World Refugee Day 2012: Refugees have no choice. You do.

Sometimes I forget that I live in a world where genocide, refugee camps, and poverty are commonplace and that many people glide through life never hearing a testimony of torture endured or never watching a perfect stranger break down in tears while recounting the day they watched their family massacred.  This daily reminder of what type of world much of this planet's population lives in is wearing at times and I admit that I am just as guilty as the next development worker at dropping acronyms, acting shocked when people haven't heard of the latest genocide brewing in Kazwhatistan, and going on holidays to the first world feeling jaded and unable to fit back into the society that raised me.  While sometimes I'd like to live in oblivion to the atrocities taking place throughout the globe (and I actually am quite oblivious on details of what's going on in really anywhere other than sub-Saharan Africa, don't even ask me about northern Africa for that matter), I have chosen the field I am in because it's fulfilling and even a small glimmer of hope is sometimes enough for survival.