Humanitarian aid workers are a particular crowd. The spectrum ranges in all colours, from very regular people to cowboys, from the starry-eyed (minority) to the cynical (majority?), though on the whole they are mostly professionals making a deliberate career choice rather self-sacrificing saints as the general public tends to think.
As such, they of course have their jargon, quirks and marks of prestige. And a particularly favourite prestige mark among the humanitarians are helicopter rides.
As such, they of course have their jargon, quirks and marks of prestige. And a particularly favourite prestige mark among the humanitarians are helicopter rides.
I always considered myself much more on the development side rather than humanitarian, more long-term than a short-term (4 years in Uganda could witness to that), more relationship- and knowledge-of-place-building rather than looking for a new emergency every few months. But now, my friends, finally I can really count myself also among the exclusive humanitarian club. I took a helicopter, with a WFP sticker on it. There you go.
Now I can end my career in peace :-)
Miraculously, in spite of the monsoon season, it was one of the rare (two-in-a-month type of rare) clear beautiful days...
... and the views were just amazing. So instead of ranting on, I just leave you some photos.
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| Charikot town |
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| Rice fields... |
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| A catalogue shot for WFP cargo |
The most worrying thing is that, as much as I loved the flight, what I enjoyed even more was having a normal, regular conversation with the pilots - a Swiss and an Italian - for half an hour before the take-off. A conversation which did not include any emergency shelter, distribution challenges, type of cash intervention or former mission listings. Time to move on from the emergency, perhaps?
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