Help Dave return to Ukraine for more medical volunteering

I spent April in eastern Ukraine volunteering as a civilian paramedic. The charity I volunteered with had an ancient Fiat ambulance with a crappy transmission and about half the medical supplies it should have - but we made due.

Every day was spent evacuating people from the war, responding to rocket attacks, and moving patients between hospitals to make room for the surges in casualties. Every night was spent listening to Shahed drones crash into nearby neighborhoods from the relative safety of the crooked fold-out couch in the living room/storage room of our house/HQ. Once in a while, I spent the morning in a brightly-lit classroom teaching a group of kindergarten teachers how to apply tourniquets and treat chest wounds in children, because that's honestly a significant ongoing concern for them.

It was harrowing. It was exhausting.

...

It's time for me to go back.

Since returning home to Oregon, I have been in contact with my colleagues in UA and discussing upcoming staffing needs. They will need another paramedic later in the summer, and I have the free time to donate another month-ish of time. The charity takes care of my needs while I'm there (they rent us an old Soviet-era house, we all go grocery shopping nearby, and share chores and other duties), and they will arrange for train and bus tickets from Poland (the nearest safe country) to the east - a trip of a couple days.

What I need is help with airfare from Oregon to Poland, some upgrades to my body armor for shrapnel protection on the sides, and more supplies for teaching and equipping schools (those supplies will be purchased locally to support the UA economy. They make excellent tourniquets there and have a robust local equipment industry).

This is my first time using GoFundMe, but if it works well and the basics end up covered, well ... the difference between a 14-hour flight with one layover and a 36-hour flight with four layovers, is a few hundred bucks. If the donations are enough to cover that bit of luxury before spending a couple days on a series of trains and buses ... my bones will thank you all very much.

Last time, I blogged each night before going to sleep (on a platform that few have access to), and those updates hit Oregon around breakfast time. This time, I plan to also send these daily dispatches to the people who have donated through this platform, probably by email. These stream-of-conciousness dispatches offer a look at what my life is actually like there (I do delete things like specific locations and other sensitive data before posting them).

-Dave