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A Cruel Paradise: Journals of an International Relief Worker
These are the journals of Leanne Olson, a Canadian nurse who for four years worked in war zones around the world, delivering medicine in Bosnia, supporting rural hospitals in Africa, providing aid to people in need. She was one of the first foreigners on the scene of the Mokoto massacre in Zaire, where more than a hundred people were killed by machete-wielding Hutus. She spent one Christmas pinned down by Serbian heavy artillery with a troop of Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers. She immunized thousands of children in rural Liberia. And she has witnessed the quick progress of ethnic cleansing, watching one village after another wiped off the face of the earth.
- GenresTravelNonfiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 31, 2015
Sounds like Olson had some truly intense experiences while working as a nurse with MSF and MERLIN (a British nonprofit). Unfortunately it doesn't make for a great read—it's mostly her journal with some commentary (and perhaps editing), which means that there's very little by way of scene and description and the like. Much more of the we-did-this-we-went-there-this-happened-that-happened-oh-there-was-that-funny-time-we-almost-died-and-then-we-ate-cookies sort of thing.
Example: In EPI, I've let Henrietta go as the supervisor. She's going to head a feeding centre for MSF in Monrovia. She's not too pleased, but we could really use her there, and there's some tension among the rest of the team over some minor incidents that happened while I was away on sick leave. I can't really get to the bottom of it, but I hope things work out for everyone (68). This is pretty much how the whole book works—there's not enough about Henrietta for me to be sure who she is; there's not enough about any of the major players to have any idea what that tension might be; the paragraph is tossed in there with no context and no follow-up. One of those things that's very true to real life but not interesting to read about. (And...minor note...but there's a point on page 28 when she says that Malnutrition, I soon found out, is a complex and complicated disease. Which is fine...except it's a condition, not a disease. I'd expect a nurse to use more precise language for that sort of thing, and an editor to suggest changing either 'complex' or 'complicated'.)
Olson's first MSF assignment was in Liberia, and that's the section that's the most fleshed out, perhaps because she was new to the job and trying to figure out how things worked. The later sections of the book (she starts over on Chapter 1 every time she takes a job in a new country) go so quickly that I had trouble understanding what her particular job was in each country. The further into the book I got, the more it seemed a litany of went-there-met-this-person and less tales of, well, working for a medical nonprofit. I'm impressed by the work she did but rather wished she'd focused fewer moments in fewer countries and really given those moments room to breathe.
Example: In EPI, I've let Henrietta go as the supervisor. She's going to head a feeding centre for MSF in Monrovia. She's not too pleased, but we could really use her there, and there's some tension among the rest of the team over some minor incidents that happened while I was away on sick leave. I can't really get to the bottom of it, but I hope things work out for everyone (68). This is pretty much how the whole book works—there's not enough about Henrietta for me to be sure who she is; there's not enough about any of the major players to have any idea what that tension might be; the paragraph is tossed in there with no context and no follow-up. One of those things that's very true to real life but not interesting to read about. (And...minor note...but there's a point on page 28 when she says that Malnutrition, I soon found out, is a complex and complicated disease. Which is fine...except it's a condition, not a disease. I'd expect a nurse to use more precise language for that sort of thing, and an editor to suggest changing either 'complex' or 'complicated'.)
Olson's first MSF assignment was in Liberia, and that's the section that's the most fleshed out, perhaps because she was new to the job and trying to figure out how things worked. The later sections of the book (she starts over on Chapter 1 every time she takes a job in a new country) go so quickly that I had trouble understanding what her particular job was in each country. The further into the book I got, the more it seemed a litany of went-there-met-this-person and less tales of, well, working for a medical nonprofit. I'm impressed by the work she did but rather wished she'd focused fewer moments in fewer countries and really given those moments room to breathe.
July 29, 2012
I love this book because I make a couple of cameos in it!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews