Many of your have written to me to ask why I got into humanitarian work, and why I continue. Not how – that’s another series of posts – but why? Don’t I get depressed? How can I spend my days thinking about the seamy underbellies of all the worst places in the world and remain at all normal? Here’s your answer:
The “why” of why I got into humanitarian work is easy: It was coincidence, an accident. I was in the right place at the right time. There was an opening that matched my meager skills and it beat the hell out of both returning to suburban North America and continuing to teach English (which is what I’d spent the previous year doing).
I was unusually fortunate. There was an older, experienced aid worker who took the time to talk to me about indicators and what the difference between good program design and bad program design were and the importance of local participation in every phase of project cycle management (although we didn’t have the term “PCM” back then). It made sense. The pieces all fit, even if in retrospect my understanding was painfully simplistic. It felt good to be “doing good.” And it was fun as heck, traveling aroundSoutheast Asiabecoming something that I didn’t even know the name for at the time: an aid worker.
That was in 1991 and I have not looked back since then.
The “why” of why I stay in humanitarian work is a bit harder. I’m older, now, and more cynical. I’ve seen the dark side of the Aid Industry up close. There’s certainly plenty to dislike, even to loathe about being here. So why do I stay?
If not aid, then what? I’m deep enough into my career now that switching to another line of work would be risky. What else would I do? My entire professional life has been spent here. Where would I go? How would I make a living? I think my dreams of being a famous guitarist in a heavy metal band are pretty much never gonna come true. So that’s out. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” That’s certainly one powerful incentive for staying. I’ve thought about changing careers many times – for about 20 seconds. At the end of the day I cannot imagine doing anything else.
I enjoy it. There. I’ve said it. I make my living thinking about human suffering and trying to put in place measures that will reduce it or alleviate it. Measures that we all know, from the get-go, will never be enough. And yet, in a probably perverse way, I enjoy it. I enjoy the work. I enjoy the crazy, quirky people (aid workers) I work with. I like going new places and meeting new people. I work with some amazing local colleagues in a number of countries. I like them very much as people, and I also like the diversity of my diverse range of friends in its own right. And yeah, I enjoy the rush of deploying. I enjoy the chaos and texture and intensity of the first month of a disaster response. I enjoy the complexity and challenge of transitioning from relief to recovery in month six of a disaster response. I’m not saying that every minute of every day is awesome. This path has taken me through some very dark times, both personally and professionally, and there are absolutely moments when I wonder what the hell I’ve wasted my life on. But on balance I enjoy it.
I still believe. I’m not blind to the paradoxes and internal contradictions and inconsistency and straight-up dumbassery of the Aid Industry. I get it. There’s a lot that’s wrong and in desperate need of redress. There are some glaring issues which, barring a massive shift in thinking globally within the sector, will probably never be really resolved. The tortured and absurdly power-charged ménage à trois between aid providers, aid recipients and aid donors, for example. Or the extreme glut of incompetent practitioners in the sector, both formal and informal. It’s possible to become deeply cynical and disillusioned, and many days I succumb to this temptation. And yet, I also see the positive day-to-day. I see how what we do as humanitarian practitioners matters. And by “matters”, I mean specifically that we do make life better for survivors of disaster, conflict and extreme poverty. No, of course it’s not enough. But for all of the messed up-ness, my honest opinion is that there’s more good than bad happening here. No, I can’t prove it – it’s an opinion. But it’s why I stay on.
You asked why I stay in aid.
Now you know.
J.,
This is useful. I suppose one needs to feel these three aspects in order to continue. I suppose to tick just the first answer (and the urgent need for a salary) is not a reason good enough then.
Do you think if I can tick only the first answer, while I apply for the current Horn of Africa Circus positions, I’m doomed to depression and anxiety? I would hate to survive in PaP between office, jeep and guesthouse, but I still a psoition there will allow ne to understand and help somehow….am I right? am I fantasizing in a mary anne kind of way?
is it legitimate to apply again (after months of trying to divorce form the industry) just because one cant find an intellectually challenging and creative position elsewehere?
is it legitimate to want to go back to Darfur (first mission!!) just because I literally dreamed of this place several times after, and have wondered since 6 years what happenned to my staff, to the women, what life they have now, are they still under the tents, did they build a family, …? is it acceptable? dangerous? is it ok to want to go back becasue I want to tell their story through film since the first time I got to know them? I suppose no.
Did I enjoy humanitarian work? yes, in the sense of what you say. the thrill of feeling part of this world, of being where important things happen, and you’re there, you’re part of it. you get to know, you cross behind the looking glass of the TV screen to actually BE there on that reality and change it for the better. But this feeling was becasue I was younger and idealistic? probably…
No enjoyment in the sense of not having a life of my own, not building anyhting, not having a private life, intimacy and space. living with colleagues, working with colleagues. no physiscal space to GO, to walk. no space for the mind to create, to unwind, submerged by constraints, extreme heat, extreme violence around. no place for thinking, really, or you’re sanctioned. power abuses, incompetence, arrogance, opacity, harassment, abandonement of HQ, lack of funds, lack of will, hidden personal agendas of top managers. This is the humanitarian scene I know.
Its a 24h job that eats you little by little. cumulative stress. a sense of being completely out of this world when coming “back”. terrible void when you realise there is no “back”, cos little by little you have come to lack all relation to it at all, and you start becoming an alien, irritated by your entourage dinner conversations about house decoration or the next car to buy, while they ask for stories from the “field”, you are the exotic element, the one thats always travelling doing good and risking life, but please just a sentence or two, not more, it could ruin the dinner to really listen to reality what humanitarian work is about, we dont really want to know about the brown babies.
Do I still believe in it? emergency yes,,,save the brown baby today even if he’ll die tomorrow. yes. Im up for it anyway. lost causes are the important ones for me.
development: no…useless mess, I’ve worked for the EC, monitored WB, saw a bit of the whole picture briefly, dont want to put any efforts into it anymore, and anyway nobody needs an anthropologist to criticise, the aid industry would not accept any ideas that could threaten its very existence.
so, my reasons:
a) I can do it, b) all other work sectors (mainly for-profit) seem meaningless and boring/depressing to me given my values and experience, and c) I need money: Are these reasons enough to apply again? your opinion is very important to me
How does one manage the cynicism and the bitterness? how does one manage a sisyphus-like job and life….? a¡I have become a mis-fit….
i appreciated reading your honest comment about the life you have lived in the humanitarian world. I also have the same dreams you had before you got into working in the field, but I sincerely hope I don’t end up coming out as defeated you sound.
Wow. Reading that was brutal. Having no experience myself, my advice is purely theoretical.
a) keep the job -> perhaps you will find meaning and hope in it again. Or perhaps you won’t and you will end up performing poorly
b) find another job -> might not make a “difference” but you might find enjoyment in life eventually. Or you might end up hating the new career you are in.
It’s a minefield.
I was considering writing to you since now, in my 6th year of aid work, it’s not that I am looking back…I’ve loved it….I’m looking forward. I am in fact learning a new skill that may take me away from humanitarian work. I am doing it cuz i want to (it’s something else I love) but also…i want to know i have the option to walk away from aid work. I want to know I do it cuz it’s not like i have no other options but rather, because despite the absolute dumbassery that I am confronted with…and there is more and more of it the more experience I get, i want to know I do it because there is nothing else I want to do more.