First Post: I am an aid worker

Between alcoholism and altruism

This feed is designed to curate and comment on ideas, issues and themes that form the texture of the UNsatisfactory lives of aid workers and their hosts.

The author began aid work in 1999. At that time the author and colleagues were tasked with being the governments of a couple of non-sovereign territories in that year. One was called Kosovo and the other East Timor. Both became sovereign in the end, despite or because of the author and other aid workers.

Since then the author has bounced from job to job and has been paid by the UN Development Programme, the Worldbank, the National Democratic Institute, the US State Department, Global Integrity, Amnesty Interational, the Small Arms Survey, the Crisis Group, and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

The above jobs have spanned 15+ years. They have caused the author to live and/or work as an aidworker in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Indonesia, Kenya, Kosovo, Liberia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste. With some time in aid HQs like Geneva, New York, Washington DC and London — before during and after.

Its been a struggle. Is it hard to live in tough places and do jobs with impossible expectations — ie restore safety and security, create western liberal democracy and establish economic prosperity in a handful of years.

Moreover its been harder still just to try and temper the urges towards alcoholism and self destruction juxtaposed with a sense of altrusim and selfish thrill seeking. Being an aid worker has its golden moments, but it leans towards an unsatisfactory life.

Then there are our hosts. They look at us just as we do them. Bewildered, confused, fascinated, annoyed and frustrated.

The scribblings in this feed are designed to form the basis of a more substantive work in the future.