Close protection: dangerous liaisons
People who were single or far from their spouses, with nothing to do but drink and dance, was a petri dish for bad decisions.
From: Ayla Sunday < aylasunday@gmail.com > 8 January 2010 12:51
To: A Team
Bonjour mes amis! Just left L’Institut de Francais in France after 6 weeks locked in villa with too much camembert and Texans learning French. Merde! Or as the Texans say MAYERED! Writing, reading and speaking anything but French was banned hence the long (insert French accent) silence. Ridiculous crush on long-haired guitarist whom I could not charm with wit and banter because I will never fathom French humour. Also could not charm with hot body due to camembert. The French don’t laugh out loud. It’s a vocalised smirk, very controlled, that goes perfectly with a Chanel suit, espresso and Gitanes cigarettes. Weekend with my ex Raphael (aka the Frenchman) scooting about on the back of his motorbike on a cloud-strewn day in Paris. Left the French behind and travelled north to the ice lands. Shall redact parts that may get me into (more) trouble. See attached. Hope this finds you well and happy. Send news and photos. Tchao! Tchao! (Yes that’s how the French spell it bébé!)
Close protection
I was at a training in <insert freeeeeezing country>, run by UNXXXX. It was on coordination and protection during emergencies, the large scale kind where chaos reigns and you get an influx of hundreds of NGOs (non-government organsations), UN agencies and, depending on what it is, military. This causes enough chaos in itself, overlaid onto a country ravaged by war, disease, cyclones or any other act of man or God that can wreak havoc and misery on people who a few short weeks ago were planning after-work drinks with mates and where to have dinner.
The next presenter was a tall, English woman in her late 50s, who dressed and spoke like an elocution teacher at a private girls school.
“I am here today to discuss stress management. Can anyone suggest the common ways aidworkers respond to stressss? Yes?”
“Alcohol.”
“Drugs.”
“Sex!”
There was a rumbly titter of laughter – the room was two-thirds men.
“Yes.” she said in her plum-filled voice. “Exac-t-ly. Basically, it involves getting fucked and then getting fucked. I’ve been held at gunpoint thirteen times and I can advise that going to a bar immediately after is a bad idea.
Now! At your tables, can you discuss the ways you have dealt with stress?”
Well, it was just men at my table, and it seemed shagging women was a competitive sport. Locked in share houses with people who were single or way too far from their spouses, with nothing to do but drink, dance and listen to music, was a petri dish for bad decisions.
Eventually, one of them, Lars his name was, noticed me and asked “So how do you manage stress? Booze?”
“I don’t really drink.”
He stroked the stubble on chin, looking down at me with his grey eyes, and weather-worn Viking face.
“Sex then?”
The course then went onto discuss protection which is “preventing and responding to violence, exploitation and abuse” and basically ensuring people do not behave like depraved human beings. Lars didn’t say a lot, but what he did say was considered, based on decades of experience and said in a gravelly voice, created by smoking too many hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking too much vodka. I could imagine him in a refugee camp of 10,000 people, coordinating water, food, shelter, negotiating peace treaties, that kind of thing.
We all retired to our remote wooden lodge, where reindeer – so close to Christmas? – was on the menu. We ate lots and lots of cream. The Scandinavians love cream: creamed potatoes, cream flavoured with strawberries, potato salad with cream, fish in cream sauce and of course, just cream.
Lars started pouring glasses of vodka no ice and – did I mention I don’t drink? – we were soon all in the outdoor hot tub with the snow slowly falling. There was no talk of renovations or which schools the kids should go to. Jess, an Australian woman, worked in Southern Sudan trying to negotiate for abducted children to be returned to their villages and mounting rescue missions. In that part of Sudan children were regularly kidnapped from other villages and used as slaves or traded to other tribes for cattle. Another Canadian woman negotiated with rebel forces to stop recruiting children as soldiers in the first place. I, for my small part, cajoled the director of health working under a military junta, to train his medical staff in treating rape survivors and performing abortions in a country where it was illegal. I had managed to create a living out of righteous indignation.
There had not been a major disaster for over a year, and Christmas was the season for the world to go to hell. We all had a sense that something was coming.
Lars cranked up the music – it was all getting a bit earnest. We jumped out of the hot tub into the snow and made snow angels to Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky. We had snow fights in our swimmers. I lost. Somehow it was just Lars and I in the hot tub, then Lars asking me if I wanted and nightcap and…I’m blaming the vodka.
Lars had a fire in his room with a reindeer hide rug before it. This was definitely going in one direction but I was not shagging on a reindeer. The Norseman smelled not of tobacco but of campfire and wet wool. He picked me up from the chair and, with one arm, threw me over his shoulder, and carried the vodka and two glasses in the other.
I like to think of myself as an empowered take-charge kind of woman, who completely disappeared in that combination of fire and snow and heat. It was we’re-going-to-die-tonight kind of sex where you don’t care about the bites and bruises. He liked to talk all the way through. I said “Shhh” (in a very sexy way) and he said “don’t tell me to shhh.” “Okay, it’s only…I don’t need you to read me the roadmap, just get me there.”
This was definitely going in one direction but I was not shagging on a reindeer.
In the morning he walked me to my cabin, holding my hand, and told me that he had been in <insert name of country that’s gone to hell> to secure an airfield. I knew he was going to <insert name of war-zone> to do conflict analysis and strategies for reconciliation, so I had in mind he was a bleeding heart humanitarian worker like the rest of us.
Him (cute Nordic accent): “So I was there with the <insert name of army> troops, and we didn’t have any supplies so I shot a kudu; it’s a type of antelope and we ate it.
Me: “The soldiers gave you their gun?”
Him (still with cute accent): “No I had my own gun.”
Long pause.
Me: “Um…what exactly were you doing there?”
Him: “UN Close Protection.”
Me: “Close. Protection?” (I think that deserves Capitals)
Him: “For a senior American admiral.”
Me: “Ha.” (somewhat disturbed)
Longer pause…
Him: “So there was this time we were driving down this dirt road, nothing but desert everywhere, as far as you could see.
Me: “Mm.”
Him: “And then, out of nowhere a man comes up to the jeep wearing nothing but a loin cloth and carrying a spear.
Me: “Mm.” (wondering where this story is going – please let him not have killed the man)
Him: “and he starts talking tokblahbikbahtoktok, some mix of African and Arabic and we are just smiling and nodding. I have my gun on my lap pointed to the window just in case he tries to spear us or something. None of understands a word he’s saying – “
I’m just looking at him now, hoping this has a good ending.
Him: “And he keeps going, getting more and more agitated, hands waving tokblahbikbahtoktok, and we’re in the middle of nowhere, and we’re still just nodding and smiling. And again, more talking, more nodding and smiling. And he keeps trying to tell us something, which seems really important and finally, after about 15 minutes, he gives up, grabs his goat’s stomach, full of water I guess, and just disappears into nowhere.
He laughs, that husky laugh.
Me: “That’s awful!”
Him: “Random.”
Pause.
Me: “He was probably trying to tell you that everyone in his village was killed, the women were raped and the well poisoned.”
This led onto some other story, which I can’t remember at the moment. I was still thinking about that man in the middle of nowhere.
We keep walking. I am ridiculously dressed in stockings, light cotton pants over long boots. My feet are hurting. I wonder how long it takes ’til you actually lose your toes. It is minus 30 degrees. What was I thinking?; Clearly of an Australian version of winter.
Then he tells me how he got recruited by his martial arts dojo that ended up being some <insert name of US agency with a bad reputation> operative into training special missions.
Him: “I’m a close combat specialist.”
We took a couple of steps and he took me by both shoulders and turned me around.
Him: “It would best if you didn’t tell anyone that story. I’m not sure why I told you.”
So, I found myself asking, is it wrong for a humanitarian to find it kind of hot that a guy carries a gun and can kill a man with his bare hands? I imagine this is some humanitarian version of Catholic guilt. I am still not sure why he felt the need to tell me these disjointed stories, completely unprompted, but suspect it was some kind of post-coital tenderness, a wish to connect.
Is it wrong for a humanitarian to find it kind of hot that a guy carries a gun and can kill a man with his bare hands?
Me: “You haven’t killed anyone have you?”
It occurs to me that a trained killer has had his hands around my neck and I’ve told him to shush.
Me: “Don’t answer that.”
Then he laughs like an avalanche.
Him (channelling Schwarzenegger) : “They were all bad.”
He kisses me at the door whilst I’m looking around trying to see if my feminist colleagues are around.
He said he’d write. Cute right?
“You never know, I might see you on some mission somewhere”.
And he has, surprisingly, written I mean, but I fear he’s your stereotypical emergency ‘dog’ sniffing out and shagging whomever he can.
For all that, it was the almost extinct ‘perfect one night stand’, with no hangover, guilt or regrets.
Wishing you love and all good things x
