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What I've Learnt - Summer Series Gems (November/December) · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to the Weatherflight Podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Luke, one of the producers of the show.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: As a producer, I love my work and helping Deborah and our team share so many wonderful stories.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: From food to fashion and art to music, we've got you covered.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: In our final episode of the year, we're gonna look back at some of the best moments from this past November and December.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: So sit back and enjoy.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Patron Deborah Lee Finesse and Stella much-loved actor Sigrid Thornton, now starring in her new role in the Chekhov classic The Seagull at the Sydney Theatre Company, are just two of the wonderful actors supporting what many dub one of the best acting schools in Australia, the 16th Street Actors Studio.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Its director Kim Crages has brought some of the world's most renowned acting coaches and directors here, including Leonardo DiCaprio's acting coach Larry Moss, Bradley Cooper's acting coach Elizabeth Kemp, and Ian Rickson, who directed Hugh Jackman on Broadway.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Kim has elevated what training means in this country and exposed actors at all levels of their artistic development to the world's best.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: Australian actors seem to be thriving and striving.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: How do you see the acting landscape adapting to the avalanche of streaming and other filmscape opportunities?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: And how is that changing what actors should do and learn, if at all?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_05: That's a complex and interesting question, Deb.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_05: It has multiple sides to it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_05: The answer's multifaceted, I believe, anyway.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: There's been a massive increase in the need, a desperate need for product internationally, which places Australia in an excellent position in all sorts of ways, and by virtue of that, Australian actors in a very positive and advantageous position, which I believe needs to be tempered with a vigilance regarding Australian content.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_05: You know, just to start with Australian content and we can move on to the opportunities that we all know, and most of the viewers of this and listeners to this podcast will know that Australian content is something that we can never take for granted.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: It's amalgamising a whole lot of different platforms and this massive need for product, which is fantastic, but at the risk of homogenizing those English-speaking platforms, we need to continually remind ourselves of the uniqueness of our cultural landscape and our societies and the fact that we are still discovering and rediscovering every day, every week, every month, who we really are.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_05: And the way we explore who we are and who are we becoming and ask those questions is through storytelling.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_05: And it's not necessarily through storytelling from other English-speaking platforms, it's also through storytelling, just exclusively Australian storytelling, as it were.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_05: That said, Australian storytelling, as we've learnt with something like Heartbreak High, which has just gone global on Netflix.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: Huge, it's been huge, huge, and you could argue quite a colloquial production.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: Is you know, there is now this thirst for um content which is different.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_05: Australian actors feed into this really well because I've always said that uh Australian actors, even when they're playing with an American accent, have a kind of, there's an individual um individuality that they can bring to the landscape, which is born out of the fact that they are different.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_05: So when Margot Robin work, for example, works with an American accent, she's bringing a different cultural sensibility, nevertheless, to the work, which I think differentiates her from the field, the rest of the field.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_05: And so I think we can we can work this to our advantage, but we need to be ever vigilant, I suppose, is a sort of I've taken a long time to answer that question.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_05: No, it's a really good point.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, and it was multifaceted, and I think that's because in a way what we're dealing with is multifaceted and multi-layered.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: And your points are really interesting.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Kim, you're seeing obviously as director of the studio, you would be seeing this sort of you've also been doing it for a long time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: So you've seen these wonderful actors and actresses go out into the world and be successful via the studio.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: What are you observing in terms of who's coming through the pipeline and how are we meeting the demand?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: Which, as Sig pointed out, is quite monolithic, whether it's parochial local work or whether it's overseas like Margot Robbie, what are you seeing come through the studio?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_04: Deb, I don't understand the question.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, can you try that again?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: So, what I'm saying, what I'm trying to understand is as the studio, that the people that come into the acting studio, has that changed?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_04: Or I is well, yeah, I think something has definitely changed in a sense of the effect of what's happening in the world.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_04: I can see the effect uh of that on young people, for sure, no question about it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: If I think about, well, you know, let me take myself back to when I was a young actress myself studying in England, you know, the idea, I just felt like the world was waiting for me.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I just threw myself into life and I really thought I was going to be received with open arms.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_04: So watching people, I see more anxiety and fear.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_04: I see people who now are striving somehow to get it right.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_04: And this notion of getting it right sometimes can surpass the whole idea of exploration and discovery and being in the unknown and the, albeit at times frightening place of the unknown, it's where magic happens.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_04: Because if something is easy or if you know it, it's not so profound.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_04: It's when you literally are willing to risk kind of it all, what you've done before, what you've known before, and to be in that process of discovery.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_04: So I would say I see a difference.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_04: I don't see anything less talented.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's the psychological stuff, Deb, that I actually see has changed dramatically.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: That's the bit.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: And Larry Moss, the great acting teacher that you mentioned, that we bring out to Australia and hopefully will come out again at the end of next year.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: He believes the two things that stop actors having successful careers are psychological issues.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we all have those because we're human and lack of technique.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: And that's why you go to an acting school or you go anywhere, so you can absolutely hone technique.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_04: So that would be my response to it.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_04: I'm seeing always talent come to our studio, divine, beautiful young people with open hearts, ready to go.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_04: But this other thing, I've never seen it so pronounced as uh of late.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_05: It's interesting, Deb.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_05: Can I just cut in there and say that that's an aspect which is so important that I had omitted, uh, Kim, because the world has been changing so fast, not just with COVID, but prior.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_05: There's been this five-year cycle which we're in at the moment, which is well, it's could last who knows, could last all of our lifetimes and beyond.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, but we're in this cycle of global uncertainty.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_05: And the the very nature of performance work, as Kim has alluded to, is risk taking.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, it requires a lot, a lot of bungee jumping off clifftops.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_05: When people, when there's a sort of universal pull over people, uh, they're less inclined to take those kinds of risks, I suppose.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I think that is, you know, it's an issue.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: It is an issue.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: And also I think what's what's interesting is that is the change that you are observing.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: And yet it's interesting that the need for Aussie actors, both locally and overseas, it's never been in such high demand as it is right now.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: Referring to the success of Heartbreak High as you did, Segrid, it's it's quite extraordinary.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: Coming out of a pandemic, these young actors have suddenly, you know, I know that that generation, it's it's touched somebody, it's touched them.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: So clearly there are people preparing to bungee jump, if you like, and go back into the vortex of which has always been challenging.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Sigrid, you would have also been having to be brave to embark on the career that you have, which has been so successful, but not everybody is successful, it can be quite challenging.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: So, Kim, are you saying that bravery is still there, or do you think there's a lot more?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_04: I do, and I think, you know, as a training studio, I think my sense of responsibility and everybody that works at that studio, you know, well-being, and I know it's a kind of buzz phrase, it's used everywhere, and what does that actually mean?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think well-being means reducing people's capacity for resilience, for resilience.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_04: I think what it really means is holding something with the greatest love and compassion and insight and value of what human beings are doing when they decide to be actors.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I truly believe it's a noble profession because you know, who in their right mind will go into some of these places that writers ask actors to go into, and they do, and they go in with this phenomenal courage and generosity of spirit because somehow I think actors, if you're a real actor, there's a deep desire to know, to understand, to plummet the depths, to look behind the facade of life, to take nothing for granted, and a great desire to reveal something about the human condition.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_04: And by inference, you always reveal something about yourself.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_04: So it's that paradox, isn't it, Sig?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_04: Acting is not about you, but it's all about you because no writer writes about you, but you've only got yourself every moment you've ever experienced, every thread, shred of imagination, every heartbreak, every joy, all of it comes to the table to create characters that people care about.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_05: That's right.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_05: And every character, uh, you know, the character that the Juliet that um, you know, uh Lucy Bloggs will play is very, very different from the Juliet that Susie Bloggs will play, uh, because they have a, you know, unique, every person is unique, obviously, and they have a unique uh emotional, psychological, intellectual makeup.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and they they draw different things uh from the world by virtue of that.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I would say I'm just gonna say one thing, and if an actor doesn't connect into that, the absolute essence of who they are, albeit plain character and you know, create, that's a creation.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: If they don't, we miss something that's so fundamental to why we connect, because it's something that Sig brings to the table.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_04: That when I watch, I'm taken on this journey, and I absolutely feel and care because she's brought something of herself to this role that is so nobody else could.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's absolutely true.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: And in fact, I think the word authenticity comes to light because really, unless you can be authentic with yourself, you can't deliver that story or that plot or that that character, and that's something that Sigurd's obviously mastered and is continuing, as you always say, you're always learning.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, always learning, never mastered actually.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but it does put me in mind of what it was, Kim or you who mentioned earlier that uh Larry Moss had said that it was you, Kim, wasn't it, who said that um, you know, work on oneself psychologically is also very, very important because self-revelation is a is a lifelong journey, and some people are never able to uh to go that deep.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: And and but we're all learning to go deep.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: Creative people are all learning to go deeper and deeper and deeper, and it's the only way to keep um uh moving forward, uh, to keep that momentum as a creative is to is to keep going deeper.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: And one of my great teachers, Carol Rosenfeld from EHB Studio, who we've also brought to Australia, she says, you know, it's an inevitability that when you act, you will come face to face with yourself.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: And Stella Radler, who was also a great teacher of the 20th century, she said, actors have the potential.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_04: Now it doesn't mean they realize that potential, but they have the potential to be the most well-rounded individuals in the world by the nature of the work they do.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_04: So often people think that actors are just kind of scatty and neurotic and narcissistic.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_04: I would suggest, you know, if you are, you're gonna have a tough time of it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_04: You have to find some real grounding in life to do this job.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Very important point, Kim, that you've just raised, because I think that's where the studio is quite an important, in a way, a sanctuary, I've observed, where these actors can hone their skills and develop their strengths.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: And also, as you say, it's not about narcissism and and sort of look at me.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's much more about the deep dive and trying to understand from where they come so they can then play the roles and be the storytellers.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: What a privilege to be able to do that.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: Is it something that does that in spades, Debbie?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_05: That's one of the things I believe distinguishes 16th Street and has long done.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_05: I think the other drama schools are, you know, everyone's catching up now because there's a lot of um discussion about, it's not to call this, but a lot of discussion about self-realisation these days, authenticity.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: But 16th Street has been doing this from the word go.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: It's had uh its MO is not only to advance the actors' skills, technique, etc., and self-discovery, but it's also to advance the actors' understanding of the world.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um they are not mutually exclusive, they are absolutely interactive and interdependent.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that Kim has taken a really, really important step in promoting that aspect of a learning performance work, yeah.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: And if I could just pop in there, Deb, I know that you um interviewed uh Peter Cooper and Supana, Bastin Cooper, who's now um Peter's wife, and we have this foundation that they are the most generous uh benefactors of.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_04: And the two aspects of that are to really give actors a liberal arts education because so much is happening in universities at the moment, and things kind of stripping away from the arts, but also to support ways that they can develop mental, emotional, and I use the word spiritual because I think that's what we're here to understand something much bigger about ourselves, not this just tiny little sense of me and I, and all of this thing that can keep us so completely trapped, and they have supported that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so thanks for acknowledging that, Sig.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_04: I'm really proud of the foundation and that contribution we hope to continue to make.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: You should be.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you should be, and and it is very important, as you say, there is an underlying spiritual element to it as well.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I've really observed some of the work that you do at 16th Street is um, you know, I know you get very attached to a lot of the people that come through, and that it's almost like a family, isn't it?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: It it really is quite unique in that sense.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: Do you see that some of these actors coming through have now, you know, are they recovering from this whole pandemic era and that you know they've all been through an extraordinary time in history.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think the arts is recovering?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think it's you want to go first on that?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, no, no, don't, please, Kim.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_04: Please.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know what?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: Storytelling is in our DNA.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's who, it's how we make sense of the world.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I believe artists will always have a role to play.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_04: I keep, I keep my everything crossed that that is the case, what I just said.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_04: And ensembles coming together with that joint purpose.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_04: And whether you're a gaffer on a film set, you're a director or an actor, or just there for one day, you are a part of something that gives people a respite.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you let's look at what happened through that pandemic.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: We all had a refuge in watching stories, in watching films, in watching television.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: And without all of that happening, you know, I think it may have been a tougher pandemic to have gone through.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_04: So I am very, very uh optimistic about the future.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_04: I think we will always find our way.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_04: I just hope that along the way we keep making it the basis of everything is kindness, generosity, and the through the stories we tell and we watch, we just reduce our what at times feels like a fixation on judging, just allowing some kindness and gentleness into our world.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I think we'll do it.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, whoever saves a single life, it's considered by scripture to have saved the whole world.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Dr.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: Rick Hoddes is a JDC's medical director in Ethiopia.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: JDC is the leading Jewish humanitarian organization working in 70 countries to lift lives and strengthen communities.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Initially arriving in 1984 to help famine victims, Dr.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: Hodz returned in 1985 to teach at Addis Ababa University Faculty of Medicine and has worked for JDC since 1990.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: And do you think that your capacity to adapt, which let's be honest, as a doctor and in medicine, you need to be able to do, this took it to a whole other level.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: So for you was was it, you said you saw some extraordinary.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: I spoke to you briefly beforehand, and you said you saw some extraordinary examples of humanity faced with, I suppose, quite confronting disease, but also vulnerabilities on many levels.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: Talk to me about that.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: That was interesting.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know my patients are really suffering from now?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I do spinal deformities, so from terrible spinal deformities.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And back then I was doing heart disease and um rheumatic heart disease, congenital heart disease.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they were living with such pride and calmness and dignity, despite the fact that there was no treatment for them in the country.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was just so impressive for me to see how they faced the challenges of their lives.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: This this was really a lesson in dignity and strength.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: And and for you, did it give you context in terms of I suppose your own journey, which was running alongside that because you were you you were a young doctor.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: But do you think that that taught you some pretty core resilience um tools, which you obviously need in medicine, but particularly in the area that you continue to work on?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: What did you learn from that?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: And and what's what are some of those tools?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: And how do you deal with such incredible and powerful?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: I suppose you, as you mentioned before, there's a lot of um uplift because you learn a lot about people's capacity to cope.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: What about your own?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when first of all, the challenges they faced were much, much worse than any challenges I faced.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um because I have Western health insurance, and you know, if something goes wrong, I can be back on the plane and get heart surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they had nothing.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, like my worst day is nothing like anything they faced.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, one is to see my own situation in perspective, and that was that was mind-opening anyway, and then to see how they interacted with each other, how do they treat each other, how did they the kindness that they showed to each other, it was really remarkable.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have a patient right now, right now, um he and his brother walked into my office.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: His older brother is probably a 33-year-old Ethiopian Orthodox priest, and I said to them, you know, your shoes are in bad shape.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Yeah, we walked here.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, You walked from the bus station?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's eight miles away.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: They said, No, no, no, we didn't have$20 to take a bus.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: We walked from Gojum.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Gojum is 250 miles away.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Yes, we walk 250 miles to get to you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and you know, anything that I face is not an eight-day walk to get to a doctor who might possibly, just possibly be able to help me.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: That is an I'm sure you've seen a lot of incredible stories, but that one is particularly powerful, and the image is is really quite clear of just that determination, but also a sense of resolve and acceptance that you you see.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a their level of expectation is also uh different in terms of they're not used to being nurtured and cared for and protected in the same way.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and in the fact the the story even gets better because they walked for eight days to get to me.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no hotels along the way, and you can't sleep outside because there's hyenas.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I said to them the simple question I just asked, Oh, where do you sleep at night?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the older brother said to me, he answered in two words.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Xavieringita.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Xavierengeda means guest of God.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: But what he's describing is actually a whole hospitality system in the Ethiopian highlands where you can knock on a door and just say to the people inside, I'm a guest sent to you by God.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is like Abraham in the Bible.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Please let me in.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: They'll let you in, they'll cook you a meal, they'll give you a basin of water and soap to wash your feet, they'll give you a place to sleep, and they'll show you out the next day.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and they did this eight nights in a row, which just shows, and the Muslims, by the way, have the same system.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: They call it Allah and Gera, guest of Allah.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: It just shows the kindness that they show to each other, these poor people, very poor people, show to each other.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's a lot the West can learn from that, huh?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure that you know, I mean, you can only imagine how it would be transformative if we applied some of that to our own communities.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: But tell me a little bit about for you.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: I know you were involved in the most extraordinary operation.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: You you, you know, there were 14,000 Ethiopians that were flown out as part of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Very famous evacuation Operation Solomon.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me a little bit about that, because that was, you know, quite a long time ago, but it must have been pretty pivotal to your story.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so in November of 1989, Israel and Ethiopia re-established diplomatic relations, which had been broken off after the 73 War.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Ethiopian Jews heard about this.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: They started migrating to Addis Ababa.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So by the summer of 1990, there were over 20,000 people stuck in Addis Ababa.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And my employer, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC, started a medical program for them.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in Israel at the time.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I contacted them and said, you know, I just spent two and a half years teaching at the medical school.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Can I help you in Ethiopia with the Ethiopian Jews?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so they hired me in late 1990 to come down to return to Ethiopia and be the doctor for the Ethiopian immigrants.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I did for the next seven, eight months until Operation Solomon.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: We had a clinic that was open seven days a week, eight hours a day.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: We had five full-time doctors, and we tried to take care of them.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up diagnosing 3.5% of the population with active tuberculosis, and we treated them with quite a modern therapy, and they did quite well.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: It is really, it must have been transformative for you to be part of that.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, for example, the the first month that we have data, which is I'm I'm ballparking these figures, but August of 1990, about 20 people died that month.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the medical program started, it started, it was more successful than we thought.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: By March of the following year, three people died that month.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean population was you can't, it's not exactly the same population, but the fact that the death rate plummeted just shows the success of our program.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it certainly does, and then clearly this is just in one area that you were operating and working in.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: You clearly have the capacity to, you know, draw on community resources.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that you're well connected with doctors all over the world, and part of it is ensuring that where possible you can find people the care that they need.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: Talk to me a little bit about how that community operates.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously, the JDC is an extraordinary organization that you work with, and that would facilitate that.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: But obviously, you still, as a doctor in this particular arena, need to be resourceful, to say the least.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I think my role, I'm an internal medicine doctor, so I think my role on the planet is I'm a connector.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if you stay long enough in one spot, then you get to know a lot of people and you become like the center point, and you can somebody will come to me and uh with a certain problem, and then often within a week, I will have solved it completely unexpectedly by being able to connect them with somebody else who can help them.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: And doesn't that say something about you and your relationships?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: You obviously are well respected, clearly, but also your facility to build relationships is pretty important because those are the linchpins of all of this extraordinary work.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me a little bit about you you mentioned now you're working at the moment with spinal patients, and and I actually um mentioned in the introduction about that you also working with people in India and spine patients to Ghana for traction and surgery when needed.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Talk to me a little bit about right now what's happening and what you're focused on and why have you moved into that arena?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is that because it's it's become more of an issue, or is it just that it's the way that it organically is a doctor, so I was not interested in orthopedics, was not interested in spines, but I was volunteering at Mother Teresa's mission with the Catholic nuns and helping anyone who walked in the door.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And one day we got an admission of two abandoned orphans, this is in 1999, who had tuberculosis of the spine.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we all know of the disease scoliosis, scoliosis is an S, TB is a V, and that's called kyphosis.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: So TB doesn't cause scoliosis, it causes a V, which is called kyphosis.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I got an ad admission of these two boys.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Probably one was about 11 and one was about six, and they had both TB of the spine.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: They were not related to each other, even they didn't speak the same language, they were from different tribes.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I knew that if I couldn't get them surgery, they would become paralyzed.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if you become paralyzed from the middle of your chest, you become incontinent and you get pressure sores and you get infected, and you're gonna die early, and it's gonna be miserable.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I really wanted to prevent that.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I took pictures of them, I sent letters to doctors, nobody would help them, and especially nobody would help them for free.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Then I got this brilliant idea that I could adopt them, add them to my American health insurance, and get them surgery in the United States.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the problem is when you adopt an abandoned orphan who doesn't have any relatives, they become yours for life.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, on one hand, I could save their life.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, we'd have to spend the rest of our lives together.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, did I want that much permanence?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I know a lot of doctors.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know anyone who's ever adopted a patient, you know, and spent the rest of their lives with them.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I was walking along, true story.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was walking along, and it was really bothering me because I knew on one, you know, deep inside, I could solve this problem.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, you know, I think I could solve the problem, but then we'd have to spend the rest of our lives together.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I was walking along and I looked up at the Almighty and I said, What do you want me to do?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there was no answer.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: The clouds didn't open up, I didn't hear any voices or anything like that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: I looked around and nothing, you know, nothing had changed.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept on going.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: But three days later, I actually got an answer, and it's as if I got a fact to my brain.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer was I'm offering you a chance to help these boys.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Don't say no.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I said very powerful.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So then I I went ahead and I adopted them, added them to my health insurance, and brought them down.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And again, like every step is difficult, you know, like I'm sure.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing is easy, and brought them down to Dallas, Texas, where they had really good surgery inside um in one of the best hospitals in the world.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that is a pretty extraordinary story, but also it says so much about you and the fact that do you believe I mean, are you a man of faith and religion?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: And true, I mean, do you believe that that was?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's something very biblical almost about that story, literally biblical.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's any other interpretation except that it was a message from God.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and this this stuff happens to me all the time.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like not occasionally, but all the time.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: So do you so has that made you a man of faith when you see such trauma and so many people who are so desperately not treated and uncared for?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: That can make you cynical.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: But on the other hand, you see there's that that sort of miracle, which to be honest, you're instrumental in by the choice that you made.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: But does it make you a man of faith, or does it, or does some of this sure for sure?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's strengthen.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I had faith, but it strengthens it.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, we all have our doubts on uh certain days, and if I have a doubtful day, I sort of remind myself that this other stuff happened and like a bigger picture out there.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: So uh just following on from that do you do you want to hear a story?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: I do, I really want to hear just one quick question.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: Are those boys still in your life?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_03: And if so, so you have two beautiful Ethiopian sons who have now healed and are on their own journey.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, now I have five, but um so I was at my office back in in the 1980s, and somebody knocked on my door, and he was a young Ethiopian about my size, and I'm not too tall.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he said, I'm Ethiopia's top light flyweight boxer.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I train really hard, I cough up one cup of bright red blood.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: And Ethiopians know that if you cough up blood, you probably have tuberculosis.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he went to the TB center, and the TB center said it's not TB.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, They say it's not TB, but nobody knows what it is.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: So another cause of coughing up blood is the mitral valve is too narrow, and that's called mitral stenosis.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I listened to him, you know, and you put them on their left side and you listen, and it it really sounded like he had the deep murmur, the diastolic murmur of mitral stenosis.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: So then I got an echo, and the echo confirmed this.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So he needed$25,000 of surgery to replace his mitral valve.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: I said to him, uh, do you have$25,000 to pay for surgery?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, No.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Okay, well, listen, if I hear of anything, I'll let you know.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, just write down your name and your phone number.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he wrote down his name, he wrote down his phone number, and I just stuck it in my drawer, knowing that like the chances that somebody's gonna contact me saying we want to do free surgery on a patient with mitral stenosis is really zero.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a couple of weeks later, I got my mail um from America, and there was a letter.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Back then, the National Institute of Health used to send letters to every doctor in the United States talking about what they did and asking for a referral of patients.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they had sent a letter to every doctor saying, We're looking for patients with mitral stenosis to do a do a balloon procedure on.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, uh, I wrote them a letter and I said, Would you take Ethiopians?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Yeah, sure.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I we got him a passport, got him a visa, and I sent him off to the National Institute of Health, where he had a successful procedure, um, and is now okay.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: This guy is now, um, he's probably 50 years old now, and he's a boxing coach in Tennessee.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: He specializes in teaching boxing to people with Parkinson's disease.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: So even during COVID, he was counted like in the physical therapy category rather than in the sports category and could stay open and give his boxing lessons to people with Parkinson's disease.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: Walter Allison founded Third Wave Volunteers as a first responder on September 11, 2001, in York, which has grown to over 30,000 first responders worldwide.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: Allison has worked at the grassroots level in Sri Lanka, Haiti, Philippines, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Africa, and Nepal, not to mention the USA through hurricanes, Venezuela, the Bahamas, the Syrian and Venezuelan crisis, and numerous other disasters around the world.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: So, look, obviously it's multifaceted.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: You you are working across so many incredible arenas.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me a little bit about where this incredible empathy and willingness to do something in a crisis, where you really develop this and where this because you have to have a very strong sense of compassion.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it all started with my parents who were missionaries and they would go out around Asia into different countries and they'd spread the message of love and everything.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I learned to be very comfortable in developing countries and in mass chaos.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: But then I told um I developed my own kind of system in not pushing religion, but just really pushing the message of love to everyone, which I believe is all the religions together.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: We all should come together.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: So September 11th, 2001, in New York City, uh, the World Trade Center, you know, Mark Twain said the two most important days of your life are the day you're born and then the day you find out why.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I found out my why September 11th, raced down there on rollerblades, a medical kit, ended up being under the North Tower, and then stayed in the streets and worked um ground zero for nine months and picking up body parts and all sorts of things.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then these professionals came along from FEMA and they said, Oh, you're doing good work, but it's time for you to leave because the professionals have to take over.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we'd look at them and we'd look down and we'd keep washing out another bunch of Feynman's eyes, and we just kept working.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: They kept coming back every day, and on the last day, they covered their badges, looked around, and said, Please stay, we need everybody.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that became our motto for third wave volunteers was everyone was needed because it wasn't just medical and people with all these fancy degrees.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: People needed to hand out water to everybody.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: People were uh the mums were at the highway giving hugs, the kids were sending cards to everybody, so everybody had their role to play.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how it all started.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we've pretty much been in every major natural and man-made disaster since.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: And we just grew from, you know, volunteers joined in and we grew and grew to thousands of volunteers.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, it is really, I mean, it's almost like an epiphany you had, isn't it?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's sort of like the fact that you that story of you getting on rollerblades and and heading down to ground zero with a backpack full of things that you thought people might need, it really is as if you had an epiphany and that didn't you didn't seem to be concerned for your own safety.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: Your your response was quite an organic one.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I had a lot of friends in the building.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: I lost 64 of my friends in that day.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: But also, I was rolling blades down there and you know, us Aussies, we get out in the world and we travel and we have really, pretty good lives.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I just sent this prayer to the higher power and I said, Look, if it's my time to go, I'm ready, you know.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: I really am ready.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then nothing happened to me, and I just was, you know, the fear went, and it's that dirty four letters of fear, you know, that keep us back.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: And even volunteers write to me, and I'm like, Oh, I just don't know how to do it.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: I want to do it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: I said, get your return plane ticket.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: You get there, you don't like it, jump on a plane, come home and go do what you want to do.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, but people don't leave, they come and then they they they everything opens up and they realize, oh, I can do something, and they forget about their own little problems.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, service to others, I believe, is a real happiness to the key to life.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I know I've found that, and I just want to share that with people.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: And and so you mentioned that you lost 64 of your friends, you know, in that horrible, horrible tragedy.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it you you went down there really, really helping anybody and everybody.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: But was part of your drive that you knew that there were people in the tower, or was it just a sense of I just have to do something?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, where was that bravery from?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know where that came from because it it just came.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: I just knew I had some skills, some medical skills.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: I knew all my friends were in the building because I was an investment banker years earlier, and I just knew I had to get there.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: I just knew it.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't quite know the World Trade Center had been attacked that way.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: They said a small plane had hit, but I'd be, I I just knew something bigger was up, and I just wanted to head down to help my friends in the building, but they didn't, they didn't get out of there.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but the goodness that day, it's pretty dark day, but you know, there was uh nearly 3,000 killed.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: But we really did, or the the rescue workers really did save 30 to 40,000 people, and then the humanity rose up from all around the world.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like on the third day, I had the Japanese firemen next to me on the pile, people had driven from California, a granny from Chicago serving tea.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: So everyone was just doing their bit, and it's I haven't felt that since until now.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm working on the front lines of the Ukraine war the past um eight, nine months, and that's that's when I felt it again, the whole world coming together to help in this way.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the only two times I've really felt it like that.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: But also out in the field, it feels like utopia.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many problems in the world, but when you're in a disaster, everybody comes together.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter what religion, politics, race, whatever, everyone's helping everyone, and it's really nice.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: So when I come home, back to all the problems on the politics and the TV and the wars and everything, I just want to go.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I just want to be back out in the field again.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I just wish everyone could have that feeling of that unconditional love.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it sounds like you um the third wave really is a global, human, human, global movement, really, isn't it?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the way that you've navigated that and attracted such a diverse group of people, but also as you say, I mean, maybe, I mean, I I refer to you and I know that you're referred to as an angel by many people that, you know, are mentioned in some of the reading I've been doing.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: And it would seem, do you think there's something, uh other than your parents being clearly missionaries and having that overarching upbringing where you give back, do you think there's something innate, you know, in that capacity?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think it's just because you talked about being an investment banker?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it couldn't be further from this sort of role.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, I mean, one must be filling your cup a lot more, I would imagine.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my mom taught me about unconditional love.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: She was all about love.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: And when a small at a young age, I met Mother Teresa as well.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, because my father was speaking at a big event where she was speaking.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I don't have a lot of these big skills, but when I arrive in areas, you know, I see there's a problem.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like all of us can see there's a problem.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then I surround myself with these experts to have some sort of solution and get it done.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's why, with all the reforestation in Haiti, I'm not an expert arbiter or running a tsunami center, I'm not an expert oceanographer, but you you surround yourself by those people, and there's always a solution.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I think it's from my mother, but also I don't know, just something inside of me, it's just I just, you know, we do see so much death and destruction, but there's so much hope and love as well.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the world doesn't exist without the love, otherwise, we still wouldn't be here if it was all the darkness.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: I just feel that we can really bring this love to people, and I just keep that in mind and I keep present because you know, we do see a lot of bad, bad stuff, but I just keep in the moment, and that's that's what we all really have to do.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so, from your perspective, do you think that your mother had a huge impact on you?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and as you've mentioned, and and what did you learn from her?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, she was accepting of everyone, and we were always living in the jungles or somewhere crazy out in the fields and running around with the natives and that.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just about loving everyone, and that's what she taught us, and that's what my father taught us, and he would do these great children's sketches.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: He had a TV, little TV show a long time ago, and it was just really just preaching the message of love.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and yeah, I know it, I know it came from her and other people in my life, and it's just um that's our number one mission, love in action.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And in you, the Ukraine war, we're on the very front lines in the um recaptured um Ukraine villages, which the Russians have held for so long.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's sometimes there's nothing else we have to give them.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: We've given out the food and everything, so we just hug them and we just say we love you, and they don't understand anything, but they know the universal sign of love, and we just we just give them big hugs, and some people try to pull away early, but other ones just just stay in our arms.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if you hold them long enough, they just sink and they just start crying, and and that's enough to give them hugs or whatever, just to show that them some people around the world still love them, and um, and that's what that's that's the message during COVID.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty hard.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: We couldn't hug anyone, so that because that's our main thing, but uh yeah, it just works.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: The power of physical touch and being present, and also you must have great faith in the power of humanity to love as well as hate, because clearly, for example, as you've outlined, the Ukraine war is just something that we can, none of us can fully comprehend.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you carve that that way through peace?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, also, as you say, there is a sense of people, it's simple things often like that.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: And you're a problem solver, practically at one level, but you're also a connector.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: You sound like somebody who knows how to give a lot of love.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_03: And do you find that's sometimes the best medicine, as you've just outlined, with the Ukrainian situation?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: Just what about the logistics of how do you actually get in there and how do you navigate that?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a bit complicated.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: I used to take at the very beginning, I take male, female doctors, nurses, and everything, but I learned only to take females.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: We have these little hats, these scrub hats we wear with hats on them, and just having the girls upbeat and happy.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when I had the guys with us, they would put it, put them against the wall, machine guns to their heads because they didn't know if they were spies or what.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but us girls, we would always get through or into secret rooms and all sorts of things in Ukraine.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: They always accepted us.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: So in the end, we just started taking the girls and we and we really, we really enjoy that.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we go in, we go in through um Turkey and then we go to Romania or Poland or Moldova.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Moldova's the quickest way in, but you can't take aid because that is one of the poorest countries in Europe, so they can be taken over by Russia in like one day because they're next door.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: So they can't take aid.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: So when we go in quick, we go through Moldova, otherwise through Romania.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's a long trip because you can't fly obviously into Ukraine.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: So you might drive 12, 15 hours or 20 hours from Poland in, and then you have to go through hundreds of checkpoints, um, have your passport ready.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: And every time you go through these big barricaded areas with soldiers and everything, but we just learn how to do it.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we we did a lot of training, we trained thousands of soldiers in combat medics, which was saving lives, and just we just started to get to know everybody, and we just mention a name here or there, and we we just get around, and it's just all through the power of love.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we used to have a little cross on our shoulder on our hats, which was like a nurse's, yeah.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, nurse medical symbol.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but when we were doing the Syrian crisis, we didn't want to be a target for ISIS.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, with a I was about to say, yeah, because they thought that's when we switched to the heart.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: But uh they would have thought you were Christian, so you switched, but also the heart's so universal and has no overarching other than love.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many spies around too where we work, you know.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Between Nikolaev and Kherson.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many spies.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: And but everyone just seems to love the heart, even I don't know which whatever side you're on, or whatever, but whenever we come across people, it just makes them smile.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: And the people Ukraine and the Russians are very stoic, and like you try to smile at people in the streets and they snarl.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: They don't, they just don't smile at you.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: But when we have our hats on, it seems to open up every door.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it will and so do do do you think it also protects you?
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because how do you know who is a threat and who is not?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think so.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, sometimes when we arrive in a village when we know they've had, you know, 20, 30 Russian tanks that have just pulled out, you're never quite sure if there's one hiding in a tree.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like sometimes it's like feels like you're in a World War II movie, you know, when especially in the early days with the snow and the bleakness.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not quite sure if you know, like in the movies when they have a gun to the old couple's head and they're hiding in the attic.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: So you just you just have to be really careful.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: And we have a lot of we have a lot of security.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: We have like I was gonna say, so is that security something that's provided by your end?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: Or who how how how do they protect you?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: I just came to meet them through circumstances over the first few months, and um, and then they just agreed to give us protection.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: They're US troops, and there's a few Aussie troops, and a few, um, there's a lot of British troops over there.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: So they um half of them go to the very front lines as soldiers, the others train, and they they're humanitarians, stay humanitarians.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: So they they wanted stuff to do.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, come with us to the villages.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: They're right, okay.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: So they have a certain way of doing the cars, and we keep the engines on, and they, as we're giving it out, you don't see it in the photos of the videos when we're giving them all the food, but you've got 16 guys with machine guns faced in every direction, you know, to give protection.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we found we've just we just slip in and out and we found a way to do it.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a mayor that leads us in.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: He was 36.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was captured by the Russians for three months and waterboarded and tortured, and now he's back out in a trading that prisoners, and now he's leading us out to the villages.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been good so far, but I'm not you know pushing my luck.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: We're very we are very careful.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: So, how many times have you gone into the Ukraine and and who is it that that I suppose makes that decision?
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: Is it you?
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have a board?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have a team?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: I make the decision, and I've been in eight times.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: And going back, I was supposed to go back this week, but I just got COVID for the first time, so I've been a bit weak.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I had to cancel this trip a minute ago.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was like I've been around so many patients.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing happened to me, and then suddenly the day before the presidential award, I no, the day after, I got so sick I couldn't even get out of bed.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, so I'm going back in January.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: That'll be our ninth trip.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I make all the decisions and the planning, and I have so much con so many contacts on the ground now that when we're gone, we're still running our operations because we have these great girls, uh Ukrainian girls on the ground, and all their boyfriends are like special ops and stuff.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: So they um we send them two to four thousand dollars a week and they go to the supermarket in Odessa and they fill it up with big vans full of food and everything, and it's enough food for about a month for about 250 people each week.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we just try to hit new villages.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: So they go out and they go out and they send me receipts, so it's all accountable, and they're doing such a good job.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll go back and join them and we'll keep going.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: If only countries could operate like that, like as in what you've created, it's like, I'm like, how is it that that you have created something so incredible and so functional, utilizing and and so resourceful?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: Governments get in the way.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Governments and really big, big groups, you know, they take in hundreds of millions before they can walk out the door to do something because they've got heavy, heavy overhead.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I we've really learned that the disaster aid manuals don't work and it's all about grassroots.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: So you go in, there's organizations already set up in the ground in a disaster or whatever, and they may have lost everything, but there's rotary and lions club.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we all join together and I tap into the universities, get thousands of volunteers, you know.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just learned a different way of doing it and lots of mistakes along the way, but it works.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we've come to that stage where we actually disasters with all the climate stuff going on that you know, it used to be one big one a year around the world.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's just daily, daily, back to back.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's firing 5,000% up.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: So um, we need a disaster force.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: I know there's a space force that started over here in America, but we really need a disaster force that um can as huge as the National Guard that can really get in and start taking over these major hurricanes and floodings and volcanoes and everything.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: And fire bushfires.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Australia, you know, with the bushfires and I mean the climate issues here are just massive.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: That was heartbreaking.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: We sent a lot of like money over and we sent volunteers over, but I it was the one I couldn't get over to because I was in a different disaster, but I was just crying.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I couldn't stand the animals being killed and all that.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's terrible.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you triage where you're gonna be and for how long?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: You must have incredible organizational skills, is all I can think.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: I have to get my eyes on the disaster.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I always go to them.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: Plus, I'm a field go, I like to be out in the field.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have to get my eyes on it, but as soon as I land in a disaster, I really know how long we're gonna be.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: If it's six months, I know if it's gonna be two months, I know if it's gonna be 10 years.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: I just I just know because I've done so many of them.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, but we have to get on the ground first.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we get in as soon as it happens, within 24 hours, start with search and rescue, and then we move on to solar and water filtration and all the other things we do.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I just have to get on the ground, and every disaster is completely different.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: But just hearing one woman cry because her baby's dead is the same as 24,000 crying, you know.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, that's how we do it.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: I just have to have to get my eyes on it.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: We study it days before when we know it's coming, so for a hurricane or whatever, but but obviously that the earthquakes is a lot different.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, when I went to the 2004 tsunami, I thought there was 5,000 dead.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's what they said before I left the plane, and then I land and there's 300,000 dead.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it always goes up, you know.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um depends on you know how much damage there is or what the problem is or what the country is.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's just so many different things that go into logistics.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life, but I just have learned how to do it along the way.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_03: And also, as you mentioned, you you you know who to call, like you're very good at finding who is the expert in that area.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_03: Do you ever fear for your own safety?
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, I really don't fear for my safety.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I told you before about a higher power, just release it to the universe.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know, I've I've never really felt scared.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Even when there were two missiles that um we were teaching the Coast Guard, and I was with Naomi, um, she's a lifeguard from Miami Beach.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: We were um we're just coming back from there in a car, and then two missiles were heading towards us in the air, and we looked in the back of the car and they're coming over our heads, and one landed about 500 feet to the left of our car.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, I didn't get scared, I just thought, wow, you know, I don't know.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I've been doing this so long and I've seen so much that, you know, um, but I'm not naive, you know.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: I know that I can die at any time, but um, so far things have been good.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I actually got hurt on the last Ukraine trip, you know.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you think that I got hurt doing something special, but actually the last day at the hotel in Moldova, I sat on a chair and it folded up and it trapped my hand and nobody can get it out.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I got injured sitting around the pool at a hotel leaving, leaving.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's so embarrassing.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's that is actually surreal.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: You're in a war zone and you're actually that's how you injure yourself.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually it's almost yeah, it would be comical if it wasn't so serious.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: And sense of humor is the most important thing I've learned out in the fields.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: A sense of humor.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: It like you everything goes wrong.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: You might plan eight things and you get one thing done, but it's that's what that's what we look for in a volunteer.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just you can just go with the flow and and a good sense of humor.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: And women out in the field last a lot longer as well.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we go out sometimes for years at a location, and the men, you know, they get more physical and they run around and that, but they're the first to drop because it's all about mental.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you have to be there with these people suffering, they've lost 28 members of their family or something in a tsunami, and you just you just have to be there for them.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so the men usually drop first, and the women last longer.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, most volunteers are actually white women between the age of 34 and uh 56 or something like that, and then it goes down African American, right down to the bottom of all the different types of people that volunteer, but we just accept everybody, you know, because everybody's an individual and everybody can do something.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: The What I've Learned Podcast comes out every Tuesday for more fantastic stories from amazing guests.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the What I've Learned Instagram for more updates.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as Deb would say, stay tuned, kind, and curious.