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Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid

Jessica Alexander (Goodreads Author)

4.08 · Rating details · 2,053 ratings · 208 reviews

An eye-opening and intimate memoir about life as an international humanitarian aid worker in the field in Rwanda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Haiti.

Jessica Alexander arrived in Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide as an idealist intern, excited to be a part of the international humanitarian aid community. But the world that she encountered in the field was dramatically dif ...more

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Paperback, 400 pages

Published October 15th 2013 by Broadway Books

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Start your review of Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid

Apr 25, 2020 Nicole rated it really liked it

Shelves: humanitarian, 2020, non-fiction, biography

I loved this book! I have a difficult time reading non-fiction but I couldn’t put this one down, I guess because I’m very interested in its topic. I wish Chasing Chaos was longer, wanted to know more of Alexander’s experience in the field instead of her personal life (this definitely made the book more “fiction like” to me but in this case, and maybe easier to read but I only wanted to know more about the facts, events, programs, and hardships they faced in executing them).

I would recommend thi ...more

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Sep 16, 2013 Ed rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed this book. I’ve been in the aid business for a while, and have had many of the same experiences and felt many of the same emotions that Alexander describes here. This isn’t some self-absorbed aid worker bragging about exploits or overblowing accomplishments. This is real and her observations are spot-on. Alexander tells the reader about the frustrations, the stresses, the personal and professional challenges and the deep satisfaction and sense of purpose that working with people ...more

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Jun 01, 2016 Mike Robbins rated it really liked it

It’s 2005 in Darfur, western Sudan. Jessica Alexander, a young American aid worker, is woken at 5.30am by the call to prayer. The night before she put a wet towel on her forehead and soaked her pajamas so that they would keep her cool. Now she gets out of bed to face the heat again and go to one of the camps for the internally displaced. Brought to Darfur to do something else, Alexander has suddenly found herself needed to manage Al Salam, a camp of about 20,000 people. She is just 27. She now s It’s 2005 in Darfur, western Sudan. Jessica Alexander, a young American aid worker, is woken at 5.30am by the call to prayer. The night before she put a wet towel on her forehead and soaked her pajamas so that they would keep her cool. Now she gets out of bed to face the heat again and go to one of the camps for the internally displaced. Brought to Darfur to do something else, Alexander has suddenly found herself needed to manage Al Salam, a camp of about 20,000 people. She is just 27. She now spends her days trying to ensure that new arrivals are registered and that the kids don’t drown in the sewage pits. (Not that those kids are always appealing. The African Union peacekeepers have corrupted them: “It wasn’t uncommon for them to yell ‘suck my cock’ or ‘big tits’ when white women passed,” she reports.)

Was Alexander doing any good? If not, why not, and what should we do about it? In this thoughtful book, Alexander tries to answer these questions, and I think she sort of succeeds.

Alexander hadn’t originally planned to be an aid worker. On graduation she joined a New York ad agency, thrilled with her new briefcase, a gift from her mother, and the sound of her high heels clacking as she crosses the floor of the hall. Disillusion sets in as she finds herself working on a frozen pizza account. “When I wasn’t stuffing my face with our own soggy, salty brand or comparing the fat content ...to that of our competitors, I was watching their ads,” she says. Then her mother dies. “If I could die at age fifty, I wanted a more meaningful profession than the one provided by Hot Pockets and Sunny Delight.” Alexander decides she’d like to work in aid and development. She joins the New York office of an NGO, but quickly becomes frustrated that she has never been to any of the places her colleagues are talking about. She decides to do a Masters in development, and winds up doing a summer internship with the UN in Rwanda.

It is at that point that this book takes off. Alexander finds herself transcribing people’s interviews for refugee status. She finds out that these take a long time to process, being approved in Kigali and Nairobi and going eventually to Geneva. She is also less than impressed with her fellow-expats. “Most expats lived ...in spacious houses situated behind high walls, some with barbed wire at the top ...At dinner parties like these we drank alcohol from Italy and ate cheese from France. The expats sat around, complaining that their guard was caught sleeping again....” From my own experience, this needs a pinch of salt. Not all expats in aid live like that, especially if they work for NGOs. Still, some do. And as Alexander’s career progresses, she finds the aid worker’s expat way of life bizarre. “It wasn’t out of the ordinary when in any humanitarian setting to get an e-mail with the subject line “War Children Party— Thursday Night— Festive Attire Required!” or “Center for Survivors of Torture— Fancy Dress Night Friday.”

Alexander went on to do research in Sierra Leone (she is more positive about this) and eventually to help evaluate the responses to the 2004 tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In Colombo, she hears post-tsunami that there is actually too much money, chasing too few projects; NGOs building child centres, for example, and then competing for the children. There are also economic distortions from the influx of aid, and she meets a teacher and a judge who work for local NGOs because there’s more money in it. Meanwhile in Darfur there is too little money, and northern Uganda and Congo get no attention. In Haiti, where more than 220,000 people have been killed and approximately 180,000 homes wrecked, she finds that cars bound for aid agencies are held up in customs because (it is said) officials are getting kickbacks from car rental companies.

Working at New York HQ is no better, as she must confront the language of bureaucratic obfuscation. “Complementarity of processes, sectoral coverage, evaluability of impact, operationalization of the concept— eventually enough of these invented phrases were dropped in documents or e-mails that people stopped wondering if they held actual meaning. “Modalities are in place” was the response you got almost every time you asked how a project was progressing.” As an editor in one of the big aid organizations, I have to weed this noxious self-serving crap out of reports (I have banned the word modality). So I can confirm that Alexander has a point.

It sounds from the above as if this book telling us that all aid is a waste. In fact, Alexander is more nuanced that that. She points out that while aid may be an unregulated industry, it is a self-critical one, and it is considering its failures and increasing its transparency. She is right about this; one wishes the banks could do the same. She finishes by talking about innovations like cash transfers and mobile technology – again, this is true; UNICEF, for instance, is putting a lot of effort into innovation. Alexander also puts the aid “biz” in perspective. The sums spent are large ($ 17.9 billion on humanitarian crises worldwide in 2012) but are dwarfed by the $ 114 billion for Katrina relief, the $ 50 billion for Storm Sandy, and the $ 13.7 billion spent on the 2012 London Olympics. Neither does Alexander ever say that humanitarian aid is a waste of time. What she wants readers to understand is that aid cannot fix the world. Good government is needed too.

I did have reservations about this book. It’s a bit longer than it needs to be, and occasionally repetitive. At times Alexander is too negative about the people who work in aid. In fact some of them are profoundly committed and do lose their lives, as seven – four from UNICEF – did in a bomb explosion in Somalia in 2015. I wondered, too, if everyone in this book would really have wanted to be. Some deserve Alexander’s scrutiny, but perhaps not all. In particular, staying with a local family in Kigali, she records there was often someone’s turd floating in the toilet bowl; did she need to tell us that? I also found Alexander a little privileged at times. When she first decides she wants to do aid work, she is told to go into the Peace Corps to get some ‘field cred’. But: “I wasn’t exactly prepared to commit to living in a remote village in Burkina Faso or Guatemala for a whole two years. Not at this point, anyway.” I started as a volunteer and served for nearly five years. I also wondered whether she realised how lucky she was to get her student internship in Rwanda.

Still, she made good use of it, and has clearly not been afraid of hardship. Few people would live and work somewhere like Darfur by choice. Also, while Chasing Chaos has no literary pretensions, it’s well-written. The beginning was immediately evocative for me, as I began my own international career in Sudan, albeit many years before. I could feel the extreme heat and hear the scraping of the zinc doors, and taste the very sweet tea and imagine the bleached-white sky at midday.

And in general, I did like this book. Alexander is clear about the frustrations, and clear about their causes. She appears to be someone with values and common sense. She also accepts that while her business should not exist, it also cannot not exist, at least for now; and she is responsible and practical. Chasing Chaos is an honest and readable book about life at the sharp end of humanitarian aid. Despite some reservations, I strongly recommend it. ...more

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Aug 18, 2013 Tricia Tierney rated it really liked it

Chasing Chaos is a smart, compelling memoir. Jessica Alexander pulls no punches in her examination of what has become an 'industry' -- or her own role in it. From her first days as idealistic adventurer in Darfur to her more savvy self in Haiti a decade later with many more international disasters in-between, Alexander thoughtfully captures the ups and downs of humanitarian work on both the global and personal level.

This should be required reading for any young (or old) idealist who is even thi ...more

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Jul 03, 2015 Lance Charnes rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: readers who want to know how their charitable donations are used

Shelves: nonfiction-other, nonfiction-disaster-studies, reviewed

When we think of international aid workers at all, we tend to think of them in one of two ways (mostly depending on our political leanings): selfless saints or intrusive busybodies. Strangely enough, Jessica Alexander, the author of this memoir, agrees with both views after a fashion.

Chasing Chaos is Alexander's story, a recounting of her baptism-of-fire in crisis-area fieldwork for various NGOs. Her mother's death from cancer spurs her into doing something to "make a difference," which sends he When we think of international aid workers at all, we tend to think of them in one of two ways (mostly depending on our political leanings): selfless saints or intrusive busybodies. Strangely enough, Jessica Alexander, the author of this memoir, agrees with both views after a fashion.

Chasing Chaos is Alexander's story, a recounting of her baptism-of-fire in crisis-area fieldwork for various NGOs. Her mother's death from cancer spurs her into doing something to "make a difference," which sends her to various of the world's hellholes over the following ten years. There she faces the exhilaration of handling nonstop emergencies, the bewilderment and displacement that come from being thrown headlong into alien environments, the triumph of small victories, the terror of being faced with one's own shortcomings, the seemingly endless grind of working too much to get too little done, primitive living conditions, bureaucracy, loneliness, crumbling relationships and the expat's curse of feeling as if she doesn't belong anywhere.

Alexander is a lively, engaging guide through all this. She's well aware (often too much so) of her early inexperience and her skills deficits, yet plunges in anyway with a moxie that can be infectious. She draws clear portraits of the many people who cross her path: fellow expats, coworker "nationals" (the people who call the hellhole "home"), refugees, visiting officials, the occasional hookup. Her descriptions of life in NGO compounds, refugee camps, guesthouses and no-star "hotels" are atmospheric and easy to visualize. She teaches the reader a goodly amount about how the international aid game is played without making it seem like homework. Despite the occasional sturm und drang, this is a very fast read; I polished off the almost 400 pages in a single afternoon.

My quibbles are few. The chapters concerning her brief intervals in the U.S. between assignments aren't nearly as interesting (to us or, evidently, to her) as those set in the field, though I suppose they add roughage to a narrative that sometimes risks floating away on its own airiness. While it's good that she explicitly acknowledges that at bottom, she's a privileged white New York City girl parachuting into other people's messes, she can belabor the point.

This book reminds me of nothing so much as Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy , another tell-all memoir written by a young woman who, in a burst of idealism, joins another globe-spanning organization to do some good and is undone by the messiness of the world and the dysfunction of the agency. It's more than a little ironic that the respective authors' parent agencies -- the UN and NGOs on one hand, the CIA on the other -- could switch books and the outcomes (and narratives) would be much the same.

Chasing Chaos is for anyone who reads a newspaper and wonders what really goes on when Doctors Without Borders or Save The Children lands in the middle of a disaster or war zone to try to save the day. Like Alexander, you may come out admiring the sheer grit of the individuals in the field while shaking your head at the overwhelming scale and general hopelessness of the work they undertake. You'll probably enjoy your few hours in the author's company and be glad someone like her is around to do these things -- someone who isn't you. ...more

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Aug 30, 2013 Naomi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: memoirs-biographies, travel-writing, non-fiction, current-events

Disclosure: I received this book for free through the Goodreads First Read giveaway program.

I give out many 3 and 4 star ratings, but I try to reserve my 5 star ratings for books I truly feel deserve it. This is one of those books. Yes, I did have some issues with it, but most were due to my personal feelings, and had nothing to do with the writing style or content of the book. What I mean by this, is that this particular memoir has brought up many questions that I find harder to answer now that ...more

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Aug 31, 2013 Maryanne rated it did not like it

I received Chasing Chaos through the first reads program. I wanted to like it but to be honest it was work just to get to the halfway point and then I but it down because it was getting repetitive and boring.

It almost reminded me of the book Wild:From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail which I also found equally hollow but I know other people just loved.

I know this is a harsh review but I wasn't grasping a point in the book. It lacked fullness, depth, flavor... It seemed like run of the m ...more

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Oct 27, 2018 Julia rated it it was amazing

Awesome book about the benefits and downfalls of Humanitarian Aid told in a very engaging way.

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Oct 23, 2013 kristen rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2013

I have always dreamed of humanitarian aid work but admit I don't think I could actually "tough it out" for a longterm assignment. I love books like this that walk you through life as an aid worker; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Chasing Chaos was informative and fascinating. You get a taste of the work through the author's own experiences in the roughest of places. Interesting reading of her thoughts on burnout, the local impact of displacement camps, the counterproductivity of uncordinated in ...more

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Nov 18, 2013 Julie rated it it was amazing

This book is fascinating and impossible to put down, as well as an insightful look behind the scenes of the past decade's most important humanitarian aid efforts. Jessica Alexander's story is surprisingly moving and captivating. If you liked Emergency Sex, you will love this book. Highly recommend. ...more

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Aug 09, 2013 Nicole Overmoyer rated it it was amazing

Jessica Alexander doesn't want to be told how amazing the work she did and does as a humanitarian aid worker is and how much of a VIP she is. She makes that clear in Chasing Chaos that she sees herself as a very small fish in a very large pond, even after she rises to senior levels in the world of humanitarian aid.

That's what makes this book, and Alexander's story, all the more compelling.

There isn't any flowery language to hide the fact that the entire story is necessary because something has ...more

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Apr 27, 2016 Paul rated it it was amazing

A tremendously gripping and anecdotal narrative of the author’s work in international aid in Rwanda, Haiti, and other countries in desperate straits. Jessica Alexander is a newly minted college graduate who decides to go into international aid as a vocation. This narrative offers a daily account of the work she does.

She discovers right away after landing in Rwanda exactly how rigorous and sometimes defeating this line of work is going to be. She works with a European national who thinks all Afri A tremendously gripping and anecdotal narrative of the author’s work in international aid in Rwanda, Haiti, and other countries in desperate straits. Jessica Alexander is a newly minted college graduate who decides to go into international aid as a vocation. This narrative offers a daily account of the work she does.

She discovers right away after landing in Rwanda exactly how rigorous and sometimes defeating this line of work is going to be. She works with a European national who thinks all Africans are lazy. She encounters a horse, “all skin and grief,” serving as a pack animal for one family. The animal looks like it could die any day.

In North Darfur, trying to reassemble the country after the vicious slaughter of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority that left the surviving population 70 percent female, she works with a Rwandan who can’t pronounce the name Jessica and instead calls her Testicle. She passes through checkpoints that are mere string stretched between two twigs, seeing Rwandans wearing donated T-shirts saying, “Don’t mess with Texas” and “Shit happens.”

Every experience is new to her, and she describes them in excellent, often staggering detail. Once a person is in, she says, the situation grabs at you and you find it hard to leave. When she returns to New York for a break, she is put off by the naïve racism of her friends: “Do they all wear dreadlocks?” “How can you tell them apart?” The crowning comment comes after she falls in love with a Rwandan man and wants him to come to New York to meet her family. “What if he robs a bank?” A girlfriend asks her. “ROBS A BANK?” she counters incredulously.

Later, in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, she sees the well-meaning stupidity of American donors who send a box full of teddy bears and Santa Claus costumes for the children when they need food, drink, and safe shelter. She sees supposedly well-meaning college students and church members on spring break who wear self-aggrandizing T-shirts crowing about their benevolence to these benighted people and ultimately doing very little good, taking selfies of themselves holding an emaciated child as if it were a trophy of their trip.

The book is hard to put down. Alexander pulls no punches in describing the awfulness of the conditions and her reaction to every new dysfunction. She is a very empathetic worker who finds her heart broken many times by the hardships she witnesses. She is greatly loved by the people she’s helping.

This is a GREAT book. Everyone should read it for a realistic look at what happens after great disasters in these countries.
...more

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Jul 22, 2014 Ari rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2014

IQ: "Aid procedures weren't developed out of a lack of compassion; in fact, they specifically took into account how easily compassion could lead us and people like James astray. Aid workers aren't just a bunch of people doing the first nice thing that came into their heads. Sympathy was a shortsighted emotion: it told you to make the pain stop now, and so you went with the quick fixes. Because you wanted your pain to stop, too: you didn't want to be someone who stood by, seemingly idle, while hu IQ: "Aid procedures weren't developed out of a lack of compassion; in fact, they specifically took into account how easily compassion could lead us and people like James astray. Aid workers aren't just a bunch of people doing the first nice thing that came into their heads. Sympathy was a shortsighted emotion: it told you to make the pain stop now, and so you went with the quick fixes. Because you wanted your pain to stop, too: you didn't want to be someone who stood by, seemingly idle, while human beings suffered" (310).

I don't think I was hopelessly naive about the aid world but I definitely wasn't super jaded and in-the-know. After reading this book I'm not destroyed by cynicism about international development but rather I'm encouraged after getting a sustained glance into the real lives of those who 'chase' disasters (so to speak). I tend to view those folks as not-normal but I thought the author did a great job of showing that while aid workers do amazing work (most of the time) that we all (most of us) admire, they also have human urges. I figured fear was part of the equation and being burned out but they also have to check their impulse to help everyone they meet, they have sex lives and make some very grey-area type decisions when managing their projects. I don't think people think aid work is easy, they just don't know how it works at all.

International development/aid work is a field that I am very interested in pursuing and I found it interesting to follow along as the author traced how the field had evolved just in the past decade. More and more people in that career field are getting master's degrees and contrary to popular opinion aid workers are constantly trying to find ways to be more efficient. The author doesn't hold anything back (unlike in say a political memoir) and her memories refreshed my own as she talked about her time in Darfur, Sierra Leone and Haiti. The book was so honest that I'm not sure I liked the ending. But it's the author's life and I guess as long as we have people who can balance being addicted to wanting to help with actually being competent enough to help, aid work should continue to be ok. I remain optimistic that it will get better and better (meaning more efficient). It is making a big difference and really sees its successes touted. ...more

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Aug 28, 2013 Niffer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: first-reads, memoir

I received this book for free through a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

I picked up this book last night intending to start it and read for maybe half an hour before I called home to chat with my folks. Two hours later I realized I still hadn't called my folks. I made my call, had a good chat, then hung up and picked this book up. I finished it a little after midnight. It's that kind of book.

This is a memoir of a woman who works in the humanitarian aid industry. It is honest and blunt about the r ...more

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Jul 26, 2013 Julie rated it it was amazing

I received this book through FirstReads.

While reading about the horrors faced by people living in war-torn countries and regions affected by natural disasters isn't easy, Alexander walks with you through the common emotions and thoughts. Her naivety at the beginning of her career echoes with common misconceptions about aid work but she progresses to know more on the subject than most of her readers can ever know.

I had no idea of the level of the intricacy involved in humanitarian aid, from the ...more

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Oct 08, 2018 SpaceBear rated it it was ok

Shelves: humanitarianism, biography, united-nations

I didn't really enjoy this book, even though I don't think the author is a particularly bad writer. I disliked this book because of its focus, which was on the personal life and experiences of the author herself; which parties she went to, which luxuries she lived without or which hardships she endured, and who she dated. There is virtually no mention of the organizations she worked for (indeed, this is kept a secret which is quite strange), or of the programmatic aspects of the work. This might ...more

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Jul 30, 2013 Moon rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-i-won-on-goodreads

Amazing book! It is one thing to watch it on the news, it's quite another thing to hear about what happens from the mouth of someone who was over there, living it and helping them. I learned so much while reading this book... I can't believe what happens to fellow humans on this planet, but thank God we have people like Jessica Alexander. I think this book will inspire young people to help and be more a part of hands on helping.

I am so lucky to have won this on goodreads!

p.s. new hobby: reading ...more

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Aug 08, 2013 Melanie rated it liked it

Shelves: africa

In Chasing Chaos (Early Reviewer’s copy), Jessica Fuller recounts her past ten years in the humanitarian field going to such places as Rwanda, Darfur, and Haiti. While she does talk her about her experiences in the field, a large portion of the book seems to focus on some of the downsides such as lack of personal relationships, inter-aid office politics, and the misconception of what it means to actually “help” someone. I found it to be quite an interesting read and a must for anyone wanting to ...more

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Aug 06, 2018 Jovana rated it really liked it

4.5/5

This book was a required reading in one of my political science courses that examines politics in the "developing world." After reading it, I completely understand why my professor would assign this book for our class: it's informative, eye-opening, and presents a different perspective on humanitarian aid. I think anyone who wants to work in the field of humanitarian aid, or anyone who has an interest in working for a charity, NGO or UN organization should read this book. ...more

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Sep 24, 2018 Kate rated it really liked it

Shelves: lady-memoirs-other, 2018-reads

Very interesting. Liked the behind the scenes look at humanitarian work. And Alexander is very candid, both about the work as well as her own motivations, which I enjoyed very much. But my absolute favourite part about this book? The MAPS! At the beginning of each chapter are two maps: one, usually on a semi-continental scale (e.g. Africa or the Caribbean islands), and then a zoomed-in map, more on a regional scale - showing the location of the major city and environs. Best context-providing map ...more

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Jan 14, 2021 Marylou Cambron-bertrand rated it it was amazing

A must read for all people interested in humanitarian aid!

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Feb 05, 2016 Jill Geyer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Jessica Alexander absolutely wowed me with this book. Her fast paced book took me through rwanda, sri lanka, sierra leone, sudan, and haiti along the way exposing facts about the aid industry and maybe the not so obvious.
Alexander approaches her first internship in Rwanda with an eagerness unmatched by her more seasoned colleagues; however, her perspective about aid changes throughout the book. She sees its failings and how it will never be a permanent solution. She describes aid work in "any f Jessica Alexander absolutely wowed me with this book. Her fast paced book took me through rwanda, sri lanka, sierra leone, sudan, and haiti along the way exposing facts about the aid industry and maybe the not so obvious.
Alexander approaches her first internship in Rwanda with an eagerness unmatched by her more seasoned colleagues; however, her perspective about aid changes throughout the book. She sees its failings and how it will never be a permanent solution. She describes aid work in "any failed state as a Band-Aid stuck on larger political problems, ills that can't be fixed with food rations and jerry cans, and that don't heal quickly." Years of neglect and international indifference cannot be patched up by aid agencies.

In Darfur people would register for aid, and part of Alexander's responsibility was making sure people in neighboring towns who were not war refugees did not take advantage of aid given. She described it as "a market like any other, and if people could game the system, they would." I just thought it was interesting that even in smaller settings there is corruption in systems set up. Even small groups have dysfunctionalities, and I think it's a miracle that governing bodies over large people function because there is so much to oversee.

Overtime in Darfur she becomes burnt out by her work, and she brought up an interesting point that I think connects to all humans: justification. She says "because we were all making sacrifices to be here, because we were "giving" ourselves, maybe it was OK when we acted badly. It was how we psychologically managed what we were doing. We were frustrated, we were tired, we were lonely, we were hot, but we were here! So maybe we got pissed off and yelled at drivers and ran over people's possessions, but we were just human, we were good people, some of us too young to know how to deal with what was going on around us." I think to some degree we all view ourselves as sacrificial. We give up something for the sake of someone else whether they know it or not. This behavior often leads us to have a mindset of entitlement that because we sacrificed in one area we earn points in another to be jerks.

The last thing I want to address about the book was the issue of shame she brought up. After leaving her position of directing a refugee camp in Darfur she takes a job in Sri Lanka where she ends up staying at five-star resorts that are so lavish they only increase her lingering shame of leaving Darfur. At what point should we be okay living in the United States with plenty of amenities, and at where do we do draw the line of being okay with owning things: things that end up going unused or random gadgets we have little use for. I know I always get a weird feeling after Christmas because I don't really need anything and other people do.

It is a great great book to read for perspective, for more information on where the best places are to donate for the relief effort, I would love to meet the author in person. ...more

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Nov 23, 2013 Meg - A Bookish Affair rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2013, memoir, non-fiction

4.5 stars. "Chasing Chaos" is the memoir of Jessica Alexander, a woman who has traveled to some of the most difficult places on earth in order to try to make them better through humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid and international development are two things that I find absolutely fascinating. At one time in my life, I even thought I might want to go into international development as a career but life had different plans (that is a story for another day). I was really interested in reading someth ...more

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Nov 24, 2014 Tamsen rated it did not like it

Shelves: uncw-common-reading

1.5 stars.

Repetitive, terrible. Jessica Alexander is unlikable and shallow. Another reviewer mentioned that this novel reminded her a lot of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed, which is funny, because I thought the exact same thing. Alexander is much like Strayed - they both, even while complaining about their circumstances, hail themselves as amazing, strong people, doing amazing, strong things. They aren't. They both use other people to call themselves out on ...more

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Apr 16, 2016 Carianne Carleo-Evangelist rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, travelogues, memoirs, library-book, 2016tbrpile, africa, southeast-asia, disaster-relief

Wow. I haven't come across such a compellingly readable non-fiction book in a while. The author really brought the crises of Rwanda, Darfur, Banda Aceh and Haiti to life with the locations almost as intriguing as the people she met while there. Naive do gooders, cyncial burned out career NGO workers, voluntourists. None of those solely describes humanitarian aid workers, but the field is made up of all of them and together they tell the stories of worldwide disaster relief. Especially when Polya ...more

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Oct 23, 2013 Stacy - The Novel Life rated it really liked it

Jessica has written a harsh account of life in field as a humanitarian aid worker. It’s lonely, accommodations we take for granted become luxuries, like running toilets, bathing in a shower, internet service, even water to drink are scarce. Her frustration with the system is apparent throughout the novel. I found it interesting that she continues to work for aid services although from NYC rather than in the trenches of Haiti, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, etc. etc. With all that is wrong with the system ...more

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Nov 13, 2013 Alexandria rated it really liked it

I appreciated the author's honesty, particularly her not-always-flattering assessments of the aid community. I actually got this book as a gift for my sister who likes to travel before remembering it was on my to-read list, too.

Jessica Alexander has held jobs most of us think would be very exciting and glamorous and rewarding, but I think her experience shows that it's a bit more complicated than that. Yes, you should be properly trained before offering aid and no, it's not always that rewardin ...more

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Nov 11, 2013 Amy rated it really liked it

This memoir follows one woman's experiences in the humanitarian aid profession, with all its many challenges and all too infrequent triumphs. It is frank and honest, and not at all a fluffy "do-gooder" look-at-me kind of narrative. It offered perspective I had not before considered about what it means to provide aid in the wake of war or disaster, and changed the way I myself might approach the support of humanitarian relief. Before this I had not considered how aid to one affected area might ca ...more

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Aug 28, 2013 Katie rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir, nonfiction-favorites

I read most of this on a plane that was hanging out on the runway while they fixed a mechanical issue, so it was good perspective. It's also a great plane read in general: interesting, good flow, compulsively readable.

Alexander candidly and thoughtfully describes her experiences as an aid worker in a number of countries over a period of ten years. Interspersed with personal events in her life are more general thoughts about the value, failings, and successes of aid organizations and aid workers. ...more

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Sep 18, 2013 Melissa rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult-nonfiction, adult-nonfiction-humanitarian-aid

This is a well-told , informative story about a fascinating career path. Jessica relays exactly what you would want to know from someone who worked at a refugee camp in Rwanda: What are the housing and hygienic conditions? What do you do on a day-to-day basis? What do you do for fun? She neither glorifies her work nor disparages how little can be accomplished.
She easily conveys the dichotomy of how she views her work and how her uninitiated American friends respond to the image they have of an ...more

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About Jessica Alexander

Jessica Alexander

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Over the past 12 years, Jessica Alexander has worked in humanitarian operations for the United Nations and various NGOs. She has responded to crises in Rwanda, Darfur, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Myanmar, South Sudan, Pakistan, Haiti and the Horn of Africa. Alexander is a Fulbright Scholar who received the award to research child soldiers in Sierra Leone in 2006. Her research there was used as expert ev ...more