Random Thoughts

I know. A terrible blogger I am for not posting. I've been jotting down random thoughts, because I'm now officially a writer (or officially gainfully unemployed, or officially a temp, it's all about spin), and writers do clever things like jot down random thoughts. That's why we look intellectual and carry note pads. My current job-hunting forays are apparently not lost on the British. I'm 2 for 2 with applications and interviews. You know you're hardcore when a hiring manager asks you, "how would you deal with a kidnapping threat to your staff?" He had such a lovely British accent. It was very tempting to say, "What, you guys aren't packing heat in the field?" That would have been very American. And if he said "no," I could have a great follow-up comment ("And that's the kind of innovation I can bring to your organization").

So here are some of those random thoughts, most of them incomplete:

In Georgia, people assume that I am a missionary. In New York they think I do Peace Corps.

The first question any woman in the development assistance profession asks when proposed an assignment is, what is the shopping like? (Development? Developing my wardrobe).

A conversation I had in French in Kindu, when I realized that no one would ever "get" me:
“You don’t seem very American.”
“No, I’m quite American. As American as apple pie.” There is no word in French to differentiate a pie from a tart. So I say that I am as American as a tarte de pomme.
“I thought tartes de pomme were French.”
“Well, our apple tarts are different and we eat them with ice cream. They are very American.”

The two burning questions face every American aid worker: Why has Bono never visited me? Why had the CIA never tried recruitment?

On why American cleaning products would not be able to take on Congo: Scrubbing Bubbles would probably trapped and eaten. Mr. Clean would get taken down by malaria as soon as mosquitoes zeroed in on his shiny head.