Because it is so common and i dont think we appreciate how wonderful this town is until you are away from it and other experiences. I want to give a few caveat before i start reading. I am not a spokesperson for the aid community. I am one of many actors who worked in this field. Some people much longer than i have been. I worked a dozen years, people have worked twice this time i have been working, much more experience and much more expertise so these are my personal views and i dont claim to have all the answers about these issues because they are complex and challenging but these are the observations i had from my time overseas and i worked in a number of contexts and a number of different paths this career can take. Some people work in one or two countries for many years, some people work for one agency for many years. I jumped around the lot. That is person of my personality. There are a lot of career paths this profession can take. A lot of people said to me arent you kind of young to have written a memoir. And yes, hopefully this isnt the end of my career or the end of my life but i thought after a decade it was a good time to reflect and jot down some of these observations that i had over these ten years. The reason why, the idea started when i would come home and i would have trouble reintegrating and tried to explain to people what i was doing overseas and i couldnt articulate it in any way that i didnt have the sound bites i could wrap up about how darfur was a what it was like to work after the tsunami so i started just writing down my personal observations air and also how different it was from what people thought it was when i would get back here so i wanted to demystify perceptions about humanitarian aid we get from the media or reading about some of these places overseas. It seems so scary when there are some incredible people and cultures and places but you never get that part of it when you are reading about it from here so i wanted to pull the curtain back on this industry that we are not all saints and we are not all hippies and we are professionals who do this work but also, the people who did the work and also the industry and it is and industry, a multibilliondollar industry. Some people call the coming of age story and it does take place from when i graduated high schoolnot high school college, until a few years ago so that is my 20s and 30s so i did grow up in the backdrop of these massive catastrophes so i write about that law as well. With that, i know people are standing so i feel bad carrying on. I will read four little vignettes and i will explain each one before i read them and they are in sequential order. The book takes place with a flashback in north darfur, that it takes place in new york when i just graduated from college and then through rwanda where i was an intern, then back to new york, then there are two chapters that take place in darfur, then indonesia after the tsunami in 2005 and back to new york, then i go to sierra leone and jerusalem or occupied palestinian territory and then haiti. I am going to be reading from rwanda where i first started out and was totally green and naive and idealistic and than i am going to go to new york and know, then i am going to darfur, then new york and then i am going to haiti so i will read a few pages from each of those. This part that i am reading about rwanda is one i first arrived and having a hard time finding a place to live. People assume you come and get housing automatically and sometimes you do but at that point it was 2003, nine years after the genocide in rwanda so rwanda was a really stable country at the time. It still is. The organization said you can come for an internship and find your own housing and i plopped down staying in a hotel. I was on not measly internship budget, rapidly running out and needed to find a place to live and fast. None of the cats were helping me. They all lived in these multistory complexes and compounds and i was asking around do you know any place to live . I was the new girl, no, good luck. Any way you can imagine my sadness and loneliness, i fell into a wonderful local family who took me in. That is where it starts. Finally through friends of friends, i found gloria, a rwandan woman who lived downstairs running a local womans organization for widows of the genocide and told me to meet her one evening after work. When i arrive she walked proudly up to me and shook my hand. So you are jessica, yes, i said, so nice to meet you. Lets go. She was not a chitchat kind of person and getting to know gloria would take time and patience. She work perfectly tailored bright yellow dress, color popping off of her dark skin and carried a small black patent leather purse. She was a round woman and her steps were slow as if she were waddling. Gloria had a driver who was already in the drivers seat of a bead up white car. She opened the passenger door and pushed the front seat forward so i could get in in the back. Skinny ladies in the back, she said. I slithered inside. Car made an audibles silence. My seeks didnt stay upright so i supported myself by holding on to the back of her. This is too much, pointing to the driver. He looked at me and smile. She doesnt speak english. Hold on to the main road crowded with people walking home from work. Have you been to romero yet . I didnt know what that was. I dont think so. That is where we live, is that neighborhood. We drove down the bumpy road my seat jumping with each poppel, coughing up around us. After a 15 minute drive through rushhour traffic, she pulled up to a side street a short distance from the office, slowed down at the gate. Young man, glorias guard opened it, pull into the driveway. Come on, she said, holding the seat forward for me to get out of the car. I entered her small simply decorated house. The living room held but couch which faced large entertainment consul that looked as if it had come from a 1987 sears catalog. It cabinet held an old radio and small television. At the far end of the room was the dining room table with plastic covering still on the chair. On a small table next to the cow the decay of fake flowers on top. Things with tidy and everything seemed to have been placed deliberately. One ball from the ceiling for the around it. We walked to the back of the house, passing a small dark kitchen area and two other bedrooms. Gloria opened the door to what would be my room. The furniture was simple, dresser, a plastic table and small bed with a bright pink cover. 1woman at whydah center made this, part of our livelihoods work she said proudly checking in one of the corners. She reached the to open a window close to the low ceiling. Theres a screen so you wont have problems with bugs. Glory offered me tea. I accepted and as she walked back from the kitchen she said you will meet with us, you will be part of the family. I moved in at night. Gloria was not married but had two daughters who lived in nairobi where they went to private school. She shared a house with her sister betty and eddies family. A son my age and two grandchildren. Gloria was a prominent woman in the community and by local standards was rich. A car, driver, a maid and guard. Later that night betty return home and glory and, smiled kindly and put out her hand to shake mine. She did not speak a word of english but it didnt matter. I was immediately at ease. Sitting in gloria and bettys living room, sipping tea and listening to them, this was the first time ive felt that home. My first night, betty and i sat in silence with months of tea. We looked up at each other and smiled. On the wall were two photographs, one of a man and another of a woman both of whom appeared to be in their early 30s. I gestured with a shrug of the shoulder. Who are they . She looked at them and motioned to herself and pointed to the ground. Korea walked in and translated matteroffactly those are daddys children. They were killed in the genocide. I looked back at betty. Her face was down, her eyes gazing into her mug. Bettys house was filled with a talking reminder of her childrens death, her two grandchildren who she was raising. In the living room we could hear them bouncing around bedroom giggling and screeching. I took out photos of my family to show betty ann pointed to my brother as she took the small album from me and brought it closer to her face so she could see. Betty pointed to me confused but animated smile. This is you . She looked down and at me again and shouted something to gloria in french. She says you are very pretty, gloria yelled back from the other room. I looked caribbean that fatah let my brothers graduation with makeup and blown out here. I looked at my dusty guard and ran my hand across my sweaty face. Of course she doesnt recognize me. Pointed to my mother and father, looked at me and smiled again. I wanted to say how do you say my mother died in french but i didnt. The pointed to my mothers photo and pointed to the ground away betty had done and she just knew. Expediency of not speaking the same language. That was rwanda. This one, this next bit takes place in darfur. I wanted to read this one because it captures this feeling that a lot of us in this industry feel which is you are confronted with overwhelming needs all over, all around you on of macro scale but you are forced to block out the individuals because that is not how we work. We work on largescale projects that help thousands. It is hard to devote energy to single individuals when there are thousands around you who are just like them. Cote it is a constant internal struggle that you face, and this bit, i am still quite young and naive in this field and this is a part where i am confronted with an individual who needs help and i have a personal connection with this person so it clouds my professional judgment. As darwin said, i was leading a camp in darfur, there were 10,000 in turn lead to place people and my job, it sounds impressive there are 20 or so organizations that work there doing water and sanitation, health, schools and ims and messenger between the Camp Community and the aid community. If the water point breaks in blockades 20 i get the news and i tell someone to fix it. I have a lot of Close Relationships with people in the camp because i am interlocutor. This fell off. Okay. I am too animated. I was close to one of the camp leaders. After months of weekly camp meetings can Committee Leader and i were friends. It was hard to know how old he was. His head was always wrapped in a white turban and his body in the mack thing a subtle mannerism, oped carried himself with the authority of an elder and other Committee Members and i treated him as one. Even though he communicated through e stock we had an unspoken understanding. I understood what he was saying by the tone of his voice. Regardless of what was going on in the camp, the forgeries, regular materials, bribery and internal politics always felt off lead was straight with me. After a camp meeting with the usual agenda, overcrowding in the schools, broken latrines, Food Distribution disputes, he approached us, my niece is sick, can you see her . I am not a doctor, i said. I know, she needs help. I dont know what else to do. I suggested he take her to the clinic. I already have. I will come tomorrow, i promise. I have to go now. The next morning i met with an agency about where the camp president s cattle graze, they started developing pasture on a parcel of land residents felt were clear, we need to find an alternative. Ahmed was waiting for me. When i saw him remembered. Your knees. I will come after this meeting. The waited patiently in the quarter until we finish. Okay, lets go. We piled into the vehicle and drove to his tent. His land was larger than that of many other families. He planted shrubs around the periphery to make a gate. My pants got stuck to one of the tree branches. , and pulled back a plastic sheet and we slipped inside. His sister sat on the floor with a large pillow covered by at cal on her lap. She looked up as we walked in but her face was stoic and expressionless. She slowly pulled back a towel covering the pillow. Underneath way her infant daughter, her mel merged body tiny and frail, her head twice the size, swollen and puffy. Applicable loon on top of a skeleton. The childs nose was distorted, her eye sockets and intimate cheeks and forehead bags of food. When she moved her head her neck twist and awkwardly too week to support the bloated neck. She let out muffled gasp of discomfort. I felt queasy. I had never seen anything like this. Had he taken her to the hospital . Yes. What did they say . They cant do anything. Theres surgery she can get but only in khartoum. He covered her head and set up. She has to get to khartoum. Yes, we have we have to get her to khartoum, we will get her there. Looking at his sister who is still sitting on the floor, i went back to the office but none of the doctors were there so i call the only doctor i knew i could reach, dad. Swelling in the head, a congenital condition. They usually catch it in utero in the states when ive finished describing what i had seen. He was sitting in a lounge chair on the beach in fire island. Will she died, i asked a. She is not treated, yes. Team needs to be drained from her head and she will be okay. Head is already future. How much time . Hard to know from here but she needs treatment soon. There was an urgency about the situation that felt a new. Perhaps it was a personal relationship with a mad bedded jilted me into action. Brainstorms, these were all out of my control, a sick child, that i could actually do something about. I went to mark. A girl in the cab has hydro and cephalus. He looked up from his laptop with swelling in the brain or something, her head is huge. The family has exhausted their options. We have to get her on a plane to khartoum and soon. Feedback, combed his fingers through its air. But World Food Program was a u. N. Agency that transported a workers in and out of our for by plane. Cant we paid for her to get on a commercial flight . Weekend do that. Cant pick and choose ibps to fly to khartoum for medical treatment. Then i will pay, i informed him. I dont think you can do that. You will be seen as coming for our agents even if they got your own pocket because youre employed by a sky called Khartoum Office and got the same response. Last month ever if you with her condition, the emergency would later told me we couldnt do it. We can send some people to khartoum and not others. It would be callous. I went to a coordinator at a clinic who said the same thing. There are people with lung issues. We could take an all too khartoum. What happened . Two have already died. With every rejection my resolve intensified. Had been confronted with this degree of clinical detachment before. How could i go back and tell him there was nothing i could do, nothing is humanitarian he community could do . That i was are he would have to watch his niece died. For the next week i dreamed of exploding heads, and fridays with unicef, they would not agree to help. It wasnt in other words what they had come to darfur to do so they were not responsible for it. And there were programs for tens of thousands of people, larger scale operations provided little to many but working on an individual level, a case by case basis was not we were in the business of doing. I sat across from a logistics officer from the United Nations who which oversees health care and emergencies. Certainly it had to be in their mandate. We have a request to go to khartoum every day. We took every request we couldnt operate. I know it is sad. We can said this president. Cannon House Office Building as girl to free how we tell the next 6 person we cant fly them . Shouldnt we be flying sick people to khartoum for treatment . Shouldnt that be part of our job . We are here to save lives and reduce suffering, arent we . We cant save everyone. He had a point as did everyone else. I may have been wildly naive. I can understand their argument in the abstract. My personal relationship with negative was clearing my logic. The food items, a few bars of soap, overcrowded schools, when stand up to malpractice lawsuits at home. This is the sum total of the humanitarian operation. This is the best we could do . With all the resources spent on getting this year, tracking the surround a foreign land, dont even bother. That this one go he instructed me over dinner one night. It wont happen so you what should and where your head about it anymore. Of this were sympathetic. Of times your spending on this girl you could be helping other people. Get back to your job, mark told me after our initial meeting when the whistle obsessing about it. I refuse to rationalize the path of least resistance. I was determined to get this girl to khartoum and matter the logistical challenges i had to overcome or what un bureaucracy i had to navigate, no matter the number of people sitting behind us who politely said no, i cant help. I had heard no many times before as a camp coordinator when we didnt have the funds to purchase crucial sanitation the women for transport rice to a sister cant because of an impossible road. It is not possible was the uncomplicated way out but i also found bending rules and mandates here and there and a bit of creativity birdie only ingredients required to turn the impossible into reality. You have to read it to see what happened. You can imagine coming from a situation like that to coming back home. Would be a little bit jarring. This little vignette takes place, i went from darfur to sri lanka and indonesia after the tsunami and then i came home. This takes place after i get home. I returned home three days before the wedding shower of one of my best friends from high school. Although i look forward to the party coordinating my flight connection to make it by the time i got home i was dreading it. Hold on, sorry. All wanted to do was lie in bed and watch television. Excuse me. Lawandorder reruns were particularly good. I wasnt at all prepared to put on address or make small talk but i was a bridesmaid, a singsong poem, i took the train from connecticut to washington d. C. Where she lives now. When i arrived at the shower i felt a long staircase to a room decorated in pristine pinks and whites. Flower petals are sprinkled on the table. Everyone was perfectly dressed and i was wearing the only pair of shoes i could find that morning, flats i had one 2 n. Eighth grade piano recital. This was the first time i had seen rebecca since her Engagement Party eight months before. She had lost weight and her body seemed overwhelmed by the attention. I approached her and we had to. It is so good to see you, she said, touching my hair. I hadnt had a chance to get erica and i felt i looked like i was wearing a which wig. You look amazing, thank you. How are you . She asked. Honestly not so okay. I am having a hard time finding a i was steering the. We will get into later but not here, she said, stroking my unruly hair. I wished she would stop. I am sorry, i said quickly, and barista. Thanks, so glad you are here. Turned to greet a cousin behind me waiting to go out on her. Around the women were mingling near the bar, a long bench was stack