Panagiotis
gcpetrop79
martsolka
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It’s been a while since I wrote here. In the last few months, I’ve moved with my organization, Action Against Hunger (ACF) to Pakistan. I’ve been asked to write a few blog entries for the Financial Times seasonal appeal for Action Against Hunger (www.ftagainsthunger.org). Below is the last entry, before editing (which the newspaper will do) which I felt pretty much summed up a lot of things that have been on my mind recently and wanted to share personally before the FT editing filter. I hope you enjoy it. Happy new year and may 2011 be a little bit less fucked up than 2010 was.
Action Against Hunger is an organization whose sole focus is eliminating hunger by treating malnutrition where it finds it, and preventing hunger where it can. It’s a tall order and in order to do this it takes time, energy and commitment. It is not a myopic or impossible vision and it does not exist in a vacuum. Hunger is not just lack of food, it is everything. Hunger is war, Hunger is climate change, Hunger is helplessness, and disability, and the wrong color and sometimes the wrong gender or mental state. Its root causes are legion; its force awesome. Therefore, to say that only a nutritional treatment center will solve hunger is not a complete statement, but coupled with the humanitarian ideal of helping those in need, it is then placed in better context. And if it is backed up by recovery and development interventions related to climate shock reduction, capacity building of the government health systems and risk reduction of communities, using thoughtful working methodologies which embrace and approach those who are unable or not allowed to meet you half-way, then, you eliminate Hunger.
This is how we work. This is how we should work. This is what we believe and what we promote to our partners, our donors and our supporters. To you out there, and to our colleagues who we meet every month, every year, in every mission. And who are increasingly being hurt, kidnapped, mistreated and whose name and profession are taken advantage of and co-opted in the name of politics or a bottom line, while attempting to live up our ethos and ideals.
Action Against Hunger is not the only organization working to combat hunger and malnutrition in the world. Some argue that front-line, emergency interventions do not have enough ‘impact’ in the bigger picture. I am not sure what the ‘bigger picture’ is, in the same way that political scientists cannot agree on where negative peace ends and positive peace starts.
Aid workers are plagued by frequent existential and ethical questions. Am I in the right place? Am I doing the right thing? Should I be doing it with another organization or in a different context? Why don’t the people I help welcome me more warmly? What does my family think about me? There’s no permanent answer to these questions. Only recurring salves in the form of a saved child, a safe family with food in their home, or a community no longer at the mercy of water-borne disease or the predations of drought, disease and weak health systems. They are fleeting and short-lived as we move through our work. But at least for me, they serve as a consistent reminder: I am in the right place. I am doing the right thing.
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Through the years, I’ve found some simple tips/rules of thumb regarding being ‘out there.’ Some of the best are below:
Imperial leather soap is the best for bucket showers because it washes off easily.
If your mosquito net has holes, band-aids can close them.
Don’t eat durians or have them with you on long flights/journeys. Explosive!
If you hear something like fireworks, chances are- it’s not.
Ashes from a wood fire can substitute for dish-soap.
If you’re driving in land-mine areas, and you need to piss, either do it from the vehicle’s rear, or outside, walking on the tyre trackes behind the vehicle. Best just to hold the damn thing.
Kill. All. Flies.
Electronic appliances (satphones, ‘face massagers,’ iPods) can be stored in a dry-bag when in marshy/wet areas. You never know when your vehicle’s driver will misjudge the depth of that puddle up ahead.
The first flight of the day to your destination is often the most punctual one, as your plane is already there waiting for you. Delays build up throughout the day…
When changing money, just ignore “Commision free” signs. All it means is you don’t pay a separate fee, yet often the cost is just loaded on a poor exchange rate. Just ask “For 100 of mine, how much of yours after all charges?”
If you’ve got any of your own, feel free to share!
Thanks to contributing homeys.
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Working in a developing country is a window into international dialogue. (I just got a semi from that amazing ‘first sentence…’) This dialogue can sometimes seem to be not between nations of millions, but akin to the squawking and bellowing between lovers, friends, neighbors, mothers in law and other stereotypical ‘can’t live with’em, can’t do without’em’ types.
The dialogue I refer to is the continuing back and forth between the developing country and its ‘development partners.’ In Uganda’s case, for example, it can be old colonial ‘masters,’ G8 donors, regional power-players and other colorful associations of this type.
As a foreign national in Uganda, and due to the nature of my job, 15-20 minutes each day are spent scanning the two newspapers. In these, I read the comments made on Uganda’s develop(ing)ment issues from the EU, the USA, the UK, AU, and other United acronyms of Benetton. I also read the responses from Ugandans. These range from the politicians and/or ministers who are responsible for the topic at hand, health, defense, disaster mitigation to common citizens concerned about how the world sees their country, and, more importantly, at least to me, concerned about how their government’s representatives… represent them. Over the last two years, I have laughed, cringed, become angry, and sometimes very somber and sad with the opinions shared and batted back and forth on these pages. From mismanagement of funds and corruption and extortion, to HIV/AIDS issues and laws against homosexuals, everything has been in there and in international press.
What has stood out to date has been some of the more colorful comments, or the jingoistic attacks and ripostes, references by old African men to colonial abuses, and thinly veiled, contempt-riddled and very high-handed sweeping generalizations on the part of the ‘developed’ donors and bilateral partners. So far, it’s been something to give me interest and to look into, but today I read something that ‘clicked’ certain things into place for me.
As I read news from a Greek online source about the ongoing financial crisis in Europe and more specifically in Greece, I came across an article saying that certain members of the German parliament has said something to the effect that if Greeks wanted Germans’ money then they should simply sell them some islands. Corfu immediately came to mind, as lots of Germans go there. I thought then, hm, if that weren’t so hurtful (as a Greek, it is impossible not to feel the depression and tightness from my country even here, thousands of miles away) it would be downright infuriating. And I was taken aback at their lack of sensitivity and myopic, long-range understanding of the issues. Me, of course, the Greek, with my 100% understanding of everything in Greece!!! (Right?)
And a second later it hit me! Only one week ago, when Germans had (rightly), as a country, voiced their indignation and outrage at being, in an underhanded way, once again asked to bail out Greece’s finances, certain ‘senior’ (mostly in weight) politicians in Greece had as usual risen to the call and once again heaped what they thought was righteous anger on their German Euro-siblings. In actuality, they had simply said things that were so ridiculous that even the Greek press lampooned them. Let us call these two retards ‘Palin’ and ‘Coulter.’
‘Palin,’ the speaker of parliament, had said that Germany (don’t ask me how the hell this man arrived at this from where the conversation originated) should not be so quick to judge because… Greece had 2 Nobel laureates in the last 40-50 years and Germany none. Naturally the Greek press was quick to point out that Bach, Nietzsche, Erasmus (is he a German?) etc. were simply unfortunate not to be born after Mr. Nobel, but in fact Germany was not a wasteland of large steins and good cars but also a cradle of some of the most important philosophies and arts of Western civilization. Apparently, ‘Palin’ had missed that part.
The second dipshit, ‘Coulter,’ deputy PM of our cradle of souvlakia, managed to unwrap his fat-ass mouth from around the latest piece of tax-supported lobster-pasta to rattle off his own righteous fury at the nerve of these upstarts North of Hadrian’s wall, millions of which had already forgotten that (verbatim) ‘the Nazi army stole the gold from Greece’s central bank in WW II.’ Yes, that Greece, the one which was seeing dictator after dictator, and which sent donkeys in the mountains to fight off airplanes. (Good thing they were Italians, or we may have had problems… OH! The burn…) So, again, the newspapers reminded the Greeks that in fact, although West Germany had paid something like 40 million Euro equivalence in the 60s, maybe we shouldn’t also forget the 30+ billion Euro Germany had sent our way which we as bon vivante Greeks had danced and plate-smashed our way through in our efforts to bone the German tourist chicks. (On Corfu. See how this all goes around? There ya go!) I so wished at that point for a massive fucking coronary for this asshole.
In the end, I was pissed off at how fucking arrogant the Germans could be, to make statements like that about selling off Greek soil. I was also angry at the level of geopolitical acumen of our retards in Athens, who so fucking quickly reverted to… uh oh, there it went… I was now doing the thing where your eyes don’t blink and you have an ‘epiphany…’ yes- those dudes in the papers that I read about in Uganda. Poorer country, at the edge of doom, barely hanging on, out of their wits and at the end of the road, resorting to the only comments that could ignite in them any self-respect… colonialism or imperialism or conquest… equating it to today’s ‘modern’ approaches to both of these: client state politics, pipeline real-politik and ‘shut up or I turn off the tap’ strong-arm tactics.
Finally I understood those weak, little-heard citizens who not only wanted a small share of what everyone else was getting, but also wished that those representing them were different, better… more advanced and altruistic. Home to roost, indeed.
Shame on the arrogance and thick skin of the strong. And shame on the small-minded, introspective inferiority complex of the weaker. It’s 2010. But I believe that maybe the day Monica blew Bill was year 0 for geosocial progress and liberalism. Welcome to year circa -14 (depending on when exactly Bill was blown) of our regressive, pathetic decline as a race.
Next week: The progress of my tanning initiative and why I may not have tan lines this summer! Don’t miss it!
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Here’s a quick one:
Lots of humanitarians go to lots of places for lots of reasons. My second-largest pet peeve (after the first, which is people leaving bunched up wet towels to ‘dry…’ THEY DON’T FUCKING DRY BUNCHED UP, DO THEY GOD DAMN IT…! see what I mean?) is humanitarian workers when they exhibit serious lack of judgment and logic and show off about the ‘awesome parties’ they had in serious shitholes, warzones, disaster zones, etc. Now I know that everyone has to blow off steam. But the number of BLOWs you gave to do that, or the number of BLOWs you received is not my fucking idea of understanding ‘how hard it was.’
Seriously man. How about that for respecting someone else’s fucked up life? Everywhere around you people suffer, and you’re partying? Well, yes, because your life has to continue somehow. Fine. But just because you’ve left that place doesn’t mean I now want to hear about how in the end it was all about that hot young nurse/UNV monkey-on-a-string you banged on top of a water bladder behind your air-conditioned container office-cum-guesthouse.
So have some respect for the people where you work, but in the end, have some understanding that not all of us consider your partying it down the only thing that you did ‘over there.’ It’s not about what the priority is. It’s just a little bit inconsiderate. So keep it to yourself and refrain from contributing to the general consciousness/stereotype that all humanitarian workers are shallow and self-centered.
…There’s other fora to do that.
SKIDOOSH.
