We didn’t cry when it happened.
We had already learned how to grieve while replying to emails.
To mourn while coordinating handovers no one planned for.
To hold space for endings with a calm voice and a muted mic.
So when the help left — not gradually, but suddenly, without warning or grace — we didn’t shatter.
We adjusted our posture and kept moving.
In one version, it was a memo.
In another, a funding portal that went blank.
And in yet another, an email forwarded with a sad emoji and no reply.
In another, it was silence — just long enough to realize: they weren’t coming back.
Someone said it was politics. Someone said it was optimization.
Someone said, “The model needs to evolve.”
Someone said, “We need to innovate.”
But nothing about this was new.
It wasn’t erosion — it was slow abandonment.
And slow abandonment only surprises those who never had to build with sandbags and borrowed hope.
Surprised? I asked.
We weren’t. We knew it. We saw it coming. We had years to prepare, but we stayed comfortable — enjoying the workshops, the lounges, the theories.
And now, we are holding the broken parts with bare hands, trying to make meaning out of what was always conditional.
I remember the midwife in rural Kandahar, flipping through a ledger of names — births, deaths, empty supply shelves. She didn’t ask about Washington. Or Geneva. Or Brussels. She asked if the syringes were still on the way.
I remember the man in Maiduguri, stitching a cap by hand for fourteen days straight, just to sell it for a loaf of bread and plastic sheets to patch the holes in his tent. He didn’t ask for “empowerment.” He asked if the food trucks would reach his street this time.
I remember the teacher in North Syria, rewriting lessons from memory on a blackboard too cracked to hold chalk. She didn’t ask for a strategy. She asked if we’d print curricula for the children.
I remember the child in Malakal, holding a deflated football like a treasure. He didn’t ask for innovation. He asked if he could have a real ball, so he could play like the rest.
They said the programs were paused. But cholera doesn’t pause. Nor does hunger, nor displacement, nor grief.
Only the funding paused. Only the briefcases paused. Only the comfort paused. Only the illusion paused.
The emergencies kept coming — on foot, by flood, through phone calls at 2 a.m. from staff who still showed up, even when the money didn’t.
We watched the inboxes go cold.
We watched the dashboards stop updating.
We watched coordination rooms fall quiet.
We watched new slogans get printed over old wounds.
And then, we stopped watching. We picked up the pieces. We went back to work.
Buzzwords floated into the vacuum. “Locally led.” “Cost-effective.” “Decolonized.” But local partners were already leading — without per diems, without consultants, without applause. They led when no one was watching. They led without being named in the press release. They led because the ground beneath their feet was never optional.
And still — someone fixed the well pump with spare parts and prayer.
Someone rebuilt the handwashing station with scrap metal and borrowed soap.
Someone collected wood and mud and built a bridge so schoolchildren could cross the stream.
Someone figured out how to get supplies across a checkpoint.
Someone donated their last paracetamol tablet, or shared a full malaria treatment pack with a neighbor in need.
Someone held a dying man’s hand while the last generator failed. No logos. No launch events. Just presence.
This isn’t about USAID. It’s not about FCDO. It’s not about donors cutting funding, or the UN or INGOs laying off staff and shutting down projects.
Not really. It’s about the architecture of dependence we kept calling partnership.
This isn’t about any one agency. It’s about the system we built to look like help, while hiding its expiry date in the fine print.
In one reality, this is an inflection point. In another, a rehearsal for the next unraveling.
In one timeline, it gets rebuilt — smarter, more honest. In another, it gets rebranded with the same architecture.
In this one — we are tired, but we are still standing.
In this one — we hold the line, patch the gaps, tell the truth quietly, because shouting won’t bring the medicines faster.
I’ve seen villages rebuild after floods with no funding — just rope, wood and resilience.
I’ve seen field officers show up after sleepless nights, unpaid, under-resourced, and unwilling to let their people down.
I’ve seen expatriates evacuated with urgency, while local staff stayed — steady, grieving, leading, rebuilding.
I’ve seen the ones who were called “implementers” become architects.
The ones left out of the meeting become the ones holding the map.
I’ve seen SOPs forgotten, but kindness remembered.
I’ve seen water tanks delivered late — and neighbors share from the one that didn’t run dry.
I’ve seen drivers become medics.
I’ve seen logisticians negotiate safe passage when diplomats couldn’t.
I’ve seen security briefings fail — and grandmothers provide the real risk analysis.
I’ve seen love outlast funding cycles.
And I’ve seen hope, not as a feeling, but as a practice.
I’ve seen collective heartbreak become collective will — not scalable, not strategic, but unshakably human.
And maybe that’s the most epic truth: That what endures is not the system, not the logos, not the strategies written in HQs.
What endures is the person who stayed behind, when staying didn’t make sense anymore.
The local leader who opened their home to displaced families.
The health worker who refused to close the door.
The driver who found another route when the convoy was canceled.
The names no one recorded. The hands no one funded. The dignity no one could steal.
The help left. And yet — we stayed.
Not because we were told to. Not because we were funded to. Not because it was profitable. But because presence, when all else fails, is the last true form of aid.
Presence is aid.
In one moment, I cried.
In another, I denied it was happening.
In another, I saw the opportunity buried under the debris.
In another, I worried it would all fall apart.
And in this one— I wrote these words, and chose to share my thoughts, my memories, and my quiet vulnerability.
And if this sector ever rises again — if aid finds its spine, its soul, its center — let history remember this:
The world did not fall when the help left. The world kept breathing because someone, somewhere, refused to walk away.
Ali Al Mokdad
