Red Cross Blogs

Saddle sore in Solferino

By Claire Durham
July 9, 2009 at 12:05 pm

Solferino is a peaceful, almost sleepy sort of town, with a couple of café bars and a fabulous gelataria that I did not frequent as often as I would have liked. However almost exactly 150 years ago the area was in the midst of a bloody battle and the fledgling Red Cross began to work.

A view of the camp

I was carrying a well-thumbed copy of A Memory of Solferino. Henry Dunant’s book graphically and vividly describes the horrors of this war (look away now if you are of squeamish disposition) “brains spurt under the wheels, limbs are broken and torn, bodies mutilated past recognition – the soil is literally puddled with blood”. Phew, grim stuff eh?

I flew into (fair) Verona airport laden down with satellite phones and radios. I was deeply grateful to spot a uniform clad Italian Red Cross (IRC) volunteer and her bus. The IRC are still snowed under with the earthquake response but they admirably managed the concurrent Solferino celebrations. Sans map or satnav, my chauffeur set off following an modus operandi close to my own heart. Basically head in roughly the right direction and ask when you get stuck. This proved to be most effective and we arrived to the camp in no time and in style with a blue-lighted police escort for the final few hundred metres.

There were a lot of events organised but as one of the six emergency response unit (ERU) teams, we were metaphorically chained to our tents, demonstrating to the Red Crosses and Crescents exactly what we do. We lived in the ERU base camp set up by the Danish Red Cross. My tent seemed to have a peculiar micro-climate all of it’s own, sauna-like during the day, it became arctic at night and as I headed out for my bedtime ablutions I’d realised that it was actually warmer outside of the tent! That said, we had proper beds and mattresses and were rigged up to electricity, so not too shabby!

The camp was pretty large and located over three areas so with burgeoning enthusiasm I mounted the ERU bike and navigated myself around. JC our warehouse manager had already set up our ERU tents and I busied myself creating a working logistics office with the kit I’d lugged across. With the laptop hooked up to a fancy flat screen television we were ready for the workshops and ready for dinner. Having struggled to provide a buffet lunch for 12 of my nearest and dearest, I couldn’t help but be impressed at the Italian contingent who seemed completely unfazed at catering for almost biblical numbers. There even were loaves and fishes but these were supplemented by pasta, risotto and tiramisu. Yummy!

I was shattered after delivering the Pakistan earthquake presentation twelve times in two days, and it’s amazing how quickly you can get sick of the sound of your own voice! The audience seemed to enjoy it though, judging by their enthusiastic questioning. Success could also be claimed when a fair number of them reappeared on the third day ready to get stuck into the mock disaster we’d set up.

Logistics in action!

The sun was torturously strong and around me the sounds of sawing and hammering rang out mingled with the murmured sound of counting as the volunteer logisticians worked furiously to ensure that supply kept up with demand. It was dirty, sweaty work handing out the wood, tools and tarps needed to build 25 emergency shelters. The team visibly rallied when bottles of water appeared to quench parched throats. Perhaps surprisingly these valiant volunteers didn’t melt away at the end of the exercise but stayed around to help us take down and pack up the equipment. A somewhat less glamorous role but people pitched. The spirit of Dunant was certainly alive and kicking.

So with a happy heart, an expanded waistline (I blame the Tiramisu) and a suitcase full to bursting point with emblem emblazoned t-shirts, sweatshirts and one fluffy bathrobe, I boarded a bus to the airport. Packing my trusty bike had proved to be a logistical impossibility even with my skill set and I’ll admit I was more than a little sad to leave it behind. È la vita! I’d wager that cycling in London would be a less enjoyable experience anyhow. I don’t know if I’ll be around for the bicentennial celebration but if you are then I’d thoroughly recommend it.

© John Blake

© John Blake

Tags: 150th anniversary, Battle, celebrations, Danish Red Cross, disaster, emergency response unit, Italian Red Cross, Italy, logistics, Movement, Pakistan Earthquake, Solferino

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Emergencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.