‘But do you actually do any good?’ <\/p>\n
As a foreign aid worker I often get that question, usually asked rhetorically
\n by my travelling friends who have long ago made up their minds that ‘expats’
\n are a waste of space. They punctuate their prejudice with pithy anecdotes
\n from their travels – tales of drunken UN workers they saw picking up girls
\n in bars, the 4×4 cars with logos of famous charities spotted on safari
\n in African game parks. Or the aid workers who commandeered a luxury local
\n villa (complete with swimming pool) upwind from the refugee camp.<\/p>\n
And many foreign aid workers are as quick to stereotype travellers.
\n There is the bargain-hunting backpacker who barters locals under the poverty
\n line, or the holidaymaker glued behind a video camera who wanders into
\n a war zone.<\/p>\n
I recently saw these counterpoints crystallised in a string of messages
\n posted on the Internet, on a travellers’ bulletin board. The comments
\n kicked off with a backpacker in Africa who called foreign aid workers
\n ‘the ultimate travel snobs, on some kind of human suffering safari’.
\n Another weighed in with: “The majority of foreign workers I have
\n come across in east and central Africa are just there for the money and
\n good life.”<\/p>\n
Aid workers – who obviously are tuned into travellers’ web
\n sites – quickly hit back. Said one: “Can you imagine what it was
\n like in post-genocide Rwanda? I can, I was there. So if aid workers
\n want to get drunk and blow off a little steam then I can understand.”
\n Another added: “What the hell business does a back-backer have being
\n in either a war-zone or a disaster site? Chances are good that they are
\n getting in the way.”<\/p>\n
And so it flowed on with arguments launched from both sides of the divide.
\n I read with great interest, perhaps because I have a foot in both camps.
\n I had worked in long-haul adventure travel years before I became a Logistician
\n for MSF. So I have met a myriad of traveller types, just as I now know
\n a kaleidoscope of aid workers, of varying competencies and qualities.\n <\/p>\n
I like to think there is good on both sides.<\/p>\n
Travel is the world’s biggest industry and potentially a huge power
\n for economic good. Tourism, properly managed, can generate a quick flow
\n of cash from rich to poor pockets. And those hard-bitten backpackers
\n (the same ones who slag off aid workers) are the pioneer species of their
\n type – hardy weeds who spread into those corners of the globe still
\n ‘caution strongly advised’ by the Foreign Office, but precursors
\n for more lucrative tourism that will surely follow if better times come.\n <\/p>\n
Do aid workers do good? I can only talk from my own experience. As a
\n field worker for Médecins Sans Frontières in Colombia I have never doubted
\n for a minute the value of our project. I worked with MSF in the conflict
\n zone, helping get mobile health clinics to a civilian population terrorised
\n by opposing war gangs; guerrillas, paramilitaries or drug gangs. In most
\n cases these villages were abandoned by the state, or worse subjected to
\n barbarities by the same state forces supposedly there to protect them.<\/p>\n
Often we were the only outsiders to reach these villages. I will never
\n forget the joy of the campesinos<\/i> who come to greet us. Just our
\n presence in this troubled zone was as vital as our medical work. Alongside
\n our local and dedicated Colombian counterparts, we ran risks every day
\n to get our work done, and as expats ‘in charge’ we often worked
\n months without a day off. It was not a holiday.<\/p>\n
Yes, I admit, at first I was thrilled at the ‘exclusivity’
\n of our mission, seduced perhaps by the frisson of being a one-and-only
\n in the backwoods of a country at war. No, I can’t guarantee that
\n our work – however welcome in the short term – will affect
\n the torturous path of Colombia’s 40-year war. <\/p>\n
Because of course aid workers cannot cure all of the world’s ills,
\n any more than travellers and tourism can provide a post-op panacea. Both
\n have the power for good and harm.<\/p>\n
But I would like to see those lush hills of Colombia to be traversed
\n by happy mountain-bikers. The campesinos<\/i>, in between farming avocados,
\n guiding birdwatchers and orchid lovers along the banks of clear streams.
\n Homesteaders sell bowls of fragrant chicken stew to grateful hikers.
\n The abandoned health posts are repaired, the village schools get their
\n roofs back, the bullet holes are plastered over, and a teacher welcomes
\n his young smiling students. Then I would be happier to be on holiday
\n than working as an expat.<\/p>\n