camwyn | (no subject)

Current Mood: wistful

(no subject)

All the stuff in the news about Hurricane or Tropical Storm or Whatever Cindy has left me wanting to yell 'Marsha Marsha Marsha!', even though it's the wrong Brady-name. There, I've said it.

More importantly, it's made me realize... this is the first hurricane season in six years when I haven't been hovering in front of a television or news feed of some kind, cursing when I didn't hear a weather report. I'm not responsible for marking anything on a map, or opening a new fund to hold hurricane-related money, or anything like that. I have no chance of winding up in a smelly hotel in Louisiana for three weeks at a stretch, or being asked to drive a huge clumsy truck over a thousand miles, or...

It's so weird to see hurricane season from a civilian's point of view.

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Do you miss it?

-M

Yeah.

I mean, I know I can still volunteer, but I've got a paid job at another organization now. Unless I were to spend all my vacation on it, I wouldn't be able to volunteer except after work or on weekends, and a disaster services hitch is three weeks on a job like this. It's just not the same.

I feel like a horse without a bridle.

You still probably had the same thought I did:

"Ah, crap, not again!"

Not really. Last year, or maybe the year before (pretty sure it was last year, tho) I posted something about how I was vaguely disturbed by my eagerness to get out into disaster work because in order to help people that directly in that way, something very, very bad had to happen to them first. As soon as I saw the projection map for Cindy my first thought was 'ooooh-'

And then I stopped myself, because it isn't right to be enthusiastic any more when you can't be part of the relief force.

You know 'Q' is now doing relief work in the tsunami affected area. Agencies like the Red Cross pay really good money for people who do work like that. You'd be great at it. Have you ever considered it?

Given how little the American Red Cross paid me when I worked for them full-time in this country, despite me working for them for six years in the largest (and possibly busiest) chapter of the most densely populated state in the Union, working in the tsunami affected area hadn't really been something I was considering. American NGOs have horrible pay scales unless you're major management.

I'll probably wind up working at one again someday nonetheless. In the meantime, though, I need to actually pay off my debts and save my money.

Sweetheart, volunteers get paid expenses. I'm talking about the INTERNATIONAL Red Cross, which hires people for PROJECTS and programmes. At least in Europe, you register for their list of 'experts' in various things (I'm translating literally, I don't know what the USA calls this list, or pool), you take the courses they organise in International Relief and in project management, and you wait. Eventually they call you up for a project, you go, they pay you well, they look after you well, you get a salary, pension, health scheme, etc., (not for dependents usually, but you don't have any dependents at the moment), but conditions are of course terrible where you are going and the work is tough. You would be ideal for it, IMHO. Doctors Without Borders is another place, as is the UN - not the UN Volunteers, but the UN Projects. However, you seem happy enough where you are, and that is the most important thing. I, on the other hand, would give my eye teeth to be working in a relief project like Q is, rather than being a parasite on society.

Ah, I see. Interesting prospect. I'll definitely consider it once I've got my current debts paid off and stuff.

The salary is usually so good that a LOT of people buy a house or flat, which they rent out during their project time, and pay off the mortgage with their salary. You don't spend a lot of money in a disaster area, and the tents and latrines are provided... AND, you ALWAYS these days have internet access via mobile phone. Q is cut off for 12 days now, since he'll be evaluating conditions in the worst hit areas, but he HAS been promised that as soon as he sets up his base in the area he will have internet access. Communications are necessary. That's where YOU might come in.

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