WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN EMERGENCY MEMBER

This is an excerpt from my log book of my mission at the Tiziano Terzani hospital,
Emergency, Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan (December 2007 - June 2008).

Sunday, January 27, 2008
"..... But what does it mean to be a member of Emergency? And who in hell knows ... only one month to reply...

But that's why you write, to write down in the memory emotions, events, objectives, and take a snapshot with words of a particular moment of one’s life; in my life this moment is called Afghanistan, labeled Emergency.

An organization that exists thanks to some madmen. Yes .. I wrote madmen.

Brad Pitt in “Army of Twelve Monkeys”, said that madman is he who is not like most; different, crazy was the doctor who first realized the existence of microbes and told everyone to wash their hands because they were filled with thousands of tiny animals, so small as to be invisible in every sense; and I cannot imagine how badly that guy was teased and derided, and even called "crazy."

One day a guy decides with its friends and colleagues to do something ... and meanwhile take off.

It is the mid-nineties. And they go where there is war, to assist, coordinate, build hospitals ... And more than once! Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Sudan.... and who knows how many missions, albeit smaller, I forgot. What in hell do those people think?

They don’t play with a full deck!

They are crazy!

And now I'm in one of their hospitals, and like many others after them and before me, a real hospital that provides medical aid to the sick, and social assistance to Afghan workers, respecting their being and partly absorbs it, and that in part they absorb Emergency, to be able one day to take over by themselves the hospital and it’s philosophy; I remember that this is the only organization in Lash that rejects weapons from guards, guards in all respects, but not armed, does not mean simply unarmed, but permeable, which is the only way to peaceful coexistence first, human relationships and real friendships after ...

Being a member of Emergency here in Lash means to be an elect, a privileged individual that can live an experience like this; it means that he represent all those who worked hard, risked their lives to build all this, when all this did not exist; it means that he represent all those that are currently on this mission with you; it means that every action must be well evaluated, because the consequences could be bigger than planned, and that all of this and all people depend on each single action …of all.

Common sense is not enough, you always hope in instinct.

(Do not misunderstand me, I am not publicizing neither exalting Emergency, and I became its devoted disciple ... this is just "my" way of living Emergency)