THERE are two things that I usually studiously avoid - insurance salesmen and giving on-the-spot donations for disasters.
There is nothing personal in avoiding insurance guys as I do think I have enough life, home, car insurance.
As for donations, yes I do make them, but in causes that I choose, not when someone put a box at a public place or when some students sneaked on me with a tin can.
The reason for this is my wariness that relief money would be misused.
I covered stories in the villages in Kedah and Penang that were hit by the December 2004 tsunami, and have lots of horror tales about who allegedly took the cash, mattresses and rice. I saw with my own eyes how the victims threw away lots and lots of donated clothing.
I interviewed families who cried because the money that was supposed to be for them disappeared into thin air, all 'disbursed'.
Yet just last week, there I was with a group of Singapore's Mercy Relief workers in Egypt and Israel.
The mission - to hand over nearly S$200,000 donated by Singaporeans to the Palestinians in Gaza who were hit by the 22-day conflict in which 1,300 died and thousands were made homeless.
No cash was given as aid. But flour, sugar, blankets, shoes, canned meat, baby milk were to be passed to the victims via four organisations with ground knowledge of relief work in the Palestinian territories. These were the United Nations Works and Relief Agency, the Egyptian Red Crescent, the Palestinian Red Crescent and Fondation Hommes de Parole - a Swiss-based organisation of rabbis and imams.
Blankets being sorted out at UNWRA warehouse in Jerusalem.
Like the other team members, I was proud to go to the four organisations to tell them that the Singapore donors were from all faiths and races in our tiny island (which, by the way, is bigger than Gaza with its 1.45 million population). Sure, the Muslims of Singapore gave donations, but so did the Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Bahais.
We headed out to Cairo first, and in my mind, I wanted to see how this humanitarian organisation called Mercy Relief behaves. The team was headed by its chief executive Hassan Ahmad and board director Stwant Singh. I thought, gee, they are Singaporeans and they are "officials". Better get ready for a lot of yawns and I-want-it-written-like-this stories.
How far wrong I was!
I have never met any of the Mercy people, although I have read news about their work of course. But at the end of the trip, all of us became good friends.
It was my first time mixing with relief worker-types. And many stereotypes were shattered. Satwant was the most unofficial official I had met. He is an ardent PAP activist and a lawyer too!
Over the next one week, this is the impression I have of Mercy and relief work.
- I was expecting to get a room for myself, in a five-star hotel. Instead, we all had to share three to a room. Apart from Siti Aminah, Mercy assistant communications manager, the men had to share rooms. There was even one night when Siti had to share a room with two, ahem, smelly men, so that Mercy wouldn't spend any more public money than it had to!
- The next time I go shopping at People's Park, I want to bring Mercy's head of international relief, Abdul Jaffar Mohd Mydin. He haggled over everything! Room rates at hotels, taxis and vans that we rent, and I thought, even food the group had to pay at cheap restaurants.
The best, or worst one, was this: It was late in the evening in the old quarter of Jerusalem (about 10pm) and the group just ended one meeting with relief officials. The temperature was a breezy 6 to 8 degrees C -- just my guess, but it was real cold even with me wearing gloves.
There were several cabs at one corner and Jaffar and Hassan wanted them to take us in two cabs to our hotel - located about 20min on foot, but just a few minutes on wheels. The price started at 50 Israeli shekels (about S$18). Mercy wanted 30 shekels per cab, the driver said 35. And for that, we walked!
Rather than spend an extra 5 shekels, a mere S$1.80, of public money, I had to endure freezing knees.
- The other way to save public funds is by asking for a free ride! We were at the office of the Egyptian Red Crescent and had to rush back to the hotel to get our bags and then go to the airport for the flight home. Ever so innocently, Mercy CEO Hassan asked our hosts whether they could provide us with a van. They said yes without hesitation.
- We also had help with letters or notes of passage from the Israeli ambassador in Singapore, Egyptian Red Crescent in Cairo and UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari who wrote behind his name card saying all aid should be given to Mercy Relief in its work.
Without these, we might have been stuck at the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, at the many checkpoints between Cairo and the Rafah border. Also, the relief supplies from Singaporeans might have been moved much slower into Gaza.
In other words, Mercy officials thought ahead, saw obstacles and moved early to reduce these, as time is money.
- Nope, we didn't do any shopping, to my chagrin. There was no time, really, apart from a 5-hour wait in between flights at Amman airport in Jordan.
The only other time was when we were rushing through the shops of the Old City of Jerusalem. No one else stopped except for a few minutes. I stopped and managed to buy some souveniers.
Jaffar stopped to buy some teeshirts but was left behind by the others, so he dropped the idea.
In the end, most of us bought books and other stuff at the shops in the Cairo hotel and at Cairo's airport.
In other words, if you want to enjoy a holiday, following relief workers around would be a wrong move. And to a virgin relief worker like me, I appreciate a little better how humanitarian work is done.
Reme in front of 35tons of bags of flour donated by Singaporeans at Egyptian Red Crescent warehouse in Cairo.
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