ChIDg Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid Kindle Edition

ChIDg Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid Kindle Edition
Author: Visit ‘s Jessica Alexander Page ID: B00CGI3EEI

Done.
File Size: 2672 KBPrint Length: 401 pagesPage Numbers Source ISBN: 0770436919Publisher: Broadway Books (October 15, 2013)Publication Date: October 15, 2013 Sold by: Random House LLC Language: EnglishID: B00CGI3EEIText-to-Speech: Enabled X-Ray: Not Enabled Word Wise: EnabledLending: Not Enabled Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled Best Sellers Rank: #89,081 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #41 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Disaster Relief #57 in Books > Law > Constitutional Law > Human Rights #60 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Social Activists

I’ve often wondered what draws people to save the world by traveling around the globe and offering aid to those in other countries. While it sounds xenophobic, I’ve often thought that with all the needs in our own nation, why go somewhere else and why would you think you can make a difference.

That’s what led me to ChIDg Chaos by Jessica Alexander. While I can’t say that the book answers all of my questions, it does an excellent job in providing information and a personal experience that I found informative, thought-provoking and important. Ms. Alexander has spent considerable time in places in Africa, Haiti and other locales and has provided an excellent account and analysis of foreign aid and the world of NGOs, the U.N. and disaster recovery efforts.

Her description and re-telling of her time in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Haiti were excellent and I feel much better informed after reading it.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly. Ms. Alexander walks the lines between autobiographer, journalist and scholar in this book and the end product is exceptional.

I read A Thousand Hills to Heaven first, then this book, thinking they would dovetail nicely. I wish I had read them the other way around, this one first, because I kept comparing ChIDg Chaos with the other book, and liking the other so much more. ChIDg Chaos is a very frank expose on the aid/volunteer world, cataloging her experiences both good and bad. She quite easily describes the stress, the pressure, the battle fatigue, the misappropriation and the burn out, and at times it wasn’t necessarily balanced with her humbling, positive experiences. A Thousand Hills to Heaven went through much the same material and volunteer experiences, but I left that book with a much more positive outlook on volunteering in third world countries. I was also at times put off by Ms. Alexander’s descriptions of her motivations – ‘I needed to escape.’ ‘I did not do this to escape.’
Perhaps hers is a more realistic book. It is a solid tale about her volunteer experiences, how she settled into the field and the pros and cons along the way, but if I were only to read one, I’d side with Thousand Hills to Heaven hands down.

ChIDg Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid, by Jessica Alexander, is a mixed bag. A good part of the book (not THE good part), rightly so for a memoir, is about her friendships, shack ups, fears, vacations, assignments, complaints, and victories. There’s a bit too much narcissism here for me, caused perhaps by Alexander’s privileged upbringing. Fundamentally, as she was learning the ropes, did she really help her clients? As I remember, she didn’t learn the ropes domestically, so she was green when she started doing international work. And she wrote as if she was the least cynical of the other aid volunteers and staff, the most sensitive regarding local customs, and at the same time the most competent. This can’t be true, of course.

Okay, what DID I like? I really liked her experienced analysis of concerns regarding donations of time, material goods, and cash. I plan to use this section in a project to get college students to pay closer attention to what they are really doing when they have their book, shoe, or clothing drives for "Africans." I liked her interest in evaluating the effectiveness of aid programs. And I did like her descriptions of how hard some assignments are, to make sure others know what they are getting into.

A mixed bag, for sure. "Good Intentions are Not Enough."
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