Tag Archives: Otto

Otto the Aid Worker

OTTO THE AID WORKER 1. Bailed in Bazimbi

I don’t know if you’ve ever been sucker punched? You know: you set out on a lovely morning, a-brim with vim and ready to smile upon all and sundry, when you step on a hibernating bear and wonder how fast you can do nought to sixty up a tree?

Well, dear reader, I have. Only yesterday in fact.

Not literally stepped on a bear of course (not sure they have bears in Central Africa), but metaphorically my life has recently become wall to wall angry ursines, all equipped with running shoes. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to complain or appear ungrateful, but things seem to have taken a slight turn for the worse here in Zabarindi since my last sitrep.

And to be totally honest with you I’m not entirely, one hundred percent convinced this is what I signed up for.

Let me explain.

My life before all the recent events was completely fine, ticketyboo and tinketytonk, the seas were calm, the going was steady. But I must admit it also had all the zing and joy of the last gluten-free tofu sandwich in a British Rail food cart. I baulked at the thought that reaching the dizzying heights of winning the Latin Poetry Recital prize at Oxford was to be my only achievement, impressive though it undoubtedly was. Makes an enterprising young gentleman feel like a bit of a lemon.

So in an uncharacteristic fit of impetuosity, I threw caution to the wind, carpe’d that diem and signed up for a stint with GAWD: General Aid Without Divisions.

Imagine Oxfam in combat boots and a flak jacket.

My goal: to See and Change the World, Do Good, Make A Difference, Help the Less Fortunate. (The capitalisation helps.) Preferably in a warm climate.

Except it’s now starting to dawn on me that – and this may surprise you – my efforts are not earning me the kudos I assumed would be heaped upon me like golden shekels upon Gideon.

I arrived in North Zabarindi a month ago (of course it’s not North Zabarindi anymore since the border was overrun, but that’s a story for another time) and ever since then things have been a little… well, fraught.

Again, not complaining, wouldn’t dream of it.

But I mean to say: detaining me under the Zabarindi Terrorism Act just for popping out after curfew for a quick snifter at the local watering hole is a bit thick.

The first inkling I had that something was wrong was when I arrived back at the Bazimbi guest house, having taken a taxi from the bar.

I had just finished haggling with the cabbie (only $60! I drive a hard bargain), when all of a sudden two enormous policemen with unnecessarily lapelled shoulders and aviator sunglasses appeared out of nowhere and started yelling at me in the local lingo. (Quick sidenote: did you know they don’t speak English in Central Africa? French! Who knew!)

When it became clear from my slack-jawed expression that their incomprehensible diatribe wasn’t having the desired effect, they gestured me into the police van with their Kalashnikovs. Bit brusque, I thought, but a gentleman always complies with the long and chiselled arm of the Law. So into the van I popped.

Now, I’m just a press officer ok? My job is basically making sure people back home (donors) know what we do in the field (think we’re heroic), speaking to journos to promote what we do (get them to warzones and back safely in return for positive press) and staying on message no matter what (navigate the minefield of internal GAWD politics which is just stupidly harder than it needs to be).

My point is I am a stranger to the rough-and-tumble world of skirting the law: the only time I had ever crossed paths with the local constabulary was when I tripped and spilled wine all over Chief Constable Mwanga at the embassy May Day reception. (I remember because it was a particularly agreeable Château Pétrus.)

Back to the gentlemen with the guns. After much yelling, arm-waving and pointing at the clock on the wall, they were able to apprise me of the fact that I was under arrest for straying into the Green Zone during a military curfew and the only thing still up for debate was whether I was suicidal or just criminally stupid. There’s a slight chance I may also have been a little trollied at the time. (Apparently leaning out of a taxi as it speeds past the local copshop and loudly singing “Mobutu’s Dumplings are Round and Sweet” while brandishing a bottle of Glenfiddich is frowned upon in the tropics.)

So here I am, in Bazimbi’s main police station, trying to remember why I came out here in the first place. The capitalisation helps… GAWD help us.

Next week: Otto accidentally goes on safari.

Otto the Alien

OTTO THE ALIEN 2. Sexual destiny?

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Hey guys and gals and all those in between or beyond; how’s your half-life treating you? So it’s been a while huh? I’ve kind of been observing, learning, treading water – not literally of course, I wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself like Gary did (you guys knew him as Jesus, but to us he was just Gazza. Actually maybe that’s why he ended up in Judea… Things might have been different if he’d gone to Congo but that’s for another time).

I digress. In the intervening years since my last post I’ve noticed something odd about you lot: your species treats half of its members like gorp. Steaming gorp.

This is not, I realise, an original observation, which ironically makes it all the more necessary to make.

Back where I come from, we automatically change our sex every few stellar oscillations; it just happens. I’m currently in my female stage and starting to wonder if that wasn’t a mistake here. I notice, for instance, that I’m the only female on this forum – and I’m an alien… What does that tell you.

So explain some things to me please.

Why are female humans so often exclusively defined by their familial or sexual relationships with others…? When those relationships in turn define her…well…everything! Her name, work, longevity, education, prospects, sex life, love life, suffrage, mobility, appearance, rights over her own body, voice, her whole purpose. How the frook… I mean…I’m speechless.

And I’m not just talking about some of the livelier parts of the planet where cutting off female body parts for minor infractions is de rigeur. It’s everywhere.

Attractive? Can’t be clever. Attractive and rejects male? Lesbian. Have a strong sex drive? Nympho. Weak sex drive? Frigid. More intelligent than him? Gobby bitch. Want kids? Unambitious. Don’t want kids? Selfish. Single? Aww. Swear like a bloke? Common. Ambitious? Masculine. Emotionally intelligent? On her period. Eloquent? Yap yap yap. Protest against ANY of this? Screeching man-hater.

Are female reproductive organs really that threatening..?

Take something as simple as bras – just hear me out… If you have a push-up, you’re a gender traitor, but if you prefer a sports bra you’ve let yourself go. Breasts are continually scrutinised and spoken at, while their owners have to endure comments like “Huh is it cold out?”, but wearing a padded bra to avoid this is apparently classed as a false promise.

Frook, you people haven’t evolved much have you. No wonder I’m the only female on here. And so many females just submit and add to this pile of gorp. Getting the competition for the alpha male out the way I guess… “Pick me, pick me, I’ll be your dog!”

You monkeys are complicated.

Oh, and #metoo. Though he lived to regret it. (Never try to feel up an alien on a tram unless you want to lose an arm.)

Otto, Nero's violin tutor

OTTO THE TUTOR 1. Nervous With Nero

Erm… Is this thing on? Can you hear me? I haven’t got long (His Imperial Bipolarness is just catching a show in the Colosseum), so I’ll make this quick.

Right. So my name is Otto, although given this forum I think you already knew that. And I work for the Emperor Nero – yes, the one who made Rome nice and toasty – as his violin tutor. It could be worse. I could be his official food taster and have a life expectancy of three meals.

My boss, let’s face it, isn’t very popular. I mean, he’s not even a Marmite sort of bloke (you know, hated or loved); he’s more a flatulence kind of guy. Only the dealer likes the smell, the rest of us stand upwind. I just pray he never finds this tablet as I’d be crucified along the Appian Way faster than that hippy in Judea.

Luckily he’s also the dumbest man since Severus the Simple headed north to “talk some sense into the Visigoths”. Nero, in short, doesn’t know his culus from his cubitus.

Which is a good thing, because his capacity for inflicting agonizing pain is frankly impressive. In an age when casual sadism is celebrated as heroism, when 8 out of 10 Big Cats prefer kosher meat, and when the main form of exercise for women is Escape the Rape, you’ll understand what I mean when I say Nero makes Genghis Khan look like a hypnotised sloth in a floatation tank. Oedipus was a well-adjusted first-born compared with He Who Can Not Be Shamed.

I confess, he makes me a little nervous. I’ve had to put three smallish fires out already this week, and I’m running out of ways to say “E Minor, not A Major” without implying that he is less musical than Tarquinius the Tone-deaf Tenor. (You know: the one who was publicly lynched for his rendition of Mamma Mia in the forum. His own fault: there’s nothing more dangerous than an angry mob maddened by tritone dissonance.)

I’d better go. I can hear screams of agony from the corridor and the pitter-patter of tiny feet running for their lives; ah the little tell-tale signs that His Unhinged Majesty is on his way and has a story to relate.

Next week: Otto fiddles while his toast burns

Otto the Wall

OTTO THE WALL 2. Hamo Hamas Hamat

Finally. It’s August 2014 and after seven weeks of bombing interrupted by short cease fires, we have a long-term truce in Gaza at last. Wonder how long-term that actually is.

The previous cease fires were not pauses so much as dot-dot-dots of waiting for the next round of shelling. But right now all I know is that the party to the left of me (on the -alestine side of Isralestine) is going full swing and long may that last too.

And as the rest of you tip ice water over your heads in support of ALS research (not just because you’ve been challenged to and because you want to be part of something fun and big, of course…), some Palestinians have taken to tipping the rubble of what used to be their homes over their heads to raise awareness of Gaza.  Calling it the Rubble Bucket Challenge.

And demonstrating that humour, not love, will always win over hate.

After all, love is – in a fragile break from a war that has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives – possibly a tall order. Amo, Amas, Amat, as we learned in Latin class, is first and foremost a matter of grammar. Let alone Hamo, Hamas, Hamat (or PIJ, Hamas, Fatah, as the case may be).

But humour may be the first step for those with little reason to love their enemy, whatever side of me (well, of the Gazan border of course, but I speak metaphorically) they’re on.

If you hate me, for instance, for being a symbol of divisiveness in an area that really doesn’t need any more divisions, just switch the first letters of my name – West Bank Barrier – and have a giggle.

If you can’t love your enemy, you can at least take the piss.

And given the truce forged in Cairo this week, it appears to have done the trick. Maybe tipping the contents of your hoover over your head will bring back the missing girls in Nigeria, who knows.