A few days ago I started reading the book "An Imperfect Offering" by James Orbinski. (You can see it here.) James is a doctor who for many years worked with Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders), eventually serving as the international president of the group from 1998-2001. I worked in the international office of MSF when he was president and enjoyed working with him.
When I picked up the book at the library after a friend mentioned it, I thought it would be 'just another MSF book', and that I would just skim it. However, I am absorbed by the book for a few reasons. One, James is a good writer and the story - about how he came to medical humanitarian work and how he evolved within it - is compelling. With Romain in the baby sling and trying to make dinner and entertain Manon at the same time, the other night I couldn't put down the chapter detailing James' work as head of mission in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994. I knew more or less about this horrible chapter in human history from my time at MSF, but to hear it retold from James' point of view (a story I never heard from him personally when I worked at MSF) really moved me. From my time in Brussels I also knew a few other people who were very involved in Rwanda. One person was an artist, a photographer named Alain Kazinierakis, who spent several years photographing and putting together a book of portraits of survivors and perpetrators of the genocide. Through him I also met an amazing woman, Yolande Mukagasana, who had survived the genocide and, despite losing her whole family (including her children), wrote a book and was as positive a person as anyone I'd ever met.
Reading the book has made me think about how my life has changed over ten years. I was immersed again in my work at MSF (though my job, as a writer in the international office, was very peripheral to the hands-on medical work). At that time, I remember having a feeling of being at the centre of everything - not me, specifically, but my daily work touched the major hot spots around the globe, and all the key international debates and questions filtered through our office, which included the organization's secretary-general, for whom I worked, and the international president. This was also partly true at UNICEF, where there was a sense that you were taking a global, high-level approach to making life better for children around the world. It all seemed very important. In both places, I was working for organizations that were at the center of it all.
Reading the book has made me consider what I am in the center of now. My life is so different. I am in a much smaller universe now, by choice. But, small or large, it is just as important as that other universe of humanitarian action and international development. However, I am still discovering how to navigate this world. I understand now that it is sometimes easier to think and write in a high-level global policy way than to get hands dirty and organize mealtimes and bedtime better for the family or figure out how to visit my mother in her assisted living more than once a week - or to understand why sometimes I don't want to. I was pretty good at thinking and writing about humanitarian action and international development but sometimes taking care of the family has me asking me many more question of myself....
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