It’s going to be tough to validate any definitions of legitimate volunteer and morbid tourist. However, I would say the legitimate volunteer is the person that becomes a part of the community they’re helping. They also seem to make significant personal sacrifice in order to volunteer. Perhaps in the form of leaving a job, using every minute of their annual vacation time, spending a large percentage of their income to volunteer, or staying for a longer than usual time. The morbid tourist could probably be defined as those who volunteer for a short period of time, make little to no personal sacrifice, and most importantly are never really engaged with the local community.

There’s also a much less tangible aspect to volunteers that is the true defining factor between these two classifications. Their genuine motivation. Which, as you can guess, is sometimes quite different from their announced motivation. Volunteers seem to fall into two groups, which also mirror the legitimate and tourist labels. These two groups are the selfless and the self righteous. I’ve seen volunteers that were motivated by their own self righteous need to confirm their superiority. They need to validate how successful and great they are by having disaster victims shower them with gratitude. Then on the other hand there are the selfless volunteers that are not interested in appreciation or recognition. They’re simply interested in doing the right thing for the sake of doing it.

A large focus of the morbid tourist finger pointing is specific to the unskilled volunteer. People with clearly applicable skills, such as doctors, engineers, etc are seemingly excused from the morbid tourism moniker. However, in my practical experience, it appears that the opposite is more often true. I’ve seen plenty of examples where a skilled person will arrive at a disaster and spend their brief few days neck deep in photo opportunities and detached judgments. As though in a bubble, they stay separate from the people they are there to help. They leave as quickly as they arrived and then pronounce their experience to be genuinely life affirming, humbling and stunning. Whereas the unskilled volunteers I’ve encountered are more often than not desperate to help in any way they can. They eagerly throw themselves into any helpful task and are quick to engage the community that they’re helping.

Naturally, with every black and white comparison there is plenty of grey to go around. There isn’t a legitimately selfless volunteer out there who doesn’t slip into those moments of tourism or indulgence. On the other hand, there’s certainly times that the tourist gets caught up in the community and ends up genuinely moved to help. All this said, I’m glad to be able to say that the morbid tourist is certainly the rare exception. The overwhelming majority of volunteers that I’ve encountered has been genuinely interested in just lending a helping hand.

The moral of all this? I guess it’s to be aware of yourself while you’re in that beautiful pre-trip phase where you’re all caught up in the idealism of volunteering. Why are you actually going? Would the disaster victims honestly be better off with your airfare, or with your presence? Honestly.

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// shawn

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed, I appreciate it! Please be sure to stop by the site sometimes and leave a comment so I know you're still alive. I worry about you. Are you eating okay? Ok, see ya! -- Disaster Response Volunteer, or Morbid Tourist? is a post from: Rerunaround

Morale wise things here are going fine. There’s plenty of times where I can think of much better places to be. Then there’s other times where I can’t think of any place better. So it works out. The hard adjustment for me this week is getting used to people leaving. There’s some really cool folks volunteering down here and it’s quite sad when they head home.

For those folks curious what the various international presence was like here, it’s pretty mixed, but not as mixed as you might think. Léogâne was the quake epicenter, so we see a ton of relief groups pass through here. Generally, on the international front the largest impact group is the Canadian military. They began leaving this week though. Then I see a mix of smaller groups like the Japanese and Canadian Red Cross, the Korean army (arriving this week with heavy machinery), and a smattering of UN military police. Then there’s also various food and medical relief charities here and there. The only American presence in town is from private charities, not the military.

Well here’s a smattering of various photos from around town. A lot of these came from the market. Although it may not look much like a market to you. I’m off to see if I can find some leftover rice and beans.

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// shawn

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed, I appreciate it! Please be sure to stop by the site sometimes and leave a comment so I know you're still alive. I worry about you. Are you eating okay? Ok, see ya! -- Haiti Photo Potpourri is a post from: Rerunaround

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// shawn

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed, I appreciate it! Please be sure to stop by the site sometimes and leave a comment so I know you're still alive. I worry about you. Are you eating okay? Ok, see ya! -- Random Léogâne, Haiti Photos is a post from: Rerunaround

If I had to describe Haiti in one sentence; it’s just like some mad snow globe maker took equal parts people, cement, and mosquitoes, put it all in the oven, then shook the hell out of it. The devastation here is really amazing. Everywhere I look there are collapsed buildings and houses. There are shacks sitting in the streets made of out everything possible. Wherever there used to be a courtyard or field there’s now hundreds and hundreds of people trying to live in tents and under tarps. In this heat the middle of those packed solid tent cities must be pure hell. The streets are packed all day with people looking for work or running kids. I can’t imagine how they have the energy to run in this heat, but it’s really nice to see them having a good time. Despite all the suffering, the Haitians I have met so far have been quite nice. I suppose it says a lot about these people that they can be subjected to such catastrophe and still keep going.

The group I’m working with here is Hands On Disaster Response. We have a cool little base here in Léogâne built out of an old disco. We have  a lot of projects on the go all the time, but the one I started on was building some outdoor showers at a local hospital/clinic. Other projects are things like clearing rubble, transporting and organizing relief supplies, building fences and buildings, and so on. The projects change all the time, so the variety is fantastic. It seems like there are about three dozen folks here and everyone has been really nice. I suppose jerks aren’t drawn to travel really far to horrible conditions in order to volunteer.

So far I’m really happy with HODR and the projects here. I could do with a little less heat, humidity and mosquitoes, but such is life. Anyways, I’ll work on getting some good pictures soon — I feel bad taking pictures of people because it feels like the rest of the world just likes to gawk at the suffering. You know, like those jerks who slow down to stare at car crashes. If there’s anything you would like to know about Haiti, HODR, Heat, Humidity, Helicopters (you get to see some awesome UN and various military helicopters here), just holler.

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// shawn

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed, I appreciate it! Please be sure to stop by the site sometimes and leave a comment so I know you're still alive. I worry about you. Are you eating okay? Ok, see ya! -- First Impressions Of Volunteering In Haiti is a post from: Rerunaround

The plan is to spend about 3 months in Haiti. Although I reserve the right to cut that time short if the humidity and bucket showers are making me homicidal. I’ll be working with Hands On Disaster Response in Léogâne. I’m expecting a lot of hard work in a really bleak place. So we’ll see how that plays out. I haven’t really had to work hard for a few years, so that too will be interesting. It sounds like a lot of the projects we’ll be doing will involve clearing rubble and the such. At least to start.

I’ll do my best to get in some posts on what it’s like in Haiti. I’m sure my spare time will be unreliable though. If there is anything in particular you’d like to hear about or see from the area certainly let me know. Ted Beatie is also down there right now, so if you’re interested you should definitely check out his accounts of the scene.

After Haiti I hope to get to the Dominican Republic and Cuba. I’m betting that both those places will be great. Especially after months of labour. Then it’s up to New York for a few days at the end of June then… who knows. I kind of have my eye on Oktoberfest, but it’s just too far away to tell for certain.

As I said, I’ll be sad to leave Victoria. It really is a lovely city and well worth a visit if you have the opportunity to do so. I’ve met several great people in the past month here and had a lot of fun. So that’s pretty much the state of the union  for me. Keep on truckin’.

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// shawn

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed, I appreciate it! Please be sure to stop by the site sometimes and leave a comment so I know you're still alive. I worry about you. Are you eating okay? Ok, see ya! -- T-Minus 3 Days To Haiti is a post from: Rerunaround

This week in the Sauce™ I’d like to share a few sweet new travel blogs that I found. Plus great articles from some familiar favourites, some good phonetography shots, and I’ll sum up my new travel plans.

For whatever reason, this week brought some awesome new travel blogs to my attention. By, “new” I mean, “new to me” not necessarily newly created. With 4 out of 5 of these being written by women I wonder if there’s any data showing which gender is prevalent in travel blogging. Anyways, check these puppies out!

• The Adventures of D
• The Aussie Nomad
• Heels and Wheels (oh yea, Vote For Bobbi!)
• The Jungle Princess
• Jasmine Wanders

There’s a succinct piece up on Monkey Brewster about why us independent travel bloggers do what we do, and why many of us dig the, “I got friends in low places” approach. Speaking of travel blogging, I’ll be attending TBEX 2010 in NYC after all. Holler at me if you’ll be there also!

Yet again Forks and Jets have inspired me. This time their great post on The B’s Knees pegged Barcelona strongly on my todo list. Also in the inspiration department there is a fantastic lowdown on New Zealand over on The Road Forks — required reading if you ever intend to visit the big NZ.

Okay, so my new travel plans. I was going to head to Japan on Feb 3rd and then meander throughout Asia from there. Nice plan, and I think I will pick it up again around July-ish. In the past couple weeks a few things have pulled me another direction though. A lot of inspiration from certain writers to visit Cuba this year (which I’ve mentioned in previous posts), plus the Haiti earthquakes brought an issue I have to the forefront. I used to be proud that I had an Occupational First Aid 3 certification. It was a practical skill that was genuinely useful in all manner of situations. However, after years in my corporate carpet box, I no longer have that certification. So when looking into volunteering in Haiti it was really discouraging that my only useful skills were being hella good at video games and having a penchant for project management. I want to volunteer to do some rebuilding in Haiti, but first I am going to get my first aid certifications again. In order to do that I’m trading some home renovation skills for a place to sleep in Victoria, BC for the month of February. That gives me the time and place to get re-certified. From there I’ll try and get setup with a volunteer scheme in Haiti. Then I’ll also be regionally situated to check out Cuba. Perhaps throw some Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico into the mix. I’ll head north when it starts to get really hot in June, attend TBEX in New York, then perhaps pick up the Japan plan. I dig my new plan, but we’ll see how it unfolds. The only guaranteed part is that with no commitments I’m as prone to changing my mind as a Bangkok whore on an aircraft carrier.

Enough yapping, here’s some of the pictures I took with my phone while minding my own business around Montreal this week.

I must say that I admire the Montreal bike commuters who keep at it throughout the winter. Drivers here are not exactly bike friendly, then add to that the slippery sides of the road and the cold and you have one seriously dedicated cyclist.

My phone does an especially craptacular job of catching snowflakes. They were everywhere and as huge as corn flakes, but it’s not like you could tell from this photo. The size of the snowflakes is perhaps my favourite thing about Montreal.

Montreal has a seemingly large population of creepy fur guys. Or at least I have a very keen eye for spotting them. This guy is a perfect example, so I had to take a pic. He’s walking at about quarter normal walking speed, high out of his mind, with the proverbial fur guy leather pants, and he has no clue where he is going. The only thing unusual about this one is that he isn’t chain smoking like a bingo caller on welfare Wednesday. I won’t rant on here about wearing fur. However, the other day while riding in a taxi from the Montreal airport, I saw this huge, obnoxious billboard that said, “Fur, the most environmental choice!” What the hell?

These are the stairs at my local bank. So you take stairs halfway up then take escalators the other halfway up. There’s no “all stairs” or “all escalators” option. So while this is strange in itself, the whole fiasco also blocks the main thoroughfare of the building. Most people need to walk over or around this mess to get where they need to go. I’d definitely fire the traffic flow wizard who came up with that one.

Anyways, have a good day! Holler at me if you have something cool I should look at for next week’s round up. Thanks!

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// shawn

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed, I appreciate it! Please be sure to stop by the site sometimes and leave a comment so I know you're still alive. I worry about you. Are you eating okay? Ok, see ya! -- Week Sauce: New Is The New Old is a post from: Rerunaround