When You No Longer Want To Be An Aid Worker
It's been a year since I started this blog. Exactly six hundred posts. And yet, according to Google Analytics, still no readers in Albania, Mauritania, Turkmenistan, or Western Sahara.
I would, however, like to extend a personal thanks to my six readers in Papua New Guinea.
It's been an interesting year. Writing about humanitarian relief has forced me realize that I no longer want the things I once did. I no longer want to live in poor, sometimes horrible places. I no longer want to be an aid worker.
Or, to be more honest - sometimes I still do want those things. Desperately. Especially now that I'm back in the States. Waking up in a run-down guesthouse, or spending the day in the back of a Landcruiser.
It's easy to say that adrenaline and fear and excitement are addictive; a view that conveniently leaves out those long, painfully boring times when it's a routine like any other routine. For me, it was never really, primarily about helping people. Instead, I loved how being an aid worker made me feel about myself.
That and the conflict voyeurism. Late one evening in Iraq, someone asked me if I was there to experience the war. And I was.
And yet over the past year, I've come to realize that my priorities have changed. Other things now seem more important. A sense of stability. A feeling of being rooted in a place.
At thirty-two, for the first time in my life, I no longer feel young. Not old, but not young. I'm still not sure whether this feels like a step forward, or a retreat. Or both.
Over the next few weeks, there will be changes to Humanitarian Relief. I'll continue to write, tho perhaps not with the same frequency. This is by no means an end; instead, it just feels like an appropriate time to say thank you for listening to me ramble for the past year.
And, because I love statistics (and am also just a wee bit insecure) -- below is the year in numbers:
- 113,804 visitors, 160,327 visits, 295,496 pageviews.
- The vast majority of visitors came from the US, followed by the UK, Canada, Australia and Germany.
- The ten most popular posts:
2. A Handy Guide to What the Hell Just Happened in Darfur
4. Darfur- Statistics on Humanitarian Access
5. I Come (Mostly) in Peace - i.e. the end of the Darfur rumble
6. Salary-time - How Much Do Aid Workers Actually Earn?
7. Top Ten Reasons You Know You're Working at an Aid Organization Headquarters
8. Ten Signs that You've Been Overseas too Long
9. Statistics on Humanitarian Relief
10. Go Tell Your Manager - Sexual Harassment in Aid Agencies
[Photo from author]
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