The Wake

On a rainy Saturday afternoon in late September, an exhibit called “A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City” is in the middle of its third day of operation in Loring Park. Describing the location as the heart of the city seems apt, considering that the historic park sits just west of downtown Minneapolis and nestles noisily between freeways I-94 and 394. Within the gated event, various professionals – from doctors to logisticians to public relations specialists – lead tours around a simulated refugee camp and answer questions from umbrella-carrying visitors.

The workers are from an organization generally referred to in the United States as Doctors Without Borders – better known around the globe by its original French title, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It is an independent international humanitarian organization dedicated to providing aid to those suffering the effects of military conflict or natural disasters, as well as people without access to health care. Winner of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, MSF is widely viewed as one of the most influential humanitarian organizations in the world.

Because the organization operates entirely from private funding, informing the public of their operations is important to the people involved with MSF, and that is precisely the reason that they are traveling around to different major cities in the country and setting up their simulated refugee camp, an eye-opening exhibit which is free and open to the public.

On this particular day in Minneapolis, rainfall comes and goes throughout the afternoon, muddying up the ground and adding to the intended unsanitary effect. Tour guides lead groups of about 20 through the exhibit, which includes several tented areas designed to simulate different aspects of a refugee camp. One stop features a reproduction of a refugee’s typical living quarters, which in this case is a small shack – no more than four or five feet in width – built out of spare scraps of metal and wood. According to the tour guide, these shacks sometimes house as many as eight or nine people, a number that seems impossibly high.

The exhibit illustrates how, in many cases, people in these refugee camps subsist on nothing more than near-flavorless biscuits, and can be limited to only a gallon or two of water per day (most people in the United States use over 100 gallons of water each day). The bathrooms are simply sheltered holes in the ground that one must crouch over, and toilet paper is nonexistent.

It is astonishing to think that millions of people around the world are forced to live in these types of conditions, having been forced out of their homes as the result of a natural disaster, military conflict, or another situation over which they have no control. It’s perhaps even more astonishing to think that there are people that willfully put themselves into these environments, leaving behind families, good-paying jobs and comfortable houses. These people are MSF employees.

Generally, the vast majority of MSF employees in a particular area are national workers that are hired locally, but the international workers bring specialized skills and abilities, which makes their presence all the more important.

One such employee is Massimo Bertolini, a doctor from Italy who has spent time in Palestine, Liberia and Kenya as part of his work with MSF. Getting sick is an intrinsic risk that comes along with the job, he says, but the dangers go far beyond common bouts with diarrhea and worms.

“In Palestine there was shooting everyday,” Bertolini says in a thick Italian accent. “It was not safe. Sometimes you have to face some really bad situations, and you have to be really careful. […] Anyone on the road could be a target.”

Still, Delphine Barringer-Mills says that MSF is “really strong in terms of security and in terms of protecting staff.” Currently a 31-year-old grad student in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, Barringer-Mills has spent time doing human resources work with MSF in Sudan and Haiti. She says that, while the situations in those areas – particularly in Haiti – could be hostile, she always felt safe as long as she followed the strict guidelines put in place by her employer.

“In an ideal situation, you don’t ever get caught in the crossfire,” she says.

Naturally, MSF also operates in plenty of areas where the workers are not explicitly in danger. The organization had a strong presence in South Asia following the devastating tsunami that struck the region in late 2004, one of many examples of MSF responding to emergency situations.

Jeff Sugandi, a fourth-year pharmacy student at the U, helped with MSF’s relief effort in his home country of Indonesia two summers ago in the wake of devastating earthquakes that killed thousands in May of 2006.

Sugandi managed the pharmacy in a 150-bed field hospital in the city of Yogyakarta. He says participating in field missions can involve risks beyond violence and disease. One of his co-workers took a three-month leave from his job at home in Portland, Oregon, to assist with the relief effort, and found himself without a job when he returned home.

And yet, despite the risks involved, the often unsanitary conditions, and the fact that the pay isn’t particularly great (about $1,400 per month for a first mission), people continue to sign up for MSF. Why?

“I find it a really great organization to work for,” says Barringer-Mills, noting that she and her husband – also involved with MSF – plan on going back to the field as soon as they finish school. “It’s dynamic because I’m working with the national staff so there’s a lot of complexities in terms of the context of people […] In every location you have to relearn and figure out how to work with that population in relation to another. That’s interesting to me.”

Sugandi also says he would like to work with MSF again in the future. “It’s really rewarding,” he says.

While there may be drawbacks, working as an international staffer with MSF provides the opportunity to travel, work with a wide variety of people with vastly different backgrounds, and – most importantly – help those who are desperately in need.

“You have to want to do it,” Barringer-Mills emphasizes.