One bit of news that no self-respecting, Harlequin Romance loving, disaster working, self-mocking EAW will want to miss is Tales from the Hood’s announcement that Disastrous Passion as a complete, downloadable e-book is coming out!

“Will Jim-Bob figure out that aid is a profession, not a hobby? Will Randy and Artemis ever succeed in hooking up?? And most important of all, what will become of Mary-Anne and Jean-Philippe???”

 We shall soon find out….

But what about those family types who are not off gallivanting in Haiti, having all kinds of sordid affairs? Elisa throws us a few questions on AidSource related to families in the humanitarian sector. And no, the idea of ‘families’ in this line of work is not a joke, she says.

Unlike the significant wealth of material that exists for missionary families, military families, and corporate expatriate families – other globally mobile or frequently separated families – the humanitarian literature on the subject of families is scarce. Regardless of whether the focus is on national or expatriate staff, little research has been done on the experiences, challenges, or needs of families in the humanitarian sector

In other AidSource News, check out our new Pinterest page (and blame Tales for it. I have no clear idea what the purpose of Pinterest is, but I’m very glad to know we are there :))

You can also listen to Alanna’s podcast on the Chronicle of Philanthropy where she talks about connectivity and social networks, check out some of her latest projects or read her new e-book “What’s Killing Us: A practical guide to understanding our biggest global health problems.”

@dalgoso reviews it here.

The book consists of ten short chapters that each describe the basic facts about a different global health problem. Writing for a nonspecialist audience, Shaikh lays out why we should worry about each problem and what can be done to address it. The result is a fantastic primer on global health issues for an outsider to the field. I especially appreciated the tie-ins with other development issues: weak healthcare systems and climate change both earned their own chapters.

Also recommended: Alanna’s most recent post on Bill Easterly and the Culture of Nice in the aid world:

Development and aid work is mired in a culture of nice, and that culture keeps bad work from being eliminated and good work from getting better. We’re too nice to call a bad project a bad project. When we criticize, we criticize in abstractions. No one has any problem identifying bad products as bad – Vista, for example – but no one will ever call a bad program bad. If you look at my post on NGOs that do harm, you’ll only see anonymous comments about unnamed projects. We’re addicted to nice.

For all those stuck being nice, you can live vicariously through Africa is a Country who takes down a sappy video by a starry-eyed violinist, feed bag purses as high fashion for do-gooders (modeled by none other than Lauren Bush) and live tweets a reading of the NY Times’ article on rebranding Africa (again) through high fashion.

The Onion comes in with their take on The Ongoing Africa which is plaguing the region (of Africa). Ouch. (HT @viewfromthecave)

“At this point, we are unable to keep up with the flood of victims from the continuing Africa,” said World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan, who called the current Africa the ”most urgent and devastating”humanitarian disaster of our time. ”By our count, this catastrophic Africa has killed more than 100 million individuals over the past 10 years, and we’re seeing thousands more—many of them helpless infants and children—succumbing to Africa by the day.”

“And unfortunately,” Chan added, ”the merciless Africa shows no signs of abating.”

Africa, which affects upwards of 40 million new residents annually, has only grown more deadly over the years. According to WHO figures, many of the afflicted die from Africa or Africa-related complications before they even reach the age of 5.

For those wishing to help, we bring you our pick for meaningful campaign of the week (clearly needed, given the questions it is raising). (HT @jlundine and @meowtree)

COP intrepidly wades in through red tape to save the natives and achieve sustainable development. (Photo: http://john.curtin.edu.au/)

“Chief of Party”, amigos, is the position that all Expat Aid Workers covet, at least among those who do real development work with funding, as opposed to those underpaid dusty guerilla types who rattle around in C-130’s with flour sacks doing relief work, the work of God. Yeah, someone has to do it, but the quicker those cargo-panted pudnockers get out of the way the better. Enter the Chief of Party to get the development job done!

The Chief of Party (COP) is the emissary of development, leader of the mission, the all-powerful director of USAID projects with funding in the gazillions, commanding a staff numbering anywhere from 25 to hundreds, the blessed one who is served tea first and most frequently in the office.

As HQ wants it…. (Photo: http://www.patenthawk.com/blog/)

Never mind that the COP has the signing authority of a dachshund. It’s the image and the allowances that count. Illusions aside, what the COP really does is battle with the ever-meddling “home office”. Every field commander throughout history can attest to it. Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan were likely the last field directors in recorded times that didn’t have to put up with a pain-in-the-arse HQ because they were the ones in charge.

Whether it’s the Pentagon or your beloved EAW HQ in Washington or its fabled ‘burbs, it’s no matter, they want to hold “their man or woman in the field” by the short and curlies, primarily due to concerns over “compliance”. They’ve watched in horror as the Office of the Inspector General sent a few unlucky fellow firms in the development aid industrial complex to the gallows, hooded and swinging slowly in the wind, simply due to non-compliance, the evil of all evils within the bureaucratic realm. By Gawd, it won’t happen to them, not on their watch!

The unschooled younger EAW or bushy-tailed project assistant at HQ who aspires to the field may see the storied COP as the master planner and director of all “technical” activities, the diffuser of innovation.

Chief of Party! The toast of the Aid World.

The stark reality is the poor wanker spends most of his or her time “dotting the ‘I’s’ and “crossing the ‘T’s’” in contract “documentation”, going through interminable rounds of combat with HQ to reach compliant nirvana and to get a freaking VP to sign on the bottom line of a paltry value contract to get a few development thingies done. Best not to complain though, just salute the snapping corporate flag, and continue to comply.

To be sure, it’s a great title, Chief of Party. Who wouldn’t want that one? Anyhow, the home office thinks the COP is busy stirring pink gin and tonics just about all the time, living high off the hog with all those tasty but taxable allowances. You might as well comply with the image, folks. Where’s dinner tonight? Be sure to serve the toddies with ice please, shaken, or stirred…it really doesn’t matter, because life is hell in the tropics, sniffs the ruddy-faced COP, dreaming of retirement in a villa in Phuket, with daily massage scheduled at noon (not a minute before). Now that’s compliance…

“We started this work, because we believed, long before the rest of the world was interested, that Afghanistan could be something more than a byword for misery and hopelessness. And that we could, or should, be part of that healing.

But why should that belief lead us to conclude that we would pass unscathed? Isn’t there likely to be a cost, somewhere? The other lives of which I am also a part – son, brother, friend – have continued, in their various parts of the world. Nothing stopped, just because we went to work in Afghanistan. There will be a cost, and we were told that, right at the start. If that cost is never apparent, you are either very lucky, or have somehow stayed close to the surface, buoyant enough to avoid the deep currents.

Deep down though, I know I hoped that these other lives would keep till we returned.”

Angelica (@onsanity) goes off on those in charge of hiring consultants, offering such tips as:

“Don’t expect me to calculate costs, including travel, if you are not telling me where I’m going and for how long. Also, when makes a difference, for the most  part prices double during  summer months, and we both know the timetable attached is irrelevant, especially as it states I stated this job two weeks ago.”

Urban Legend Kampala snarks about things as diverse as mobile phones, boda boda drivers and politics. Follow them on Twitter. (HT @rowanemslie)

Duncan Green starts using Twitter fo’ real and blogs about his first impressions.

“The endless self promotion: people retweet their retweets, even when the retweeter has added no discernible value. Why? Have I missed something or have you no remaining shreds of decorum? Looking at you @Bill_Easterly…. 

I did not find it a touchy-feely horizontal democratic conversation, as described by @clairemelamed when I asked about the paucity of women development bloggers/commenters. Actually it felt like lots of shouty men showing off.”

On the bright side:

“Gives you a sense of an endless conversation, with memes and new bits of research and journalism picked up, swirling rapidly into the mainstream, to be gobbled up by bigger fish or sink back into the depths. Going to take me a while to learn to navigate this one…. Oh, and no-one tweets about having coffee, or eating breakfast – that’s just twitterphobe propaganda.”

Quinn Z gets famous on NPR’s Talk of the Nation: “Aid worker leaves Haiti with a Sour Taste.” 

“Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you don’t pick up on what other people perceive you to be. And I know a lot of Haitians who are very proud of being Haitian. They’re very proud of where they come from and, yeah, they might not have a lot, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re miserable and suffering constantly.

I think it’s unfair to pigeonhole them into that…. That is, certainly, something that can start to build resentment over time. It’s like, you know, you guys are just assuming I’m this thing that you need to come here and fix…. Goes back to my early point that coming in to try and save anything is, I think, incredibly demeaning to whoever the people that you’re trying to, quote, unquote, “save” are.”

@bill_easterly (the infamous self-retweeter referenced above) questions US ‘Beltway Bandits’ lobby against USAID’s new ‘buy local’ rules. Also providing commentary is @ReesEdward who explains:

“What is USAID’s reform all about? It wants to do three things to get better impact:

1. It wants to provide direct assistance to governments in the developing world;

2. It wants to provide more assistance directly to local civil society in the developing world (NGOs, media, watchdogs); and

3. It wants to procure more goods and services from local business in the developing world, cutting costs, driving wealth into host communities and creating jobs.

All of these actions will either partially or largely cut out the middle men inside the Beltway. All of these ideas could see some well off people in the “bandit” community getting less of the gravy train. They are not happy.”

Prize for unnecessary BOGO (buy-one-get-one) of the week goes to Flying Flips’ “Flip Flops for Good” project. As expected, Mashable is promoting it. (HT @janereitsma)

For each purchase made, FlyingFlips donates one pair of flip flops to a person in need in the developing world, through Soles4Souls and Fundacion A. Jean Brugger

You want to design your own flip flops, great. But please, there’s no need to add the “for good” guys, really, as Kevin Broome explains:

“Sending shoes to developing countries is actually not that great an idea. Developing countries have flip flops. There are local stores that sell them and local companies that make them. Sending free shoes to a developing country actually takes business away from the local people.

Also, you may want to check in with the local design community about their feelings on design contests / crowd sourced design. Most designers tend to like getting paid for their skills and ventures like this do little to promote just how valuable a good design can be.

Finally, it should be noted that Soles4Souls is a Christian-based organization, and while I have no intention of bashing religion, the practices of Christian-based organizations in developing countries have been directly responsible for misled education around safe sex and attitudes toward sexual orientation. I would just urge caution in knowing what exactly you are supporting.”

We assume no one who reads Mashable, however, will listen to Kevin.

Let’s face it, high school reunions are not really about getting together with old friends and catching up…. They are about who won.

Really. If you keep in touch with anyone from HS, it is probably one or two really close friends. The rest you couldn’t care less about. So the only real reason anyone shows up to these things is to show how much better their life turned out or how cool they are now.  And this, my friends, is where the EAW wins hands down.

Now, there will be two types of EAWs at these events.

On the one hand, there is the person that was awkward and shunned in high school. This late bloomer went on to be an EAW and now relishes showing everyone just how interesting he or she turned out and settling psychological scores with old nemeses.

On the other hand, there is the former football captain, head cheerleader or homecoming king/queen who, true to form, is still pretty f***ing awesome and wants to make sure all the losers still know it.

As most experienced EAWs know, the trick to achieving maximum effect at these events is a combination of three things: timing, props and slide shows.

To start off, the best thing an EAW can do is actually fly into the reunion just hours before it starts, preferably from some random or dangerous place that the EAW’s “classmates” only hear mentioned on the nightly news during dinner as they are trying to stop their kids from flicking peas at them.

This first act is key, as by doing so, the EAW will have the second component of success, props. Specifically, that dusty, rugged luggage (preferably some sort of rucksack) and passport. Coming into whatever cheesy venue the organizing committee chose for the event, the EAW should ask to store his or her “kit” behind the table with all the name tags. Being in plain view of all attendees, this in itself will start to stir conversation and up the ante. Next, the EAW should casually leave that triple-additional-paged passport in his or her pocket, not quite out of sight.

These two props will no doubt spark interest and instantly make the EAW the talk of the room as the questions start coming. “Oh wow, you just flew in from Kigali??  Where is that anyways? That is so admirable! I wish I was doing something more meaningful!”  Seriously, who wants to talk kids, accounting or sales when the EAW has been saving lives in the mountains of Pakistan or the jungles of Colombia……it’s not even a fair fight. The real trick for the EAW is to pretend that he or she is reluctant to talk about it and make a point of enquiring and caring about others, “No really, enough about me being shot at! Now, tell me… what you have been up to!”

Finally, the EAW should have submitted, or even better, had someone else submit, pictures for the de rigueur “where are they now” slide show.  These pictures should be of the “rookie shot” variety which every EAW worth their salt should have burned or deleted long ago, but they play well for the home folk. They are of course the pictures with the benevolent EAW surrounded by adoring African children or grateful Cambodian grandmothers accepting the largesse of the EAW. If the EAW has a pic of riding in a helicopter or squatting and talking to a small child under a tree, all the better. All of these will be infinitely better than what’s her names “crazy” picture of her and hubby swimming with the dolphins and explaining how “they just come right up to you!”

In the end, it will be abundantly clear just how great the EAW has become, being the selfless humanitarian and world traveler the EAW is. The married classmates will start wishing their partners were more like the EAW. The EAW, being so interesting and worldly, will likely get laid that night; and, with any luck, the class of [insert year] will walk away thinking about how meaningless their lives are.  That my friends, is total victory.

Our thirty- to forty-something EAW embarks on a posting abroad with his or her young family, placating anxious grandparents back in the first world.

It’s worth extracting little Luke and Emily from their modern comforts and amenities. They’ll have a unique opportunity to experience diverse cultures and customs, and gain a real appreciation of poverty by living right there on its doorstep!

What fantastic, well-rounded and humble world citizens they’ll grow up to be, having lived in an environment where they will be excited about a glass of clean water rather than some syrup-flavoured slop from Starbucks and where they will don the local attire rather than obsessing over the latest Disney or Nike gear.

The children will run around happily with the kids from the village. They’ll use a ball of twine for soccer and won’t even know the difference. They will explore the outdoors; their creative, free spirits soaking in nature and local innovation borne out of necessity rather than spending hours with square eyes and shaking wrist in front of a 42-inch TV playing Wii….

This little fantasy is short-lived, however, as EAW children will essentially remain first world brats. After the first few weeks of exploring the family’s new environs, our happy EAW family weekends become endless. There is no bowling alley to hang out in, no shopping mall to buy junk food and plastic crap, no rigorous sports schedule to follow, and no nearby movie theatre showing the latest 3D Hollywood blockbuster. The children are really, actually missing out, and our EAW begins to harbor feelings of worry and guilt. Not to mention he or she wants to strangle the children who require constant attention because there is “nothing to do.”

Not to worry. Soon our EAW will attend an international conference in a modern city, a “Hub” if you will, returning with a bulging suitcase full of guilt items:  a Wii, an Xbox Kinect with a myriad of games, an iPod for the six-year old, an iPad for the eight-year old, and for those really long holiday plane rides, a Nintendo DSi and a Sony PSP.

When these break, the EAW will try out the nearest local department store, grabbing all four available boxes of Legos in case they run out and are never restocked. Never mind that they cost three times as much as they do back home.

Bored with Legos? Not a problem — there are expat brats birthday parties to attend! Quantities of expensive crappy toys will be gifted by one overly rich family to another. And when these are thrown aside by the expat children, they can be left out for the local kids down the road.  Those kids can get hours of fun out of discarded Barbie dolls — a win-win for everyone, and good way to teach charity values!

When our expat brats are tired of playing with all their new toys, it’s time for the housekeeper to get them cleared up and put them away in the cupboard, alongside the drawers containing all the neatly ironed t-shirts and dresses that are changed and tossed on the floor with abandon five times a day.

Meanwhile our expat mums carp on to each other about how tough it is keeping the children entertained in this godforsaken outpost and question whether the nanny is taking care of the baby properly whilst pouring themselves another gin and tonic on the balcony.

Speaking of Wronging Rights, be sure to download their new e-book Beyond Kony 2012.

This week’s choice for brutally honest, soul-baring link, is @quinnzim writing about the ‘aid bitchslap’ – the strange, ugly and enlightening time of moving from idealism to realism:

“Some things I have become clear on as a result of Haiti:

1. Good intentions aren’t enough. 
2. Rose-colored glasses are bullshit. 
3. The white savior industrial complex is real, demonstrated daily by feel good aid programs that probably don’t work, or feel good causes like Kony 2012 that generate plenty of buzz but don’t add up to much when people are actually supposed to do something.
4. You can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves.
5. True altruism is an incredibly rare thing. (See #3)
6. Little victories must be celebrated if you want to protect yourself from the crippling effects of the larger failure.”

Also see the Reddit discussions on Quinn’s post. 

@TexasinAfrica gets irritated at media coverage of Africa. “Mainstream news outlets frequently run stories under headlines like “Land of Mangoes and Joseph Kony,” [are you kidding me?!] seemingly without thinking how condescending and racist such framing sounds.” Binyavanga Wainaina agrees.

Swedes and Blackface and FGC and Racism and Gender, oh my. Too much to unpack here. @Hayibo explains that it’s because Europeans are just savages, duh. Johan Palme tries to gain a cross-cultural, cross-gender and cross-sector understanding of it by actually talking to the key people involved, though it seems like there’s a lot of folks at cross-purposes and living in parallel universes.

As if blackface wasn’t bad enough in the Swedish Golliwog Cake incident, Foreign Policy gives us blackbody on the ‘Nekkid Burqa Woman‘ (HT @naheedmustafa’s piece) cover of their ‘sex’ issue featuring @monaeltahawy’s “Why do they hate us.” This wins FP the prize on the Orientalism is Alive tumblr for ‘orientalist image of the week,’ and, along with the Eltahawy piece, generates some major discussion, for example, here and here.

On a lighter note we have The African Man vs the Hollywood Stereotype by the makers of Alex Explains Commando

Oh, wait, it’s not lighter at all, according to Elliott Ross who writes,

“Lydia Polgreen was right last week when she tweeted about Afua Hirsch’s take on lazy Western reporting in/of Africa in the Guardian. (All the big print beasts seem to be bringing out new versions of this kind of post/op-ed every day, which is welcome, though some of the more recent critiques have simply rehashed a lot of not especially original arguments, and even headlines.)

To quote Polgreen: ‘What is more insulting than the idea of “positive news” from Africa? As if the continent was a dull witted child in need of encouragement.’”

Just more attempts by foreigners to re-create a brand for Africa and Africans?

Last week’s 52 reasons why you shouldn’t date an aidworker spawns 52 reasons you should date an aid worker. (We hope that participants/beneficiaries of aid worker dating were consulted in the process of establishing these lists.)

And finally, Spencer Ackerman hates on Beltway Culture HT @brettkeller

Time for a holiday.

Expat Aid Workers try really hard to blend in. Unfortunately, they are still undeniably conspicuous. This, combined with the insularity of the EAW lifestyle, produces a fantastic breeding  ground for gossip.

EAWs will not be surprised in the least come Monday morning when everybody in the office is talking about that drunken misdemeanor down at the expat bar on Friday night or discussing who got with whom at the debauched house party on Saturday.

Image: www.thegossipwire.com

Stuck in compounds with colleagues or living in small towns in the middle of nowhere, EAWs are unable to avoid the blurring of personal and professional lives. In addition, they tend to live under high levels of surveillance by other EAWs and locals alike, including community members.

The severely limited choice in terms of people to hook up with, gives rise to shocking incestuous liaisons, providing excellent fodder for lunchtime conversations in the canteen or during evening drinking sessions (though things can get ugly when one of those liaisons is discussed in the framework of someone getting a promotion).

The boredom of the EAW lifestyle is useful for keeping the rumor mill running. Once a group of EAWs has discussed the scintillating local literature they are reading, exchanged advice about which shops in town currently have nice cheese in stock, and talked about all the places they’ve been, attention invariably turns to the latest (and much more interesting) scandal.

What’s going to happen next in the ongoing drama surrounding the hot bilateral development agency guy’s increasingly fractious long-distance relationship with his overprotective girlfriend? Has the student volunteer finally gone for it with that cute local Rasta she’s been flirting with since she arrived? Does Bob actually have a heart, and does the fact that he was at lunch with a local semi-hottie during his most recent field visit mean that it is actually beating?

Saving the world, attending important international conferences and facipulating meetings with local partners is exhausting and EAWs sometimes need to let go. The age-old practice of gossip serves as a mechanism for hard-working, socially accepting and peace-building EAWs to handle stress and ensure that social hierarchies are observed and managed by the wider community.