Response to Alms Dealer

Just finished Philip Gourevitch’s “Alms Dealer,” in October’s The New Yorker.  One part review of Linda Polman’s “The Crisis Caravan: What’s Wrong with Humanitarian Aid?”, it’s a very powerful and thought provoking article its own right.  The article was posted to my Facebook wall by Lindsay Toler, one of the brightest fellow volunteers I have the pleasure to serve with here in Moldova (and a healthy, which clearly speaks to her good character).  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about international aid – its ethics, its effectiveness, and its unintended consequences.  Until now, my thoughts have been mostly focused on development aid, so this article struck a chord and made me think about development’s humanitarian cousin.  What follows are some unorganized thoughts that originally began as a FB comment but grew too long for that medium.  Not the update friends and family back home were probably hoping for, but it’s the one that got written.  Preemptive forgiveness given if you decide to skip it.

The article starts on the familiar terrain of the greed v. grievance debate within conflict studies.  The whole argument is premised heavily on the greed side of this debate, within the academic camp of liberal rationality.  In short, people are rational, including warlords.

The initial problem then that this article forces is that constructivist bane of all rationalist attempts to remake the world into a better place (realism and liberalism alike): rules are not stable, and as soon as the rules of the game are known, rational actors adjust to manipulate the rules in their favor.  The result is a constantly shifting arms race of changing rules.  Unfortunately, as the tomes of failed humanitarian interventions show, the “bad guys” seem to figure out how to work the old rules in their favor much quicker than the “good guys” can come with new rules to prevent them from doing so.

Very quickly, however, the article leaves behind technical questions of why intervention might fuel conflict, and goes for the moral jugular of humanitarianism, whether there can truly be any neutral or unambiguously good intervention.  The single most prescient sentence: "The scenes of suffering that we tend to call humanitarian crises are almost always symptoms of political circumstances, and there’s no apolitical way of responding to them—no way to act without having a political effect."

Ziua mea de Naştere, or: my Moldovan Birthday

I love having a September birthday.  Being a nerd, it has always struck me as appropriate that my birthday comes just as classes are starting, and happens to fall in my favorite season (punny, right?).  My birthday also is perfectly spaced during the run-up to my favorite set of holidays: Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Throw in Christmas and New Years and September 19^th basically becomes the kickoff to a whole holiday season.

September has also, however, tended to be my month of settling into new homes, which has made birthday celebrations a constant unknown.  Take, for example, my first year in college, when nobody even knew it was my birthday.  (This was pre-Facebook, kids…)  But I learned my lesson that year, and since then, have never shied away from making sure people know ahead of time my exact moment of birth.

This year was no exception: having only arrived at my permanent site at the end of August, and with my birthday falling on a Sunday, I knew any celebration would depend on my Moldovan hosts.  Well, never again will I doubt their party-planning capacities.  They delivered with a full-scale Moldovan style birthday bash.  From the top!

The weekend started Friday night, when my host parents’ daughter and boyfriend Rodica and Adrien arrived from Chişinău. 

Weekend in the Big City

After three weeks at site, many of the volunteers headed into Chisinau for a few days of birthday parties and meetings last weekend.  Being amongst the September babies, I wasn’t about to be left out.  I’d negotiated a compact teaching schedule – all my classes Tuesday and Wednesday – just to facilitate occasions like this, and the rough bus schedule I’m confined to in my village.

So, Friday morning, well before the sun was even hinting at being up, I set out with my host father to negotiate our muddy road in the dark.  He packed two large bags of fresh homegrown fruit onto the bus for his daughter and niece in the city, and then said his goodbye to return home as the bus rumbled out of town into the first rays of the morning’s light.  A full-sized bus leaving crawling at snail’s pace along a dirt road out of a village of just 3,000 is one of those things that would have seemed odd a few months ago; now, just another day in the life.

Except this time, I was folded up against the window, watching from the inside of the bus. 

Prima Sună: a Prima Moldovan Day

Today was September 1^st, and in Moldova, that means Prima Sună – First Bell, the first day of school.  Every once in a while there is a moment here that seems larger then Moldova, touching on some emotion deeper than whatever singular experience triggers it; an emotion connected with grander ideals or distant memories.

If swearing in was the first of these moments, First Bell was most certainly the second.  The first day of school is an experience that transcends cultures – the excitement that hangs in the air, accentuated by the crisp smell of an early fall morning, as students dawn their best clothes along with their emotions.

Having always been a bit nerdy, I always loved the first day of school.  Even in college I was one of the rare ones who never missed Opening Convocation.  But today, for the first time in a long time, I was nervous again, as if transported back to Washington Elementary.  After all, this year, for the first time, I was going to school not as a student, but as a teacher, cultural ambassador, and in a new language to boot, rendering me some kind of odd teacher-foreign exchange student hybrid.

First Bell starts with a ceremony. 

Rainy Morning at the Piaţa

As I coaxed my eyes open this morning, they were greeted by the perfect conditions for a lazy morning in bed.  Wandering over to the clock, they pleasantly noted that it wasn’t even seven yet.  The light that found its way into the room seemed to face an extra struggle today…it was a bit too dark for even this early hour.  It lacked that reddish fall tint of individual rays; instead the light was muted and unspecific, seeming slightly to obscure rather than illuminate the lines and colors of everything it touched.  Yes, in fact, it was cloudy, and in the States I would have curled up with a book and cup of tea with that comfortable weekend feeling – that feeling where one can revel in being awake, only because there is no mandate to actually be awake.

But here in my corner of Moldova, Sunday morning means the big piaţa (market), over in Olaneşti.  We have our own piaţa in my village on Saturday mornings, but the Sunday piaţa in Olaneşti is the real deal, with vendors coming from all over to hawk their wares in this ancient commercial center on the banks of the Nistru River.  Olaneşti is just a few kilometers away and only 2,000 or so people larger, but the river and the piaţa make all the difference.  On a Sunday morning when barely a person can be seen in my village, Olaneşti is buzzing with excitement, and one is more likely to meet a neighbor from my village there than on our own deserted streets.

Look Ma, I’m a Real Volunteer!

Speaking to US Ambassador Chaudry
after the ceremony

Wednesday, August 18^th, was a special day for all the M25 HESC and EE PCTs – we swore in as volunteers and officially launched our service.  Let me decipher that sentence:

• Wednesday, August 18^th – hopefully clear
• M25 – my training class, Moldova 25 (we’re the 25^th group of volunteers in Moldova; these days there’s one training class a year)
• HESC – Health Education in Schools and Communities, my program; commonly known as “Healthies”
• EE – English Education program, commonly known as EEs; collectively we’re referred to as Education Volunteers as compared to the Development Volunteers
• PCT – Peace Corps Trainee, what one is for the first 8-12 weeks in country; not volunteer in privileges, allowances, status, or job
• PCV – Peace Corps Volunteer, what one becomes after successfully completing training and taking the oath; the formal beginning of the 2 years of service

In short, I stopped being a trainee, and started being a volunteer.  If the distinction sounds small to those who began thinking of Zach in terms of Peace Corps Moldova back in June, the distinction is quite large within the Peace Corps itself.

How I Learned to Promote World Peace in a Tinderbox for WWIII, or, Two Weeks of Practice School

One might observe the slight gap in postings.  While rumors of my demise were generally overstated, I was, in fact, enduring what is normally described as the most trying part of Pre-Service Training (PST) for Health Volunteers in Moldova: Practice School. (Imagine that’s written in a scary Halloween font and is accompanied by a far-off scream of terror…)

In short, practice school brings our future partner teachers to our training site, where we spend the final two weeks teaching real children real health lessons in a real classroom setting using real Romanian for two really long weeks.