Accountability in the disaster-relief world
Hello from Dubai, where I’m on a long layover on my way home from my 13th deployment for ShelterBox. I want to take some time to tell you a little bit about something I don’t think a lot of folks…
When Your People are Hurting: Part II
Part II: Far In 2012, I went to Peru with ShelterBox. In the state we were working in, pocket communities needed shelter after their homes had come down in mudslides. And in 2011, in Arkansas, a community needed help after…
When Your People Are Hurting: Part I
Part I: Near In the summer of 1999, I was living in New York and pursuing the beginnings of a dream career. That same summer, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake jilted my home country of Taiwan. It was big enough to…
HELLO THERE I KNOW I HAVE BEEN GONE A LONGGGG TIME
Hello! I have missed you guys. Well. I have not really been gone. I have been dutifully sending out a monthly newsletter. You can see a sample and sign up to get it here. But I actually do have something…
Shelter, Warmth, Dignity–and Education
Hello. Two Fridays ago I returned from Haiti, where ShelterBox, the disaster-relief agency I volunteer for, is helping the nation to recover from Hurricane Matthew. As always, there are many different things I saw and people I met that left me…
#45daysof, or Adam Kimble in Claremont
This weekend we had visitors. They were unexpected and joyous and dashed about our house, a little group of sleek-headed, very effective, very friendly otters. (I have established this week that otters are not naturally friendly. They are cute for the…
All Your Creature Comforts are Relative
Last month we went back to Malawi, for a check-up on how beneficiaries of ShelterBox’s kit are doing, and for an overview of how the country is recovering. I appreciate the ShelterBox deployments in part because they give me perspectives…
Humanitarian Work: Why We Do It, and Why That Matters
In the waiting room of the Blantyre airport, a man asked what I was doing in Malawi. I told him, briefly, and then returned the favor: What is he doing in Malawi? Ah, he says, he’s helping a friend to…
Smugness is ugly. And useless.
There’s a BMW spot out there that chaps my hide every time I hear it. The guy’s voice is rich, and vaguely cultured, but also incredibly self-satisfied. It talks about how BMW has been “first” in bla bla bla etcetera…
hodge-podge brain dump
1. I just had a brainfart and tried to go to the blogger platform to add this post. As much as I love the flexibility this platform allows me, I think I really miss the user interface of blogger. Hm….
