Hi, I'm looking to volunteer abroad and have run into some serious roadblocks. Namely, none of these so-called "humanitarian organisations" seems interested in helping people.

I've scrolled through slightly more than half of the imva.org list of int'l relief agencies, applying to all of them that don't require that I be a fundamentalist Christian (check out the list and you'll see what I mean) and have exactly zero replies so far. Zero. A week has passed and no one wants to save lives.

Or do they? Only one org has written back - you guessed it: Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF). Endorsed by ex-prez Jimmy Carter, this is apparently the only group that actually practises humanitarian medicine.

Mr. Stephen Sosebee of PCRF kindly informed me that he would forward my CV to headquarters in Palestine and that they'd probably request that I go the West Bank to work in one of their hospitals.

So why am I bitching, you ask? After all, someone wants my services. Well, I've done the Palestine thing a couple of times already - although not with PCRF - and I'm kind of Palestined-out right now.

Is that a terrible thing to confess? The Palis are a sweet people, God love 'em, but I need a break from The Overwhelming and Great Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. I was thinking Africa.

But apparently, NONE of the African orgs wants to help. They'd prefer that Africans just suffer and die instead.

OK, I'm through venting. If any of you International Meders out there have any advice, do tell.

"Did you ever think that maybe you're not qualified?"

Good point. It's sad to think, though, that MSF and their ilk would turn away a trained ER doctor with four years' experience, some of it abroad.

Asi es la vida, I guess.