Book Review: Hope in Hell: Inside The World Of Doctors Without Borders by Dan Bortolotti - Page 3

The experience of seeing disease, corruption and disaster can make the transition back to "normal" life extremely hard for the organization's volunteers. Do you tell people about the horrible things that you've seen or do you spare your friends from the trauma of the gruesome tales? And how do you handle the inevitable "fridge" conversation, where you talk about your experiences in a ravaged landscape and someone follows up by telling you that they bought a new fridge. Many volunteers find that it's easier to be away, easier to be with people who understand, than to try and explain to people who haven't experienced what they have.

Bortolotti relates the MSF history and experiences in a readable, workman-like way. Reading the book, you have a sense of the kind of service that MSF provides and why, and a hint at the motivations of the people who are involved. The book is eager to disabuse MSF's reputation as a "cowboy" organization, while emphasizing its independence as compared to other aid groups. It provides a solid overview of the organization without going into details of particular missions. Finally, the book serves as a reminder of the larger goal of humanitarianism, sometimes overlooked in an era that demands quantification of results, reminding us that is enough that humanitarianism is a "compassionate response to suffering [and that it] doesn't need to be justified by science."

Article Author: Bonnie

Bonnie writes about books every Thursday at Fourth-Rate Reader, about everything else at Signifying Nothing, and sometimes she resorts to pictures. She lives in Toronto.

Visit Bonnie's author page — Bonnie's Blog