World's suffering brought home

By Rosario Daza
Seattle Times staff reporter

ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Lawrence Murray, 12, of Spanaway, watches a video with his Tacoma Baptist classmates about a Kosovo refugee camp at the exhibit by Northwest Medical Teams.

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Boggie Thompson expected his school's field trip to be a tour through far-flung tragedies: images of disasters, disease and war in the developing world.

He didn't anticipate a window into his first home — a Romanian orphanage. There, in that warehouse of children, he'd lain in his crib, drinking from a bottle propped up with a towel, the air thick with the smell of urine. There, his sister, who would also be adopted, shared a crib with a child who had died without anyone noticing.

Boggie, now a soft-spoken seventh-grader whose given name is James, shared his story for the first time this week with classmates from Shoreline Christian School as they toured the "Windows of Need, Doors of Hope" exhibit by Northwest Medical Teams at Seattle's Magnuson Park.

At a time when most kids can't wait to rip through their Christmas-present loot, about 1,000 students from mostly private schools visited the free exhibit, intended to give them a taste of the extreme poverty and conflict relief volunteers have seen in Iraq, Kosovo and Romania.

Through videos, photos, sets and even smells, middle- and high-school students glimpsed what life is like for the 1.2 billion in the world who live on less than $1 a day. For Northwest Medical Team volunteers, some of whom served as tour guides, the experience offered a much-needed outlet for the harrowing stories they absorb on humanitarian stints and carry back to their relatively comfortable lives.

While reaction from the kids was mixed, Boggie was brought to tears by the Romanian scene, which is dominated by an image of a gaunt couple carrying two children and peering into the orphanage through iron window bars. A cot with stained sheets, a filthy bathtub and the smell of ammonia round out the display.

Contact information For information or to tour the exhibit, call Northwest Medical Teams' Western Washington office at 425-454-TEAM.

"It made me cry because that was my home," Boggie said. "I feel bad for the people still living there because they can't afford good health care, medicines and food. It's sad that we're kind of better off than them."

Timing isn't accidental

According to Soozi Redkey of Northwest Medical Teams, it's no accident that the traveling exhibit, which takes up 10,000 square feet and cost $25,000, is timed for right before the holidays.

"It brings home what people really need to exist, and points out the contrast in their lives versus the lives of all these other children," said Redkey, vice president of the Oregon-based group, which counts 4,000 volunteers and has an annual budget of $200 million. "It's very difficult for kids to go outside themselves and see that life isn't just about getting — it's about giving."

She hopes the educational exhibit, which she considers too graphic for younger kids, will motivate older ones to make a difference, whether it's by choosing a health-care profession, starting a community-service project or just by opening their eyes to current events.

For medical volunteers like Catlin Goss, a veteran of stints in Iraq, Kosovo and India, it's difficult to return to the United States and find that adults are just as, or perhaps more, desensitized to stories of war and suffering as these students.

	ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Dr. Catlin Goss, at far right, leads students from Tacoma Baptist School on a tour of the exhibit. Goss is showing the students a portrayal of a Romanian orphanage. A girl at left covers her nose because of the ammonia smell. About 1,000 students planned to tour the exhibit.

"Coming back is almost harder than going to these places," said Goss, 66, a general surgeon at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds. "You want to tell everybody about it, but nobody wants to listen. We in America think we're not really part of the world, like we're another planet."

Goss said he's learned to deal with the disconnect by never turning down an opportunity to answer questions or "serve as a tour guide."

After a video explaining how some countries are crippled by huge national debts, Goss tells students he is not trying to frighten or discourage them. He's hoping they'll think about these complex problems and help come up with solutions.

"I'm going to step on your toes a bit," he warned 22 Tacoma Baptist students crowded on the floor. He tells them it's one thing to see TV images of Kosovar refugees and quite another to see, firsthand, families shell-shocked and shattered by war.

And he asks them to imagine walking in the snow, without a coat or shoes, making their way to a place as far away as Los Angeles.

In another room, volunteer Delaney Harmon sits in a re-creation of a Mexico City garbage dump, surrounded by mounds of trash, a rusty bicycle and a cot made of wood planks.

Harmon, who has written a small book about her relief missions to the dump, tells of returning from helping children who live and work there, and crying at the mere sight of her washing machine.

"Here is soap, running water, piles of white and dark clothes, and there are children who haven't been able to change their clothes for so long that their skin has grown into their clothing," the Gig Harbor woman said.

Behind Carol Zada, a Redmond emergency-room nurse, a light bulb flashes every three seconds to indicate that another child has died. Zada, who will volunteer in Sudan after Thanksgiving, explains to students that children burned by cooking fires in Moldovia must lie on rusty wire screens so their wounds can drain into pails below.

Two years ago, a student fainted from such graphic portrayals. This time around, the reactions varied widely:

"Poverty will never be eliminated," said Nick Smith, one of the tallest boys in his eighth-grade class at Tacoma Baptist. "The world doesn't get better. It just gets worse."

"They're like weeds," a friend added, referring to people in need.

But the exhibit caused Dillon Canzler , a seventh-grader, to rethink his Christmas plans.

"Most of us, when the stores open, ask our parents, 'Can we get this, can we get that?' We have so much, but we still want more."

Wrinkling his forehead, he wonders whether he'll send some of his Christmas presents to children who might find them more valuable.

That's his short-term plan. In the future, he hopes to become a missionary.

Rosario Daza: 206-464-2393 or rdaza@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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