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As rescuers sifted the rubble for survivors in India, counselors in Turkey began to put into place a new program for treating earthquake trauma victims. The world's disasters sometimes seem to be chasing one another.

An MRDS team has moved into Golcuk, Turkey, to ascertain needs for continuing trauma relief. The temblor that shook the eastern reaches of the Sea of Marmara so violently on Aug. 17, 1999, passed in 45 seconds. Aftershocks followed for months. A year-and-a-half later, for many the terror lives today.

The dots on the maps move and the shapes and colors of the faces change. In many ways, however, cataclysms of nature in developing nations follow a common story line. First and foremost, poor people suffer far more from natural disasters than those in the industrialized world. This difference has been remarked in India.

T.N. Gupta, who led a committee of eminent engineers and scientists who conducted a study on disasters for the government of India, told The New York Times, "We had an earthquake in Latur that killed 9,700 people. An earthquake of the same intensity in California killed five."

The January quake in Gujurat state claimed many more. As in Turkey, tens of thousands died and many of them are bulldozed away with the rubble as a public-health measure.

A United Nations study has determined that 90 percent of disaster victims live in developing countries. In the case of earthquakes, some assume lax building codes in less affluent lands; in fact, such is rarely the case. In both Turkey and India, the quakes struck areas of high seismic activity and the codes in place had factored in the increased risk. If the buildings had been built to code, damage would have been contained at much lower levels.

Two factors common to most developing nations explain the high tolls. One is a proliferation of mid-rise apartment buildings in urban areas. The other is a high incidence of corruption.

The Financial Express of India declared that, "A very large number of deaths were avoidable, and happened simply because of a culture of lining of pockets that is especially entrenched in municipal authorities and the building trade."

Echoes of Turkey. The same cries went up, and just as belatedly. The immediate costs in lives and in financial terms are not the only ones that go soaring. Terrified survivors refuse to return to their homes, even when those are habitable after only cosmetic damage.

The added expense of maintaining them by the thousands in temporary shelter weighs on a burdened economy long after most foreign relief workers have gone home.

In Turkey, a new trauma initiative opens and the work continues. In India, it is just beginning.

--Bill Koops

In a Beirut School, the Roof Leaks,
But Not a Drop Falls on the Books

The figure often cited for the unemployment rate in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon is 60 percent. This number reflects a catastrophic situation among the 400,000 who have fled since 1948 to the camps in a war-torn country with an economy that would be overburdened without them. Local observers say, however, that a more realistic estimate is 90 percent.

Unemployment begets poor education, if any, which begets unemployment. The spiral continues as one generation after another faces the grim likelihood of spending a lifetime in the camps. While their kinsmen in Israel

In a Lebanese refugee camp, a Palestinian boy is eager to learn.

know little comfort, these Palestinians exist outside the hot glare of the world's scrutiny, all but forgotten.

They are also marginalized in Lebanon, which leaves the administration of the camps to the refugees, as though the government were washing its hands of them. MRDS is responding through an education initiative.

A young boy enjoys a moment of laughter in Kindergarten School.

Workers at the Bourj al Barajneh camp, the largest in Beirut with 20,000 "citizens," have resolved, for now, to get some youngsters off to a running start with a decent kindergarten. With no funding from the Lebanese government, the only schools in the camps are funded through tuition from the few parents who can afford to pay it and grants from outside agencies.

This camp has a school, opened with funding from UNICEF and the Norwegian government, but the money ran out before some essentials could be acquired.

Students have no books. Heating is not up to the cold, wet winters, especially in view of several leaks in the roof. The playground is a tiny mud plot in front of the building.

Education in the Palestinian Kindergarten School has declined from 50 to 45, either because fewer parents are able to pay the tuition or because some

have decided that a school without books is not a good investment. The

school, nonetheless, has set a goal of opening two to-date unused classrooms

and increasing enrollment to 75.

MRDS workers have set a goal of $27,040, which would allow the school to fix the roof, buy five heaters, upgrade the playground with new equipment and acquire books and curriculum. It would also accommodate scholarships of $200 to a few families based on need, a stipend which would cover basic tuition and book fees for one child for one year.

The funding would also allow for the extension to the ceiling of a partition separating the kitchen from the bathroom, needed for purposes of sanitation.

Attention, K-mart Salespersons:
Teachers Program Expands Again

Growing again in its third year, the MRDS International Teachers Program this summer expects teachers from three Central Asian republics and from Lebanon.

The program gives teachers of English in the developing world an opportunity to hone their skills in a month-long curriculum in Houston, MRDS' headquarters city. They learn up-to-date teaching methods even as they improve their fluency in the language.

The program began in 1999 with six teachers from one former Soviet republic

Teachers visit the Space Center.

and grew to 11 teachers in 2000 as Palestinians living in Lebanon and Jordanians also participated. This year, while the number has not yet been pegged, MRDS expects to welcome educators from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in addition to another group of Palestinians from Lebanon.

Their intensive training during the week gives way to group outings and precious time with host families on weekends. Teachers who have come in the last two years have visited NASA, Galveston beaches and area museums and have attended Astros games.

Often, their education in American culture has come in less programmed ways. One volunteer reported a gracious K-Mart salesperson who learned, while marking down shoes, that a group from abroad in town for special training was in the store and hungry for shoes. She offered to mark down any shoes they selected. She remained gracious even after all the teachers in the group decided to avail themselves of this offer, several times over. No one at the checkout counter even suggested they buy a wheelbarrow at the regular price to haul out their new shoes.

On the van ride home, each passenger was wedged in among shoe boxes stacked to the roof. Many of the teachers have also reacted to garage sales with unbridled enthusiasm.

They have also distinguished themselves after returning to their homelands. One was selected for a Soros Foundation fellowship for advanced studies in American culture in the U.S. Others have expanded programs or established new ones, some for students and some for other teachers interested in continuing education.