Oh, The Places You'll Go

by Michael Bear · 2009-02-14 09:32:00 UTC
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One of my favorite bloggers is the semi-mysterious Harry Rud in Kabul, who writes about aid work and aid workers - the good, the bad - better than almost anyone else.

As with his most recent post, about what inevitably happens when aid workers get together:

"Put a group of aid workers in the same room and I guarantee at some point the conversation will run along the lines of: ‘when I was in DRC blah blah blah’ ‘when I was in Goma blaaahhhh’ ‘well when I was in Darfur blah!’ ‘I remember when I was in Sri Lanka and…’ Blah.

Sharing diverse experiences is of course a good thing, especially when it involves experiences of great danger and bravery, killer insects and tropical diseases, the best bars and drunken debauchery, and how fucked up such and such a thing/place is.

Sharing serious experiences is of course a good thing, especially when comparing the education policies in Haiti with those in Somalia. And when the ‘when I was in’ story is used to put oneself above one’s national counterparts who haven’t had the privilege of travelling to such exotic places."

To read the full post, see here.

Michael Bear
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