re-entry... adjusting to the unacceptable

For a beatuiful taste of what it is like to return from a humanitarian context to the safety bubble of the West read the Saturday, May 31, 2008
"re-engaging with the clamor of the west while residing in the gap between misery and enlightenment" entry of Gwen's SalusWorld blog.
An excerpt:
What I have realized is that traveling and working abroad in areas of need of humanitarian action makes one modest - you are forced to see what a tiny place you occupy in the world and what a crap-shoot it actually is that you just happened to be lucky enough to be born to a privileged family in a privileged country devoid of horrifying events in your immediate environment. Seeing the world also reminds you that the horrifying events – the poverty, and war and trauma is the real global REALITY and what we’ve got here is layers upon layers of denial and dissociation. How is it that we can be at war and I (nor any of my closest friends) have been immediately affected? And, how it is that things like genocide, torture, kidnapping, environmental degradation, violent repression of political rights, the release of toxins into pristine environments, discrimination and the conscription of child soldiers all over the globe occurs constantly and we don’t stand up and swallow up such brazenness in one gulp?