“Emergency response” often conjures idealized images of aid workers doling out food and medicine to exhausted families as they arrive at a refugee camp or consoling children left traumatized by acts of violence.
But sitting long into the night working on proposals, budgets and reports, I discovered that the office rats in Yangon normally started scuttling around at 9 p.m., that the barbecue place downstairs stopped serving food at 10 p.m. and that cycling home under a pale full moon through the rutted and muddy backstreets was a respite to the previous 12 hours staring at a computer screen.
In reality, an international emergency response staff member will spend more time in front of a desk and at coordination meetings. Yet the excitement of winning a major grant after a team has spent many long nights pulling it together — knowing that this money will help secure food for families suffering the effects of conflict — can be exceptionally rewarding.