made some great meal recommendations! I ordered pho (pronounced with a short u sound), a noodle soup with beef. Yummy and warm after a chilly, wet day!