Chasing Chaos: The realities of humanitarian aid

Book Reviewed: Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid, by Jessica Alexander

When Hollywood elites like George Clooney and Angelina Jolie go for the glitzy and PR-friendly side of international humanitarian aid, real aid workers go for the grit, the grind and the hard-knocks. This is the story of an idealistic young woman who goes to make a difference in the lives of less-fortunate who needed humanitarian help. After working with tens of thousands of refugees in Darfur, and in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, the author Jessica Alexander says her idealism dwindled to cynicism. This book is an honest memoir, and her experiences at world's hotspots are horrific. She appears to have found peace by helping people from behind a desk and connections she made with countless local workers and occasional trip into the field, drunken parties and failed romances.

The author sheds light on another aspect of humanitarian aid; it is not a vehicle for the self-sacrificing anymore, but it is a growing industry where competing organizations fight for funding; the same way businesses compete for customers. Former aid workers are available as consultants for those who are going into the troubled spots. The following example would suffice to illustrate the problems in humanitarian aid: according to a report by CNN, a week after typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines, food, water, and medicine started pouring into the island nation, but they arrived with no designated way to reach the storm's neediest victims. Six days after the storm hit, there were reports that most citizens in Tacloban had not received any aid and were going on a week without food, water, shelter, and other necessities. Lack of vehicles, fuel, and manpower are what's holding up the flow of aid in the Philippines. In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the airport in Port-au-Prince was the problem; it was too small to handle the large numbers of aid flights. Some planes carrying rescue teams, medical personnel, and equipment were delayed or diverted. In addition to mass destruction, and loss of life, many recent natural disasters have been hampered by a less tragic but still pressing problem: a lack of logistics. With more natural and human caused disasters in the future, the aid bottlenecks are doomed to grow larger and more painful. The author's knowledge and experience is tremendously beneficial in fighting the aftermath of such disasters.