I’ve had the call

stripped in a phone box

and now I’m ready to rock and roll.

Shelterbox needs a hand and I have two, which means I’m fully qualified to head out to Sumatra on Saturday and do some good.  (Actually, it’s not quite as easy as that. I did have to pass a 9-day ‘ard as nails’ training course)

But by the end of October I’ll be able to pitch a tent, in the dark, with my hands tied behind my back, coated from top to toe in anti-mozzy cream. If it goes really well I’ll have taught about a hundred people to do it too.

You see SRT’s have a really important job to do, because if we don’t do it the chaps who sponsor the money to pay for the equipment that goes in the box, the hard working bods who pack the boxes ready to stack and the super organised team who get them delivered to where they need to go, will have wasted valuable time and money.

For Shelterbox to be successful they’ve got to make sense of a huge logistical nightmare! Imagine what would happen if all the boxes just turned up at the site of an earthquake, unannounced? Most of the local people will have lost family, friends, and probably their home. They ‘d have difficulty knowing how to set up the wood-burning stove; they’d also be pretty stuck translating the English instructions for the 10-man tents. But that’s where we step in…. the Shelterbox Response Team (SRT)

Simply put, this is what we do:

We get the boxes out of Customs.

We talk to local Rotary representatives to find out the lay of the land and who has been affected.

We reccie potential sites, so we can set up tent villages for those most in need.

We teach local people to pitch the tents and use the equipment

We tell Shelterbox HQ if more boxes are needed

And finally…

We get home safe and sound because job’s a goodun’.

Smoke me a kipper I’ll be back for breakfast!

And that’s it in a nutshell. On Saturday I’m off to do this incredible job, and no doubt I’ll be a very different person when I get back. I won’t lie to you; I am feeling more than just a little bit nervous right now.  It’s a huge responsibility and a great privilege; I just hope I don’t let my team down. And anyway I need to get home in one piece or my Mother will kill me!

So until I see you on the other side…

Sal x

Support Shelterbox, please go to www.shelterbox.org 

First Week's the Worst!

From this...

Floating Hotel

To this...

Sea-Caravan

Having done this ...

Tent with Oars

And I still do this!

Sick bag

It's all looking a little concerning especially as this Friday I head out into the Channel for my first week of training for the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race!I don't go until May next year but as the yachts set sail in September all novice crew need to be trained up and ready to roll. So by the end of August I should be a hardy racing yachtswoman, but as I sit here lamenting last weeks experience I'm feeling a little less confident!

Last Friday I stepped off one of the world's biggest ships... P&O cruise liner Ventura. A 'work' week, which ironically culminated in feeling seasick on the very day I had to do my talk. As we coasted through the Gibraltar Straits and headed out into the big Atlantic swells, myself and half the 3000 passengers on board felt decidedly queasy. Typical, the only day I have to hold it together and there are tables toppling on the top deck!

So I'm stockpiling anti-nausea medication, four boxes so far, a pulse point wrist band, a bag of cystallised ginger and a card with a line drawn across the centre of it for those moments below deck. Although if one more person tells me to look at the horizon I will garrote them with the wristband, because that doesn't work either!

I'm packing a bucket with my wet weather gear and wooly hat; maybe by this time next week I'll have gained my sea legs, but I'm not holding my breath. But with every cumulus cloud there's a silver lining - as the country falls into the grip of the swine flu pandemic perhaps counting carrots off the coast is the safest place to be!

Sally x