The 42 million people uprooted by war who we talk about during the exhibit do not include those displaced by natural disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes. But many of the people affected by such disasters often end up living in IDP camps, in some of the same conditions as those displaced by violent conflict—vulnerable to disease and lack of food and water, and having suffered physical and mental trauma.

On August 15, 2007, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale shook the coast of Peru, killing 600 people, wounding 2,000, and making tens of thousands of people newly displaced. MSF arrived within 24 hours to assess the needs, and Luis Encinas served as Emergency Coordinator for the mission that followed, leading his team into the severely affected town of Guadalupe. Read part of the diary Luis kept during the emergency intervention below.

You can also read a story about the emergency intervention here.

August 26 – 28, 2007

There’s something about Guadalupe, something that is not understandable even with the best will in the world. In the town center there is a sense of desolation everywhere. Practically all the houses have been destroyed. People live on the ground, outside, or under roofs made of cardboard and old rags. It has been nearly two weeks since the earthquake hit, and it seems like it happened yesterday.

There have been some ad-hoc distributions of food and water. The health center, by a miracle of nature, has survived. But inside, the staff are like zombies. Over a week, while they struggled to get back on their feet, the number of consultations tripled. The doctor has no mental strength left: “I am empty,” he tells me, with tears in his eyes. The center has become a sort of spiritual refuge—the mayor is there, but he is also having trouble concentrating.

The inhabitants feel that they have been abandoned. We later discover, behind a partly destroyed house, a mother and her little girl who had been trapped for hours under the debris of their house, but had survived. The two of them are lying on a makeshift bed; the mother has swollen feet, one of which is bent. Wendy, her five-year-old daughter, has a cast which covers her legs and hips, a cast that smells of urine and the odors of a wound. Their story is a moving one. The day after the earthquake her husband had brought them to the hospital in Ica, a scene of total chaos. It took them one and a half hours to travel the 12 km to the hospital. They stayed there for two hours and then were sent home because their lives were not in danger.

As for us, in the following days we saw nine other people in the same situation: fractures of the pelvis, humerus, lumbar vertebrae. For three long days, our priority goes by one name: Guadalupe. The media will have a field day here, reporting about the “olvidados,” “the forgotten ones.”

"C’est parti !" – that’s the easy way to express in French this moment of starting again. At 8:54, the first students with their teacher arrive at the main gate, and slowly, each guide takes a group and dive into their 45-minute explanation.

My group is composed of very smart kids and we made a deal at the beginning of the tour—that we will all try to imagine for a while that we are part of a the same family escaping a place where we feel unsafe. Stage by stage, interactions, questions, comments emerge, proving that a certain degree of confidence has been established. I was impressed by the level of interest and intelligence of these young teens, but specially one student; throughout the tour he was really paying attention to every single word I spoke, answering my questions with ingenuity. The little blond boy with blue eyes was, like the majority of the other students, communicating to me that he was really trying to imagine being in the position of a refugee.

The last part of the tour includes a cholera outbreak tent with different possible scenarios. I chose the worst scenerio to present, and the group went from being spectators to actors, coming up with the correct response—to isolate the cholera patient. Sadly, five minutes per station is very short, and as a guide I have to concentrate on key messages in order not to make the tour too long and allow every group the same amount of time.

Applause is probably the best reaction you can receive from your group, as are comments like “Luis, it’s was great,” or “fabulous.” This makes you very happy and gives you a lot of energy. And, finally, at the end of the tour, when we talk about how long refugees or IDPs must stay in these conditions, you suddenly realize that now in the group’s mind, we are not talking about numbers that they read about in the newspaper, but about human beings, and at this moment you feel like you’ve reached your goal!

Around 11:30, the mayor of San Diego, together with an MSF representative, made a speech about the exhibition for local reporters and photographers. This is a little different from the reality on the field—we do have photographers come to projects, but it’s generally in order to get the attention of the press and the public. But the results are the same: informing people about what is going on.

At the end of the day, after I do not know how many planes I heard and saw passing overhead, forcing the guides to talk louder or stop talking for a moment, I just want to walk for a while and immerse myself in another reality. I took the opportunity to visit the San Diego Museum of Art. On the second floor, the Modigliani painting (a blue-eyed boy) reminded me of the same clever boy from this morning. Similar look, but with another message—he seemed to say, “Now, it’s my turn to teach you something. Open your eyes and listen to me.”

In addition to being a nurse and having served as a coordinator and head of mission for different MSF projects around the world, Luis is now an operations coordinator based in Brussels, and is responsible for overseeing MSF missions in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where new fighting has broken out.

Day 1 – We are rebuilding the camp one more time. My head is busy in another part of the world with another reality, far away from here in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Here, it’s just an approximate idea of what a camp should look like. Many times today when I was busy helping to set up one of the tents, I was thinking of how many tents are needed in eastern Congo right now.

Even without some of the guides who have not arrived yet, it was amazing to see how quickly we set up this time. Just 2 hours 57 minutes for the full reconstruction of the camp, under a blue sky and in a magical place — Balboa Park. Objective: to inform, sensitize the public, and create an atmosphere where people can develop an interest and a willingness to learn more.

This is really impressive, to have a view of the city of San Diego in front of you and to be in a such famous place – the home of two World’s Fairs.