September 18, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
NEW BOOKS
Rebel Without Borders: Frontline Missions in Africa and the Gulf
by Marc Vachon with Francois Bugingo
Marc Vachon grew up a poor foster child in Canada, eventually becoming a drug dealer, addict, Hell’s Angel, and gang member. On a whim, he began a second career as a humanitarian worker in Africa, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere.
Mr. Vachon’s memoir, which he wrote with Francois Bugingo, a reporter, traces the aid worker’s life beginning with his roots in Montreal, where he was moved from one temporary home to the next. After years as a sometimes-homeless criminal, breaking into homes and dealing drugs, he got clean and found a job as a construction worker. Needing to get away from criminal influences and a bad breakup, Mr. Vachon went to Paris to interview for a job as a logistician with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders.)
Over nearly two decades with Medecins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, companies, and other groups, Mr. Vachon has worked in places like Malawi, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sudan, Rwanda, and Kyrgystan, building camps and coordinating aid efforts. The book describes his experiences with warfare, genocide, disease outbreaks, famine, corruption, and a slide back into addiction after developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
Mr. Vachon discusses his opinions on international politics, the current war and rebuilding efforts in Iraq, and humanitarian work and the groups that employed him.
“It’s all very well to rail against human-rights violations or the absence of democracy, but when there’s a need to vaccinate children, supply drinkable water, care for the wounded, you’d better step up. No matter what the host government is like,” he writes. “We serve human beings, not legal or political causes.”
Publisher: ECW Press, 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Canada M4E 1E2; (416) 694-3348; fax (416) 698-9906; info@ecwpress.com; http://www.ecwpress.com; 288 pages; $24.95; ISBN 1-55022-786-6.
