Ethan Casey with Todd Shea, Dr. Farzana Naqvi (front row, second from left), Dr. Salman Naqvi (back row, next to Todd), and other members of a Pakistani-led group that provided medical relief after the earthquake in Haiti, at a reunion in Irvine, California, February 28, 2010.

If I haven’t posted a blog entry in more than two weeks, it’s because - as usual - I’ve been busy with other things. I spent a successful week in Colorado in early February, speaking at two churches and three colleges, including the Air Force Academy. And I just returned from a busy weekend in Orange County, California, whose main event was a fundraiser for Todd Shea’s organization SHINE Humanity (see its excellent new website). The short speech I was able to give there was very gratifying, because I’m very proud of and grateful to Todd as well as Pakistani friends for responding so promptly, intelligently and compassionately to the earthquake in Haiti. Haiti is a very old friend of mine, so my gratitude is personal. Here’s a short excerpt:

Todd is not the only American in this room who has worked in Haiti since the earthquake. I want to single out two others: Dr. Farzana Naqvi and Dr. Salman Naqvi. The story of how Farzana, Salman and others have stepped up as physicians, as Muslims, as Pakistanis who know the devastation an earthquake can cause, and not least as Americans, is a powerful message that the American public needs to hear.

I’ve published the full speech on this website under the “Speaking” tab, along with some photos that I showed that evening.

My new book Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip is at the printer and will (inshallah) be published later this month. I’m looking forward to introducing it at events in Chicago on March 27 and Tampa on March 28. More on those, and other travel and promotion, as the publication date nears. If you haven’t yet purchased your copy, now is a great time to ensure that your copy comes signed and with a personal letter from me by pre-ordering it from this website. I’ll be sitting down in early April to send out all pre-ordered copies.

More soon!

Some of the impressive children of the Pakistani-American community mentioned in the blog entry below - volunteers at a fundraising dinner for Todd Shea's organization CDRS Pakistan at the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit, Troy, Michigan, January 23, 2010.

The shock waves of the earthquake in Haiti reached as far as Seattle, where my life and plans have been thrown out of whack. Whenever I feel especially depressed or overwhelmed, though, I put my problems in perspective by reminding myself how much more disruptive, to put it mildly, the earthquake has been to Haitians.

Why have I been so affected? Any sensitive person would be, but for me it’s directly personal. Haiti was the first place I ever traveled outside the United States, at age 16 in 1982 with my father. How and why that happened, what it led to in my life, and what it means to me now in the earthquake’s aftermath is a long story - so long that I’m now planning to spend the rest of 2010 writing a book about it.

(You can support my independent reporting and public speaking by pre-purchasing that book and/or my other book Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip, which will be published this March. See this site’s Books page. Until further notice I will donate 20% of all proceeds to the relief work Todd Shea of CDRS Pakistan is doing in Pakistan and Haiti.)

The earthquake is affecting the conversations I’m having with both the Pakistani-American community and mainstream America, in powerful and poignant ways. In Michigan, where I went January 20-24 to fill in for Todd Shea (who is still in Haiti as I write this), I found myself thanking a Pakistani audience for contributing not only its talents and material resources, but also its impressive children, to help build the new, improved America we all desperately need and yearn for in the 21st century, and invoking the Haitian Creole phrase Tout moun se moun - “All people are people” - to support my contention that Haiti means a great deal to all of us, that we’re all in this together. In Colorado, where I am now, I’m seeing old friends with whom I visited Haiti many years ago and telling audiences at talks arranged months ago about how, for me, the long and winding road to Pakistan ran through - indeed began in - Haiti.

But what does Haiti really have to do with Pakistan? Well, you tell me. This blog entry is an appeal to all Pakistanis, and others, to share your stories of the October 8, 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Please post comments, or email me, telling where you were when that earthquake happened, what it meant to you - whether as a Pakistani, as a Muslim, or as a human being - how you felt about Pakistan’s and the world’s response to it, its longer-term significance, and similarities or differences you see between it and the earthquake in Haiti. Your stories will help shape and inform the book I’m writing. We’re all in this together. Tout moun se moun.

Bahut shukriya and Mesi ampil,

Ethan

Todd Shea of CDRS Pakistan is on the ground in Haiti leading what is, as far as I can tell, the single most intelligent relief initiative since the earthquake last Tuesday. (Read the joint statement from Todd and me titled “How Pakistanis Can Help Haiti - and Why”.) He has opened a supply route for medical and relief supplies across the border from Santo Domingo, capital of the neighboring Dominican Republic. Todd’s latest email tells why his effort needs your support NOW - even if you’ve already, and admirably, donated to the Red Cross or Partners in Health or Medecins sans Frontieres:

I’m sad to report that the situation in Haiti is acute and worsening. People are beginning to get even more desperate and frustrated. The leadership of the Government of the U.S. and its partner nations are ”forming up” great things that will take shape in a week or so down the road, but they really need to quickly work through the current paralyzing logistical challenges. Many large agencies are failing to think selflessly and share their financial, operational resources with smaller but super-effective agencies. This attitude is not helping anyone. Quite frankly, I would have thought some of them would have learned an important  lesson from other disasters where some of the same mistakes were made.

Here’s the bottom line: If things don’t start improving very rapidly, then life and limb-threatening infections and deadly dehydration and unnecessary conflict will likely emerge on a scale that has the potential of becoming rampant and widespread. The correct option would be to stage multiple and overwhelmingly robust and well-managed multi-national supply lines and helicopter sorties using locations and bases other than Port au Prince airport, particularly from the Dominican Republic through the border near Jumani. It’s a darn good road compared to the roads in the Pakistan earthquake-affected areas that I’ve been traveling on for the past four years. Distributing aid from several points over a more widespread area can reach far more people far more quickly.

Why should Pakistanis in particular be doing this? There are several good reasons, including your experience of a similarly devastating earthquake in 2005 and the fact that many of you in the U.S. are highly skilled physicians. The Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) answered the “Why?” question best, though, when he said, “He who sleeps on a full stomach whilst his neighbor goes hungry is not one of us” and “A believer wants for his brother what he wants for himself.”

I’m proud to say that quite a few Pakistanis of my personal acquaintance are already responding. Dr. Salman Naqvi, Laila Karamally and others are taking the lead in Southern California. Tahmena Bokhari in Toronto is leveraging her new position as Mrs. Pakistan World to recruit volunteers and raise funds and awareness for a relief trip from Canada soon. Speaking of Canada, my friends at the Pakistan-Canada Association in Vancouver have launched a fundraising initiative locally and on their website. In an email exchange Raza Mirani, the PCA’s general secretary, told me: “This Haiti situation has really hit home, and this is what I see myself doing community work for.  Not putting on events or having dinners. If we can’t help out in this type of  situation, then what are we good for?”

What should you be doing, right now? For starters please, now, give money through this link - any small or larger amount - to support the relief convoy Todd Shea of CDRS Pakistan has established from Santo Domingo. Time is of the essence.

And in the weeks and months ahead, Haitians will continue to need our help and attention and active human sympathy - just as Pakistanis need and deserve the human sympathy from Americans that is the purpose of this blog and my books. You can be sure that as I continue to write and speak around North America, I’ll be continuing to call Haiti to your attention - beginning later this week in Detroit and Ann Arbor, where I’ll be covering for Todd on several speaking engagements. Batool Raza of the South Asian Awareness Network at the University of Michigan told me by phone last night how proud she and others at SAAN felt of Todd when they learned he was dropping everything - including his commitment to speak at their annual conference - to go to Haiti. Let’s all express our pride in Todd by supporting his crucial relief convoy concretely with money, supplies, and our volunteer time.

Postscript: I’m planning to set aside a portion of the proceeds from sales of my books in a fund to make donations to the Pakistani nonprofit organizations whose work in Pakistan I support. For now, because of the urgency of the Haiti situation, I’ll be donating 20% of the retail price of all sales of Alive and Well in Pakistan and Overtaken By Events to Todd Shea’s emergency relief work in Haiti.

There’s now a direct link on GlobalGiving.org to support the urgent relief work that CDRS Pakistan’s Todd Shea is doing in Haiti. Todd reached me by phone late Friday night and said emergency supplies are being donated, but he needs money for truck rental, to pay local staff, and for other running costs. Please donate any small amount through this link.

Todd is back in the Dominican Republic now, filling another truck and meeting a couple of doctors arriving from the US, at least one of whom is Pakistani. They will drive back to Haiti on Sunday with fresh supplies.

Todd has established a staging area at Croix des Bouquets, a major crossroads east of Port-au-Prince that is much more accessible to the border and to surrounding towns and countryside than the city itself is. Todd has done the smartest possible thing: he flew into Santo Domingo, found the best road from there into Haiti, and is creating and maintaining a supply line in the opposite direction from the congested Port-au-Prince airport.

The most helpful thing we can do to support Todd’s urgent lifesaving work at this moment is to give quick cash to make sure he can cover costs over the next few days. I’ve just made a donation, and I urge you to, too. Here’s the link again.

I was interviewed Saturday morning on Vocalo 89.5 public radio in Chicago, and host Jesse Menendez was also trying to reach Todd by phone. I hope he reached him, so people can hear directly what the situation is like on the ground.