Will Swanson's Blog

Ballistic vests, swollen feet and job satisfaction in contemporary aid work

A few months ago a UNAMID friend of mine let me try on a blue helmet and ballistic vest they usually keep draped over their office chair in case of emergencies. I’ve seen plenty of them around, all the UNAMID troops are issued with them and I supposs civilian staff have to don them when the world starts falling apart. I’d never really given it much thought, but found the straps pushing down on my shoulders, the ceramic plate grating against my ribs and the kevlar helmet crushing my skull to death made me realize how bulky and and immobilizing these ‘lifesaving’ devices really are. It gave me a new appreciation of the fellas who patrol around in them all day long in the Darfur heat.

So I suppose this experience with the ballistic vest and helmet make a good metaphor for how it feels to be back in Darfur.

I’d like to say that things got better in the month that I was away on vacation, that government and rebels were doing more talking and less fighting, that humanitarian access to the field was improving and a general sense of hope persisted among the population about the upcoming elections in April. Yet expectedly, things continued on their soft and almost unnoticeable slide further into the Darfur abyss. A suffocating weight similar to the vest and helmet started to make itself known when I really got up to speed in a briefing meeting yesterday. More skirmishes between government and rebel forces, more raped and strangled bodies left in the field, and NGOs evacuated from deep field locations. Oh, and then preparations for elections!

A friend of mine recently arrived in town to work with another great aid agency, she called me after two days suffering from swollen feet as she’s hardly been able to move. From office to desk to vehicle to guesthouse – we joke that it’s one long episode of Prison Break (less attractive people, more plot holes!).

I understand why nobody here really blogs or tweets. Messages home discuss small things like house parties or the creatures that flitter under the doorways in the night rather than uplifting news from the field. The fact that most people are not even in the deep field flips the apparent benefits of working in aid on its head – very seldom does an international worker have regular contact with beneficiaries and communities in the field here. I can count on one hand the number of times I have strolled through communities where my agency has activities. It’s a model of necessity though, remote management is now essential for security and safety of staff, and also means that we focus on resourcing Darfuri people to implement life saving activities that improve the lives of other Darfuris (which is the only sustainable outcome of any humanitarian relief- capacity building of individuals).

If we are prisoners in a sea of paperwork and emails,  daily recipients of bad news, and targets for criminal gangs and kidnappers – how do foreign aid workers get job satisfaction out of such a dire circumstance? After all western aid agencies are increasingly being shed of their mantels of ‘impartiality’ and ‘neutrality’ in the field.

Thankfully I believe, the answer lies in the same way that you find job satisfaction from any office or desk job in urban Australia, London or Seattle, Washington – finding value in the relationship with those that you work with.

What I love most about Sudan is its people. Really, yes. Some of them take up arms and kill each other and do horrible things that both I and the reader swear we would never be capable of, but living and working alongside an amazing staff give me hope about the future of this country. It’s liberating to hear them identify deception, corruption and trickery among leaders, to talk with disgust about the way that people are being treated  and mistreated across Darfur and also the aspirations that they have for the future.  They also work each day to improve the lives of others living in Darfur. Sudanese humanitarians.

My time in north Sudan is coming to a close in the next few months and I have the pleasure and luxury of an exit. What I will remember more than the work I’ve achieved is the friendships that I made in the process. I’ll look back and remember the political discussions with the WATSAN staff over chai, talking about girls with my HR officer and swapping english and arabic phrases with the guards under stars and satellites at night. I think that if you find value in the people you work with – you discover a sustainable satisfaction in this business of helping others.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 5:48 pm. It is filed under Humanitarian, Personal and tagged with aid, aid worker, conflict, peacekeeping, UN, war. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.