I thought.. What would be the ideal ex-aidworkers’ bar? The bar is to be called “Erbil”, for sure. To remember the UN bar up there as the only safe place to drink (and eat for that matter) after the Iraq war (the second one that is).

The bar is really the only place you can go, to meet those in the same “zone” as you. THE spot to chill out and exchange another story “I remember when I was in..” after yet another day trying to save the world and realizing you didn’t make a shit of difference. Was mostly after catching your two drivers syphoning out the petrol from your car. That was this morning. This afternoon, you fired the guard as he fell asleep on his stool next to the gate and did not wake up even if you hooted right next to him.

There are old yellow-ish pictures on the wall showing people in happier times. All of them taking in the same bar, of course. Mixed with postcards sent from holiday places. All reachable within the R&R cycle.
There is a trace of stains from the time John thought it would be fun to shake that cheap champagne bottle on his birthday, years ago. A bottle he risked his life for, smuggling it through airport customs.

The tables and chairs are a mishmash of different makes. Mostly cheap plastic. Collected after the bombing of a local community center back in 2005.

The servings of drinks differ as the weeks go by, dependent on what container Patrice – the MSF logistician – was able to smuggle into this darned muslim country. Some months, whiskey is the only drink, as the beer container got stuck at the port, lack of sufficient baksheesh.
It is amazing in how many different ways you can drink whiskey. And in how many ways you can use it. Including lightening up a short shot, and then, flame and all, put it on your forehead where it sucks itself out of oxygen. The half burned round sucking mark stays on one’s forehead for a week. And is the trademark of “Erbil”, our bar.
Mal once tried the same trick by sticking two of those burning shots onto his balls. He can only grin at that memory now… As I said, there are many things you can do with whiskey.

Andrew is always sitting at the same stool at the corner, no matter when you come in. You wonder if he really has a job at Care International, or if he became a beneficiary himself. His brother, Jolly -nobody knows his real name- is famous for the fancy dive he took in the swimming pool in the back. Forgetting the fact they never filled it up again after the 1995 earthquake which cracked up the foundation of the pool. And the spilling water flooded the underground safety shelter. Something which really upset that ex-Foreign Legion security officer we once had. Remember him? I remember his face, but can’t remember his name. Rodriguez, wasn’t it? He did not last two days after we took those shots from him dancing naked on this very same bar, and emailed it to the director of UNDSS in New York.
Little did we know they wouldn’t think that was not funny. Bureaucrats!

They serve a mean chicken, here. Full of spices to kill everything living in your stomach. Special recipe of Paul, who once owned the bar. Until he drove over a landmine up-country, shopping for two lambs to put on the barbie on Xmas.
It takes about one hour to get the grilled chicken serving, as all is fresh. The chickens roam in the backyard. After the order the cook disappears for 10 minutes with an axe in her hand.
If you want to understand what food poisoning means, you eat the salad too.

The music is always the same choice out of five CDs. The rest was nicked. Aidworkers can be thugs when it comes to personal entertainment. The CD of Tom Jones’ “Sexbomb” is kept for special occasions. Diana Ross’ “I’m coming out” always keeps hicking up at the same spot, until the bartender gives the CDplayer a kick.

But you don’t hear the music, you concentrate on that drink, and the distant noise of your VHF handheld, as a desperate radio operator tries to go through the daily radio check list. And on the distant muffled sounds of yet another grenade attack (all pre-recorded of course).

There is a large, half torn poster of Bukavu, at Lake Kivu. Must be from the Fifties, as the cypresses are not chopped into firewood yet, and the Hotel Karibu is still there. Those were the times when the living was good, and aidworkers were well respected civil servants, representing the social welfare and education arm of the colonizing country.

The electricity is cut twice a day, after which Abdul, the current owner, manually kickstarts the old grumpy 5 KVA generator, which makes the lights shimmer slightly in a rhythmic pattern.

The guests are always the same. Julie, ex-Jalalabad (shagged on R&R in Islamabad) sitting with Patricia (shagged in Juba), and Olivia, the ex-UNHCR reproductive health specialist from Goma (shagged in Mombasa). Olivia actually picked you up with the catch phrase “I have a container full of condoms, expiring next month” (HT Michael). Or was that Shelly? Anyways, does not matter, all of them give you the evil eye anyways. As if it was your fault you wanted to remain celibataire and were only looking for a quick fix?

At the next table we have Joaquim from ECHO, still looking for that single killer project to fund. A project that would propel him into the higher echelons of the Brussels Ivory Tower. For the moment, he is doing his best looking important, going through the 50 pages assessment report, full of baseline data and stakeholder interviews.
Cathy, the Texan chick (shagged in Monrovia) from USAID sits next to him, reading Bush’s new book “How I won the Iraq war”. As usual, Antoine, the head of mission Lutheran World Relief, joins in (tried to shag you in the Kigali transit lounge, of all places). Bible at hand, as per habit. You remember the fight you had with him, as he kept on spilling profanity on the security repeater in the middle of the night. Usually after he crawled back from the bar to his compound. You’ve never seen anyone wasted like this.

And then there is the table of the three OCHA dudes. Normally the loudest of all tables, as each keeps on raising their voice on top of the other. They never shut up, do they, those OCHA dudes? Professional deformity, the talking. They are either the youngest or the oldest of the whole bunch. Either fresh graduates naive enough to think aidworkers want to be coordinated, or the pre-retirees fired from every single other agency for incompetency.
Just last month, they all had a fit when their office was closed. Security phase IV, meaning “essential staff only”. It was the public acknowledgement OCHA was not essential, all found. Except the Humanitarian Coordinator, of course, who got NY to intervene and allow the “Holy Threesome” as you call them, back into the country.

But all of that is “what once was”, of course. Memories mixed with the cheap whiskey. Memories as all of us have decent jobs now. Jobs none of us likes. With only one common thought: “I wish I was back there”. In Tblisi, Luanda, Bor, Djamena, Peshawar, Dili, Mogadishu, Nazareth (in Ethiopia, not Israel) or Gulu.

And then at 21:45 someone rings the bell (an old ship’s bell that George found on the shipwrecks’ beach near Karachi) and shouts “Last call, curfew at twentytwohundred!”. After which we order those last 10 shots-to-go. Hand back our make-believe handhelds and safari jackets at the reception, pick up our attache case, straighten our tie, and step into our BMW.

Driving back to our suburban villa we make a mental note not to forget to pick up the lawn fertilizer tomorrow morning. And the tickets for the mid-term holiday in Tenerife.

Picture courtesy Lost in Berlin

Italian trash on the streets

When I landed in Rome, finally home after five months, there were three things I noticed on the way back from the airport:

1. A beautiful sunset, the kind you only see in Italy;
2. I had no mobile phone signal most of the way;
3. Trash piled up everywhere next to the waste bins.

Sunsets, we always cover extensively here on The Road. The paleolithic Italian mobile phone coverage, is a subject I will bitch about later. But the garbage problem, I have to revisit now. After all, it was the UN World Environment Day yesterday.

First, let me get this clear: I love living in Italy. But I never got my head around the fact why garbage is such a problem here. I mean, I don’t live in a slum area, but in a village close to the capital, known as a weekend resort for the rich and famous – how much I fall out of that category. Still, trash piles up as if we lived in a slum…

And it is not as if people don’t mind: People stopped I was walking around to take pictures of the three trash bins around my house. They looked at me, and at the rubble, only to sigh “A disgrace, isn’t it?”. One elder woman says: “Yes, young man, take pictures, document it, and do something about this scandal!”.
So I will.

Problem is, where to start? Luckily, one of the trash skips had a man’s picture on it:

With my limited Italian, I understand this Mister Armeni must be the proud owner of the trash company called “Forza Italia”.

I guess the mother company is called “Il Popolo della Liberta – Berlusconi”. Probably “Berlusconi” must be the overall umbrella of all Italian trash companies, then. At least that was the old lady’s claim: “Berlusconi: Rifiuti! Rigiuti!”

As this Mister Armeni kindly displayed his picture on his company’s trash cans, I gather he was asking for feedback. So I wrote him a letter:

To: Mister Armeni
Owner Regional Trash company
“Forze Ragione Regione”
Member of National Trash company “Forza Italia”

Dear Mister Armeni,

Thank you for soliciting feedback on the services of your trash company. I would like to tell you how much I appreciate you must be owning a lot of wastage, and as part of the national trash conglomerate “Forza Italia”, I am sure it must be a real challenge to daily hide garbage from the public eye.

Still, I would like to tell you that despite your best efforts, garbage seems to pile up more and more since you took over the company. I hope you will soon deal with the situation, or speed up selling out your company to the well-known South Italian alliance specializing in the disposal of (radio active) trash (in the Mediterranean). I heard that company is already part of the National Trash company “Forza Italia” anyways…

Looking forward to see progress in your national programme “Trash Italy Fast”!

Kindly,
Peter

Oops, punctured tyre.. No problem I have done this before… A Smart does not come with a spare tyre, but with a handy electric pump. I park on the emergency lane. 30 ton truck racing 2 inches past you. You “pump it up” and drive off..

Oops… puncture too big…. I barely make it to the next gas station. All flat again. No problem.. I have a can of tyre glue filler (how do you call that stuff?), made for just that. Except that there is no tool to get the valve off the tyre. No way to fit the glue tube onto the tyre.

Well, this is a gas station, so I ask the pompista. Nope. “No tools.” He points at the gas station at other side of the highway: “Ask there”. Luckily there is an underpass. Off I go.
I explain with the best of my Italian, that there is a problem with my “bomba” and I am looking for a “bombista”.. The guy gives me a funny look but no luck. “If you get the tyre here, I will fix you up with a second hand one”, he says. I think that is what he says.

Meanwhile next to my car, a queue is forming. Three buses of Dutch tourists wanna go to the loo, and line up right next to my car. And each has a comment. Not thinking I would speak Dutch. We’re in Italy after all. Until I comment on their comments.

Long story short, my luck comes in the form of an angel, a friend working close by. She dropped by the local garage, picks up a wrench and a tool to remove the valve. When she arrives, I introduce her to the Dutch tourists as the representative of the local automobile club. They all comment they want to change tyres too.

Anyway, glue goes in, but as soon as I pump up the tyre, it comes out of a dozen different holes. It seems I drove into every single nail in Rome. Tyre has to come off. Smart no come with jack. Back to the pompista to explain I have a problem with my ‘bomba’.. No tools. Friend’s car has. Fits well. Off comes the tyre.

With tyre and friend back to the other side of the highway. I ask again for the ‘bombista’. Friend asks me what I mean? I say “a guy who fixes tyres”.. “Ah” she says, ‘GOMMISTA’, you mean. ‘BOMBISTA’ is someone who makes bombs…” No wonder nobody had tools for my “BOMBA” (bomb). Oh well.

The GOMMISTA gets the tyre off, and fixes a second hand one he has laying around. “Should get you going to the next garage”, he says. 20 Euros. Cheap to get back onto the road.

Back to the other side of the highway (thank God for underpasses), fixed the tyre while realizing this is not the typical picture: Normally you would have a blonde saved by a mechanical savvy guy. Here I am being saved by a female angel..

Anyways, dropped the car off at a garage, and got a ride back home. Back where I started off, four hours later. Car to be picked up in the evening.

Will give it another try tomorrow morning…

Don’t we all get ’sucked’ into situations without even realizing it… And then, one day, you wake up, and look at it all with fresh eyes… When that happens to me, my AHA-thought concentrates around two things only: “How the hell did I get here?” and “How is it possible I have let it slip that far?”

An example, on a more lively and cheerful note: When I lived in Uganda, one morning the driver did not pick up my on time, and I nearly missed my flight.

I asked why he was late, and he shrugged:
- Not my fault…
- Why not?
- It was the neighbour’s wife’s brother fault.
- Why?
- I have an electric clock with an alarm, but it did not work.
- …
- My neighbour had connected his electricity line to mine. He had locked up the connection in a box with a padlock.
- …
- The wife had visited her brother.
- Whose wife?
- My neighbour’s… She had visited her brother.
- …
- She had left her keys there. The padlock key was amongst them.
- …
- In the evening, she returned home. There was a shortcircuit in his electricity connection, which also shut off my electricity. They could not repair it, as they called the wife’s brother to come with that key. But he did not.
- ….
- So my electric clock did now work, and I overslept…

To get up in the morning, the guy had to resolve the electricity problem, but ran into solving problems which were related to problems which were related to other problems which somehow related to the original problem…

And that is a problem, you see?

The week after the disillusioning appuntamente (appointments) with the hair dresser and the garage, I stepped into another appuntamento adventure. This time with a dentist.

I had never been to a dentist in Italy, but the week before last, a tooth ache appeared out of no-where. I could feel the pain spiking down to the bottom of my spine, a sign the nerve of the tooth was touched.

Via my Friend E, I got in touch with a dentist and made an appointment for “next Wednesday at 9:30 AM”. This was my first surprise, as dentists are pretty busy.

I stood at the porch of their practice at 9:25, and they arrived at 9:30, on the dot: The dentist, a young bright-blue-eyed woman, and the receptionist, a lady with a godly smile.

The dentist looked at my teeth. She shook her head. She would need X-rays and an ultrasound cleansing to remove all chalk residues before she could do anything else.

One was work for an Xray technician, and the other for a dental hygienist. I had an instantaneous nightmare of an endless appuntamente string. The dentist laughed at my sad face and said she would take an Xray of the hurting tooth herself, and put in a temporary filling. My first good luck of the day, as otherwise, I would have started my holidays – the next day! – with hurting teeth…

Half an hour later, we tried to find a blank spot in the agenda of the dental hygienist, but nothing seemed possible until September… And the Xray person was not available for months neither.

Both the receptionist and my dentist started a soft discussion, and in the end, the receptionist said:
- “OK, we will do the Xray session in two weeks, followed the next hour with the root canal for your hurting tooth… But we will do the dental hygiene session now…”
- “Now?” I asked.
- “Now”, she winked.. “I am a dental hygienist too. Today is a calm day at the reception, so I will do it. Is that ok?”
- “More than OK!”..

One hour later, I was back on the street. I had a dental appuntamento that had actually worked. They did even twice as much work as foreseen. Plus I had my dental hygiene session, for which I had not even taken an appointment.

So why did the appuntamente with hair dresser and the garage not work out, while I had no trouble at the dentist?

My theory: The first two were men. The latter were with two women. Proof efficiency in the Italian society revolves around the women, not the men. Punto.

More about Living in Italy on The Road

Picture courtesy Dentist Tools (obviously!)

Sometimes news about Zimbabwe makes me bitter. Sometimes, I can only get sarcastic. Like when I read this article:

Zimbabwe: Judge Accuses Grace Mugabe of Seizing His Seized Farm

A Zimbabwe High Court judge has accused President Robert Mugabe’s family of using political muscle to wrestle a farm allocated to him during the land seizures.

Court documents in our possession filed on November 10 last year show that High Court Judge Ben Hlatshwayo had been allocated Gwina Farm, located in Banket, Zvimba District, in Mashonaland West province and measures approximately 580 hectares.

Hlatshwayo’s affidavit exposes Mugabe and his family as multiple farm owners through their company Gushungo Holdings that carries out farming activities at Mazowe Farm, Sigaro Farm, Leverdale Farm and Bassiville Farm.

Gushungo Holdings is cited as the first respondent and the Minister of State for National Security, Land Reform and Resettlement is cited as the second respondent. (Full)

So I wonder what kind of conversation would have transpired between Mugabe and Judge Hlatshwayo. Maybe something like this:

- Hey Mug, this is H.
- …Hello?
- Mug?? This is H.
- [ticking against the phone]
- Mug???
- [background noise] Ah.. Yeah right.. Sorry, had it upside down.
- Mug?
- Yow! Woosdiz?
- Hey Mug, this is H.
- Yow H., my man, whatzup?
- Hey man. Lisssnn. Your woman is causing me grief, man!
- Which one?
- Grace. That one. She no good, man!
- Why?
- She seized my farm.
- Which one?
- Grace!
- No, which farm?
- Gwina.
- Where the %%$£ is Gwina?
- In Banket!
- Which one?
- Grace!
- No which village?
- Banket!
- No dude, we got no blankets here.
- No Banket, dude, Banket in Zvimba.
- [background noise, whispering] ..no, in Gwina.. [female voice screaming "lemme talk to that no-good judge"]…[background noise].. Hey H?
- How Mug !
- H, listen, dude, Grace says it’s hers.
- Which one?
- That farm.
- No dude, it’s mine!
- No, it’s hers!
- Hey, I seized it first. I seized it from that white dude.
- She says ‘no mind, I seize it from you’.
- But it’s mine, I seized it first!
- It no matter, she’s boss’ girl, she can seize all she can.
- But not from a me, I am a homie from your blingbling clan!
- No dude. She seizes.
- But dude, I will sue her sorry ass!
- Which one?
- Grace’s!
- Hey H, stay away from my woman’s ass!
- Dude, I will sue her sorry ass. And yours too!
- No you can’t!
- Yes I can. I am the judge-man!
- You no judge man for long then!
- Yes I am. I got that hammer thing!
- I will seize your hammer thing! I can seize all, I can. I seized the economy. I seized the government. I even seized the central bank, man. Your hammer is mine. Seized!
- Nooooo [whining] don’t seize my hammer thing! I only got one. But I got 30 seized farms!
- Hammer mine. Seized. Should’ve stayed away from my woman’s ass!
- But she seized my farm.
- No matter. She like second layer seiz… eh.. eh.. second layer seizer. She seized the farm. I seize your sorry ass. And the hammer.
- [click]
…

More satire on The Road

Cartoon courtesy The Economist

From our reporter in Gaza:

As we monitored the two webcams at the Gaza/Israel Keram Shalom border crossing today (this post), it soon became apparent that the camera pointing towards Gaza had a chronic problem with a fly walking over the lens. The camera pointing towards Israel’s side of the border was fly-free.

The Palestinian authorities immediately launched an official objection at the UN Security Council, calling for a resolution to have the Gaza camera fly-free too.

This prompted the UN Secretary-General to deploy an online UN monitoring force, the UN International Fly Observers (UNIFO), who reported the following:

[Gaza side]: 09:15- Fly walks over. Stops.
[Gaza side]: 09:17- Fly sits on side of screen
[Gaza side]: 09:19- Fly walks to the other side

(..) goes on until 10:17 when things get heated up:

[Gaza side]: 10:17- Two flies have sex. Duration 1.12 sec
[Gaza side]: 10:25- Two flies have sex. Duration 1.54 sec
[Gaza side]: 11:05- Two flies have sex. Duration 10.04 sec

After the report was shared with the press in the late afternoon, Hamas called a press conference, claiming the two flies were Palestinian – as they were on the Gaza-pointed camera.

Israel officially objected by claiming the fly-act. The spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Information stated that.. “10.04 seconds of sex for a fly is equal to 10 hours of sex for humans. We have detailed ..euh.. information that no Palestinian fly can have sex for 10.04 seconds. The third fly-sex record was indeed done by Israeli flies.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society made things more complex by stating they evacuated two entangled flies around 11:10, confirming they were indeed Palestinian. Israel resolutely claimed by Israel the flies were under-cover Mossad agents, asked for their release, and called for an impromptu fly-embargo on Gaza.

Egypt extended its solidarity to the Palestinian cause by sending a container full of flies to Gaza, a shipment coordinated by the UN. Hamas consecutively confiscated the shipment and sold the flies to Israeli farmers, claiming they were bees.

Israel replicated by spraying the flies on the Gaza-pointed webcam with “BAM”, a US-supplied insecticide. This drastic move was condemned by WTF, the World Trustfund for Flies, as a war crime.

The Arab League started the “Free the FLIES” campaign which, apparently, already has 100,000 registered signatures, even before the website became online.

George Lucas will make a movie out of the incident, apparently to be called “Sex on the Fly”.

More satire on The Road.

I don’t have to remember how to get anywhere. The sooth-voiced GPS in my car guides me from where I am to where I wanna be, via roads I did not know before.

I don’t have to remember meetings. Those who want meetings with me, fill in an electronic form which automatically replicates with my Blackberry, which reminds me 15 minutes before the start. It is widely accepted to miss meetings because someone’s Blackberry froze. We then commiserate with the person, feeling real bad for them, as we know the feeling of being Berry-less.

I don’t know when my car needs maintenance. My car reminds me, 500 miles before.

I don’t carry cash. I just slid a card in a slot. For those backward situations, where I do need cash, I carry some small notes hidden in a secret pocket of my credit card wallet. And then I am not surprised the cashier needs his calculator to see what the change is for a twenty. On a 18.95 sale.

I don’t remember names. I remember I met this guy in New York, in 2003. A quick search for the keywords “New York”, “2003″, and “male” on my PDA tells me who and what he is, and on what topic I met him before. And if I want to connect to his company website. Or update his business card automatically.

I don’t have to look for a job. LinkedIn ensures I get at least 10 offers per month.

I hear music on my iPod I have never heard before. I go online with iTunes, and it tells me what I like. I just click “OK”. Music is automatically copied to my iPod. I play “Latest Updated” and hear my favorite music. Only a pity that I don’t recognize the artist names nor album titles.

Likewise, Amazon reminds me when new books by my favorite authors are published. Their names don’t ring a bell, though.

I don’t remember how to spell. Microsoft word auto-corrects my errors.

My Blackberry (that thing again!), makes different noises, dependent which email it receives. If it comes from my boss, it makes a “whoopwhoop” noise.

I don’t read manuals. I try things. I don’t read instructions on a website, I just click haphazardly. If I don’t get what I want, I try another website. Choice plenty.

I don’t have an opinion. Before commenting, I check CNN to see the latest poll. I always make up my mind after consuming several 3G or GPRS megabytes.

Loads of electronic services I use, are password protected Passwords are remembered by my browser. I only have to click ‘OK’.

I don’t have to remember to contribute to charity. It is deducted from my checking account automatically.

My cellphone remembers the birthday of my mum and dad better than I do.

Facebook tells me who are my friends. I don’t recognize half of their thumbnail pictures, though. I have new friends every day.

I don’t have to speak to people. I email them. I vaguely remember the name of the guy in the office next door. But I bet ya, I had an email fight with him. Or at least blindcopied him on some stuff he outta know. If only I would remember what the issue was about. Then again, my intelligent Email search engine can tell me in a moment.

I know I am fired once my electronic badge no longer works.

I don’t have to visit places to learn. Wikipedia tells me all what I need to know. Google Earth shows me the sights better than in real life. And faster. And cheaper! Linked with Flickr and Panoramio, it shows better pictures I could ever take. And above all, the weather is always perfect on those, contrary to real life.

I don’t have to put my nose outside to know what the weather is. I have at least 10 websites that tell me. And what weather to expect in the next 1o days.

I don’t have to call the airport to check delays on my flight. My PDA tells me if my flight will leave on time or not.

I don’t remember my wife’s telephone number. My cell does. I don’t remember my own number. It is stored on my cell under the label “ME”.

I skype with my kids who are sitting in the next room. From time to time, we have conference chats with the family to decide on important matters. Opinions on critical issues are submitted anonymously with SurveyMonkey. We have breakfast together, though. Each with our iPod in our ears.

And if I screw up in life, I always have a.. Second Life.

Inspired by The Outsourced Brain. Discovered via Betty. Picture courtesy Glasbergen and DuckDown

This afternoon, this error message just gave me the creeps:

Make a selection. OK. Make a selection of WHAT? **%%$$!! And then I try to print a file, and I get an error: “Subsystem: IMAGE, Operator: ReadImage, Position: 2218, PCL XL Error. ” What the F**?

Maybe this is not my day, but how many times does it not happen: You start a meeting. And the first half hour you waste fiddling around with wires, interfaces, software settings, LAN connections and self-installing software, only trying to project a Powerpoint slide on a wall. Just as an example.

I despise user-unfriendly software. I find it cruel. I think many software developers should be indited by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. “Crimes against humanity”, that is what I call user-unfriendly software. Nothing more, nothing less. Moral genocide.

Thanks to Temmy -eh I mean David Lee- for the tip!