Supporter: Roger Burks

I've said many times, both out loud and written down, that I feel like I've had one of the best jobs in the world. But on each trip I've taken to some of the world's toughest, most isolated and fascinating places, there's always a really hard part: leaving.

Photo: Jacob Colie/Mercy Corps

While I'm always anxious to get back to my wife and son, often after a day or more in transit, it's difficult to leave most of the countries I visit. I think one big reason is the seeming finality of it all: even though I've had the incredibly good fortune to visit a place like Mongolia or Kosovo, what's the chance I'll be returning? What I take with me in my suitcases and memory are what I'll keep from that place for the remainder of my life.

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I just got off a Horn of Africa emergency response team phone conference involving dozens of colleagues in at least five different countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, the United Kingdom and the United States. We have these calls every few days to update each other and coordinate our efforts on what is one of the biggest crises to which we've ever responded.

There are over 1.46 million displaced people living in camps in Somalia and one third of them (about 500,000 people) are in camps in Mogadishu. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

The scale of the Horn of Africa crisis is staggering: the drought-stricken region is nearly half the size of the United States. Across this vast area, at least 12.4 million people are struggling to find enough food and water to survive, thousands of them walking for weeks to reach places where they hope to find some measure of relief.

One of those places is Mogadishu, Somalia's capital — which is, by its mere connotation, an unlikely locale to seek assistance. But 3.7 million people, about 40 percent of Somalia's total population, is at risk for starvation. That's why an estimated 100,000 people have fled to Mogadishu over the last several weeks.

Our team on the ground in Somalia is seeing the effects of that mass displacement. Today, they visited a camp where at least 120,000 people are staying in whatever shelter they can find. Our water and sanitation expert said there are only five or six latrines in the entire camp — at best, that's one latrine for every 20,000 people.

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Fodder and water distribution in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Photo: Kaja Wislinska/Mercy Corps

Our emergency response efforts in Ethiopia's Oromia and Somali Regions — two of the areas hit hardest by the region's worst drought in 60 years — continue to expand. We're now reaching 647,005 people, about 22,000 more than reported in our last update from Ethiopia.

Here are some specific details of our lifesaving response in some of the country's driest and poorest places:

• In Gashamo District, we've delivered a total of 1.74 million liters of clean water to sustain more than 55,500 people
• We've purchased, transported and installed 20 10,000-liter water tanks at schools throughout Gashamo District
• We've helped build 14 wells and provided five water pumps to drought-stricken villages

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Mercy Corps has been delivering clean, fresh water to families — many of whom are displaced — for more than a month in drought-stricken northeastern Kenya. Photo: Erin Gray/Mercy Corps

Over the last week, our emergency response team in northeastern Kenya has reached more than 9,700 more people with clean water. The total population to which we're delivering and ensuring water has risen to 197,749.

Our staff is deployed throughout the hardest-hit parts of Kenya's drought-parched Wajir County, and our efforts are reaching more people every day. But there are dozens of other villages — and tens of thousands more people, many of them displaced — who need our help to survive this crisis.

In addition to trucking fresh water to places that have no natural supply or infrastructure, our team is also helping communities restore broken systems and build more capacity. This week, we're working to design a long-term pump house, storage tanks and piping in one of the area's biggest and poorest towns. We're also planning for the construction of water distribution lines and troughs in another large village. We're coordinating all of these activities with local government officials and other humanitarian organizations to ensure that immediate needs are met and long-term challenges are addressed.

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On this World Humanitarian Day, I'm thinking about what humanitarian aid workers are — and what they are not.

Specifically, right now I'm thinking about a recent video from the Horn of Africa. NBC's Ann Curry was in Mogadishu with a humanitarian aid worker from the World Food Programme. "How do you come out of that, come out of looking at that, without just wanting to cry?" she asked.

"I don't — I don't," the aid worker replied.

That's an often-untold story about this line of work: the personal costs. There are rewards and inspirations to be sure. But for every minute of handing over food, water or other supplies to a family, there are many hours of hard work, tough negotiations, grueling travels and horrific dangers. There is little, if any, time for rest — and even those hours are spent immersed in conflict, poverty, disaster and famine.

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