HSLD, thanks for keeping this on here. Vagabond, thanks for posting.

I attended a Jesuit University with an aviation program. One of my professors started a Humanitarian Aviation class after he spent the better part of two summers working for AirServ in Darfur. The stories he had were simply amazing. This part of the world has had enough struggle without the political strife. In many cases, AIDS has basically wiped out the population over 30 and what you have is a bunch of 14 year olds carrying around kalishnikov(sp) rifles and RPGs killing each other over differences that are largely artificially created. For those of you that don't know, the Tutsis and Hutus lived in peace for years until the area became a Belgian colony. The Hutus and Tutsis were separated based on skin pigment with the basic belief by the Belgians that the group with darker skin was inferior.

Airserv is a Non-Government Organization (NGO) that specializes in flying relief workers to places that would otherwise take days to get to or be completely inaccessable because of damage to roads from disasters and war. I intend to get involved with them once I get 135 minimums.

http://airserv.org