Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Humanitarian aid worker pick up lines

A blog that I read, Tales from the Hood ran a little blog post about "pick up lines" for Aid workers.

Some of their offerings included:
“Guess we’d better test these reproductive health kits ourselves….”

“Your pipeline is soooo big!”

“Don’t worry: I can do distribution all night long.”

“Care to join me for a needs assessment?”

“Is that a Thuraya in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?”

“Damn, the electricity is out. Looks like the only thing we have is the spark between us….”

“I have a warehouse of expiring condoms…”

“This one time, on the Jalalabad road….”

Taxi driver showed girl his driving license and said, “See? It says here that I’m authorized to transport dangerous cargo. That would be you!” *wink, wink*

That makes me laugh because on my first trip to Darfur in 2004 after a couple of pretty raucous parties, someone started a list of "sure fire ways to get laid in Darfur" but rather than punny- they relied more on the context and the fact that a natural response to being around death and dying is to embrace the very act which creates life. A lot of aid workers are young - really young! Sometimes it feels more like fraternity parties than the office parties of Washington DC. Work hard, play hard is the motto and there's a reason that if you want a stable marriage, you have to leave the field.

I remember a few of the lines on the top ten list but I wish I had written them down:

"You wouldn't believe what I saw today. I"ve got a bottle of "liquor" from the African Union mission. Wanna get drunk?"
"I am scared to sleep alone after the security event - can you just hold me for a while? "

But a favorite from an impromptu dance party in Haiti in March -(while listening to Aisha, the ubiquitous song played in almost every setting I've ever been to) "DAMN, why can't I be French and in [name of my org] France and make love to this song every weekend?"

And it also reminds me of some lines used on me too... but those, well, I'll tell you those in private. ;^)

1 comment:

  1. This is awesome!! I'll look out for more lines that I can add to your list! :-)

    ReplyDelete