Aid workers aren't saints and they can 'go bad' – I know I did

There has been a lot of talk this week of the vast majority of aid workers being good, and there being a small number of bad ones. The challenge, so the theory goes, is to weed out the bad.

Yet there is a third category of aid worker. The good one that turns bad. How do you stop that? How do you prevent a descent into mental ruin? How do you detect this slip before someone gets hurt?

I was a good aid worker who turned bad. This article is about why.

“Aid workers” are not a homogeneous group. Indeed, there are lots of different types. There is the war junkie, who runs on adrenaline and is not happy if something isn’t going “bang” in the distance. There is the natural disaster specialist, who can tell you the biggest threat in a flood is a snake bite. When the water comes, the snakes all come out and swim, you see.

There is the development worker, who strives for years to get incremental change in an economy that might move a country from the 126th poorest in the world, to the 125th poorest. The development worker may spend 15 years to get that, and be happy.

The war junkie, the snake woman and the development man, are all very, very different types of people. To talk about an “aid worker” is like talking about a “European” an “Indian” or an “Australian”. There may be some similarities, but boy are there some differences.

I started out in category one, ended up in category two and couldn’t stand category three.

My aid career started in the 1990s working as a delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Belgrade but flowing over into Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo. I moved to Rwanda, then to the United Nations in Geneva, then to Pakistan for a big earthquake and finished in the Philippines after a typhoon.

Pakistan, given the size, success and the specially created title of “Chief of Operations of the Emergency Coordination Centre”, was the most rewarding. Rwanda, post-genocide but during ongoing low-level conflict and invasion into Congo, was probably the most difficult.

And it was where I screwed up.

Rwanda is a beautiful country with a tragic past and a really interesting and hopeful future. But back in the late 90s it had a guerrilla army in the process of professionalising, no functional police force and ongoing genocidal attacks, often launched from refugee camps in Congo. I dealt with the army.

We had curfews, shooting, so much giardia in the water that you had to shower with your eyes closed or the parasite would enter your body through your tear ducts. It was difficult, stressful, rewarding and full of camaraderie.

It was a country of conflict, and conflicting emotions. If you went to a party at someone else’s house, 30 minutes before curfew, which wasn’t much beyond 7pm, you had to decide to either go home, or stay all night and have a bender. You couldn’t change your mind at midnight.

You were in a dangerous environment. You might die. And people tend to respond to that type of danger by either seeking out the comfort of others, or constricting into a ball of introversion, hiding in their room. For some there was a lot, I mean a lot, of sex (hence the book Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures). For others there were a lot of books to read.

We all shared houses, the genders were mixed and there was alcohol. And we all missed our family and friends, striving as best we could to try and make a difference. In all of this though, the most stressful thing to me was not the war or the danger, it was the difference I thought I could make but was prevented from doing for some silly little rules.

I hated that. It drove me nuts. And my thinking went off. My decision-making process became very, very poor.

The Red Cross had six golden rules. Never leave before sunrise; nor return after sunset; never go anywhere without telling anyone; never go in someone else’s vehicle; never go to an area declared off-limits for security reasons; and never, ever, carry a weapon.

The last is very important as you can only survive in war zones if soldiers do not see you as a threat. If you have a weapon, you are a threat. If you have a weapon, you may die.

In the south of Rwanda lies the Nyungwe State Forest, which has within it the real source of the river Nile. I thought it would be cool to see. But the forest was controlled by Interahamwe militia and extremely unsafe. You would be nuts to go, but I went.

I went with the American military attaché. We left before sunrise in his armoured vehicle, without telling anyone, to an area declared off limits, returning after sunset. And we had weapons. Lots.

All six rules. Broken. Stupid. I could never, ever work for the Red Cross again. But it was my fault.

I retreated into my introverted self as the stress levels built. My decision-making process had degraded as the time went on. I was flawed. I made a mistake and I put others, indirectly, in danger. I wasn’t the only one to degrade – some do stupid things that they would never do at home. This happens as an aid worker.

And this may explain why some people start good and end bad in aid. In the end the person I hurt was me, and the boss who had the faith to back me. I am just glad I didn’t fall off a cliff in another direction to hurt others.

For some it is danger, for some violence, and for others sex. The Oxfam crisis illuminates to us that where aid workers are involved, nothing is simple – and no one should be free from scrutiny.

Andrew MacLeod’s memoir of his experience in aid, “A Life Half Lived”, was published in 2013 by New Holland Press