Dropping Everything tells the story of how Bruce French, “an itinerant private chef living in a teepee…in Telluride, Colorado,” picked up and left for Peraliya, Sri Lanka, after the tsunami hit:
Mr. French confronted and rejected the kinds of notions many people harbor in times of crisis: The international aid community would never let down a person in need. The poor are always noble. Big companies, including Big Oil, don’t have a heart.Over time, some locals came to resent the foreigners, who they thought were meddling in village affairs. Mr. French was forced to deliver aid in secret to forestall jealousies. One of Mr. French’s friends began to drink heavily after long days of collecting bodies. Another came to view the Sri Lankans as ungrateful.