By Frank Huyler
Review by Jen Ambrose
When I came across Frank Huyler‘s novel Right of Thirst, I immediately wanted to read it – the description calls it a "tour de force about one man‘s desire to live a moral life," which explores "the tensions between poverty and wealth and the ethics of inter-vention."
About an American doctor who volunteers at a refugee camp in an unnamed country based on Paki-stan following his wife‘s death, this book is perhaps the opposite of Three Cups of Tea. In this story, the humanitarian operation ultimately fails and may even cause more harm than good. Right of Thirst is an in-teresting read, full of characters, situations, and themes that will resonate strongly among Peace Corps Volun-teers.
Charles, the protagonist, encounters ex-treme poverty, harsh physical conditions, cor-rupt government officials, and local hierarchies. At various times, he grows impatient, loses sym-pathy, wonders whether he can trust locals, real-izes he may not follow through on his promises, and fails to create sustainable impact. I think that PCVs will identify with both his experi-ences and his reactions to them.
PCVs will also recognize the character of Scott, the founder of the organization that set up the camp. He exudes superiority and self-righteousness from the beginning, and he makes a point to differentiate himself and his work from all those "other relief organizations." We later find out that he has been dishonest about many things and begin to see him as unreliable. Essentially, he thinks his work will make him a savior, but, in reality, he has little un-derstanding of the situation and fails to provide much actual help.
One of the things that really resonated for me was the recurring discussion of Charles‘ motivations for going to the camp and his expecta-tions for his experience there. He wanted to get away from his life, his problems, and, ultimately, himself. He is particularly drawn to Scott‘s description of life at the camp as "a reduction to the essentials," which, when it comes down to it, is probably what many PCVs are looking for. Charles realizes, however, that travel and new experiences do not allow people to escape themselves. There is also a discussion of looking for meaning, significance, and something larger than oneself. At one point, Charles says flat out, "This trip needs to mean something. Otherwise I can‘t go home," which, I think, is a sentiment that motivates us as PCVs to stay here and keep trying.
Charles‘ motivations reveal Westerners‘ tendency to see events and circumstances, par
ticularly catastrophic ones, through the lens of their effect on themselves. The book‘s Western characters see situations that cause suffering for others as an opportunity to achieve what they want for themselves. This phenomenon comes out multiple times through Charles‘ internal dialogue, but perhaps the most poignant example is when Scott calls a devastating earthquake the "best thing that ever happened" to him.
Other scenes that particularly hit home for me involved the behavior of local children and the feeling of being a circus attraction. "When they stepped up close, pulling at my clothes, with their flowing noses and red-black hair and grubby fingers, the desire to shove them off with inappropriate force was difficult to resist." What PCV can‘t relate to that? Later, when he falls ill and is forced to go to the bathroom in the middle of a field, the children follow and watch him. "With all those eyes upon me as I crouched there, caught up in the indignity of the act "I felt entirely like an animal, revealed before everyone and everything." While I certainly hope nothing of this magnitude has happened to any PCVs, I think that we can all relate to the feeling of being exposed and of seemingly being treated like an animal.
PCVs will also recognize Charles‘ en-counters with the dilemma of giving people things. He faces the problems of creating expec-tation, causing people to continually ask for more, and inciting conflict when only some peo-ple get things or some get more than others.
Finally, upon returning to the city, Charles realizes that his close bond to Rai, a local colleague, existed only out of necessity in an ex-treme situation. "In the valley, we‘d been close enough to one another, but now, in just an in-stant, the gulf between us had revealed itself again." PCVs become close to people at site, out of proximity, out of loneliness, out of the obligation to "integrate," but, removed from that isolated situation, the gap between us and our Rwandan friends may become more obvious.
Right of Thirst also briefly touches on several basic ideas about aid that many PCVs may have discovered to be true: some relief or-ganizations are useless; short-term volunteers accomplish little; unskilled volunteers cannot offer much to a developing country; aid work-ers and volunteers must be serious about their work; fundraising is an essential (if fairly mun-dane) part of development work; and, lastly, "It is always better to earn things than to be given them."
Though not exactly uplifting, Right of Thirst is honest, and it offers an interesting and entertaining look at aid and humanitarian in-tervention. I would definitely recommend it, especially to Peace Corps Volunteers.
"I had expected to lose myself in my work, in a foreign land, freed from the burden of the familiar. Instead I felt as if I was gazing into a clear pool, bottomless, searching for signs in the depths, and all I found was the ghost of my own face, and the faces of all the others, in imperfect reflections."
– Frank Huyler, Right of Thirst
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