52 REASONS NOT TO DATE AN AID WORKER.
1.
They think everyone’s been to Africa enough
times to discuss which are the best and worst airports.
2.
They don’t consider you’ve been to a place unless you had to
rent an apartment and pay utilities.
3.
They think the 11pm news is talking about them.
4.
They think they understand third-world problems better than
the experts or the people actually living in those third-world countries.
5.
They think five years is a long-term commitment.
6.
They think malaria and dengue are perfectly acceptable
diseases for children to be exposed to.
7.
They’ve heard gun shots, and are not afraid to tell you or
your parents the story.
8.
They’ll try to cook you black and white pasta, with zebra
meat instead of squid, and complain if they can’t find it in the market.
9.
They’ve eaten snake or crocodile, or both.
10.
They will celebrate strange holidays like chung beng and expect
you to know what they are talking about.
11.
They’ll constantly be comparing your home town with their
last destination.
12.
It doesn’t matter how hot it gets, they’ve had worse and are
not afraid to tell you the story.
13.
They think having parasites is normal and a perfectly
acceptable topic of conversation at dinner.
14.
They blog.
15.
If you complain about your internet breaking down they’ll
remind you that children in Africa have to walk for miles just to get water.
16.
If you ever have relationship issues they will do a SWOT analysis (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats).
17.
They choose furniture by weight and how easy it is to
dismantle.
18.
They think being apart for weeks on a regular basis is
normal.
19.
They are strange, or at least like to think they are.
20.
There are as many of them as the poor people that they are
trying to help.
21.
All conversations lead to a time when they were in ….
22.
They drink and eat all kinds of weird shit just because.
23.
They are always suspicious of how real or committed other
aid workers are.
24.
They come out last in the movies because they are trying to
recover from the emotional shock.
25.
They can’t change a light bulb without appointing a
committee and a sub-committee.
26.
Tableware is always ethnic and not always easily
recognisable.
27.
They will question the Fairtrade claims of your coffee.
28.
You will have to hear the origin and story of every piece of
original art work in their home.
29.
They can’t give birth to more than one child in the same
continent.
30.
Will randomly thank you in Kiswahili or Khmer, and then attempt to
apologise, in Kiswahili or Khmer.
31.
They read books by other aid workers.
32.
They do not know how to add and subtract, but can draft a
40-page document between the main and the dessert, which will make no sense to
anyone other than another aid worker.
33.
They have silver card memberships and points to airlines you
or the airport authority have never heard of, and expect you to use these for
your joint holidays.
34.
They idolise people who nobody knows and speak of them as if
they were colleagues.
35.
They take pictures almost daily and expect you to be
interested in them.
36.
They ask your opinion about everything but they do whatever
they want.
37.
Everything can be justified, even if it contradicts a
previous justification or logic.
38.
They never heard of Excel, and are pretty convinced it does
not actually exist.
39.
When arguing, you will be nicknamed after some dictator you
never heard of before, and won’t be able to complain without having to put up
with a condescending “What do you mean you don’t know who he is?”
40.
They will avoid fancy shoes because their feet are
accustomed to feeling free and dealing with the rough terrain.
41.
They are writing a memoir and you are likely to be included, how is
yet to be determined.
42.
They keep an emergency bag in case they have to leave the
country with 15 minutes’ notice.
43.
They listen to music you have never heard of.
44.
They can’t cook a normal dish, they always have to experiment
with new ingredients they brought from their last trip.
45.
They do yoga and meditate, but the real kind.
46.
They will attempt to read rare books of traditional
indigenous tales to your children or your nephews, in the original language.
47.
They’ve experienced spiritual rebirth in Asia.
48.
You will never understand their gifts.
49.
They see ordinary objects and laugh.
50.
You can’t watch a movie with them because they will
inevitably compare the movie with the real thing.
51.
They are always sleepy because they work 24/7 and are
regularly jet lagged.
52.
When together, instead of competing over who has the best
car they’ll compete over who’s been to the worst place.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com
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