Way too much information

Anyone whose worked in corporate customer service in the last 30 years has probably had to sit through a couple of those Gawd-awful, John Cleese-type training videos featuring starving, D-grade actors who’ve sold their Oscar dreams down the river for a couple of bucks performing two-dimensional skits for brain-dead desk jockeys and call centre clerks.

My introduction to this was straight out of school, when I took a job serving watery pots out of greasy glasses to hardened criminals in one of the Outer East’s more notorious bikie bars.  For me it was just a job; sure, I’d not learn anything useful, but provided I didn’t get glassed, king-hit or have a chair smashed over me in one of the weekly brawls, I would collect a steady, minimum wage pay-check with which to advance my own liver-destructing activities, and as an added bonus, catch front-row views of my topless colleagues between 4 and 6 on a Friday.

But that all changed when, shortly after commencing my employment, the pub was bought-out by a swanky, well-established real estate firm reading the urban expansion auguries and speculating on avant-garde gentrification of the establishment ahead of the arrival of an entirely new, upwardly mobile residential market.

Within days of the takeover, we were being drilled with phone-answering hooks which were so long and grammatically complicated that they would send our regular clientele packing long before they’d had a chance to talk,

“Good morning, welcome to The Astoria!  My name is Donkey and I am your friendly, enthusiastic and ready-to-help customer service agent on this bright, sunny morning.  Please take a moment to press 8# to hear about all of our amazing services and products, or feel free to simply request anything specific from me as soon as you are ready” [CLICK – beep-beep-beep].

Ahead of its time it certainly was!  And so too was another customer service approach which was strongly advocated for in the training videos, and soon adopted and directed by the new management.  This approach dictated that if there was to be even the slightest delay in meeting a customer’s demand, the staff were to communicate directly and often with the customer to update them on the progress of their product or service.

You can just imagine the response this got from ‘Crazy Shit’ McCauley, one of our friendly regulars, during my first shift after customer service training;

Donkey:    “I’m sorry about the delay in delivering your beverage, Sir.  We are having some trouble with the turnover of barrels in the chilling facility below stairs”.

CSMcC:    “Well why the f**k don’t you shut your poncey, pretty-boy d**k-trap and get on with swapping the f**king barrels over so I can get me f**king beer.  Stupid, lazy c**t!”.

As I said, ‘ahead of its time’.  These kinds of responses went on for well over two years, by which time I’d gotten jack of the daily abuse, projectile mucous and physical threats and took up a job sweeping the floor of a gay men’s hair salon (while dressed in red hot pants and with only a dustpan and brush to work with – obviously another story all together, but I can assure you the tips were incredible).

But the point is that while the customer service training videos and executive-level research might suggest that customers want to know the minutiae of why their meal/their bill/their statement is taking too long, my experiences at The Astoria suggest otherwise.  So too does another example which I experienced today, this time as the customer.

This afternoon, I was sitting aboard a jam-packed airliner awaiting take-off, fuming over delays which had us sitting motionless in the sweltering, tropical midday sun as the tarmac around us slowly baked into a sticky black mess.  The delay, we came to understand from the enthusiastic young Captain, was due to a malfunction in the air-conditioning system, which had been blowing-out scorching hot air for the better part of an hour. 

In his best FM radio jock voice, the Captain went into great detail about the debilitated cooling system, and ‘assured’ us that the service crew had all the parts out of the plane and strewn across the baking cement in an effort to isolate and fix the problem.  If the Captain’s intention here had been to make me feel more disposed to forgive the airline for the uncomfortable delay, then blowing the lid off my mistaken beliefs relating to meticulous airline service procedures wasn’t quite getting me there, and my anxiety was soon mirroring the cabin mercury.

About thirty minutes later, we roasting passengers were revived by the initial waft and later firm blast of cool air coming from the vents.  Our Captain then publically thanked John the Engineer for “…coming all the way out here on his day off to single-handedly fix the problem – you may not realise it,” confided the Captain, “but this is a job normally reserved for a team of three”. 

Again, admission of sub-regulatory airline safety protocols wasn’t helping me to excuse the yawning gap in our departure schedule, but the customer service pitch didn’t end there.  A short while later, the Captain again spoke over the intercom, “Sorry for the further delay here, folks; we’ve been having some trouble with the flight computer.  We’ve been trying a few things here and there, and wouldn’t you know?  It seems the best way to fix these things is the ol’ Control-Alt-Delete combination … Ha!  So we’re just re-booting the system and we’ll have the flight plan up in no time, and we should be right for take-off in about two minutes…”.

Are you getting my point here?  And just when one thought that all that might seem just a little unnerving to an anxious passenger, this near-final clanger from our Staff-Member-of-the-Month of a Captain, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I apologise again for that being the longest two minutes of your life; that’s because we had developed a different flight plan when we thought the air conditioner wasn’t going to work, but when it was fixed – thanks again John … that man really is amazing! – we were back onto the old flight plan but we accidentally sent the new one to Air Traffic Control and now we’re trying to sort it out.” 

“Right, that’s it!” screamed every fibre in my body, “I do not want to be here … disarm those bloody doors and get me the hell out of this thing”.  But my desperate attempt at escape proved unnecessary with the Captain’s next words.  By this time, we’d taxied onto the runway, and had been waiting in poll position when the Captain announced, “This seems to be taking too long I’m afraid.  We’ll have to taxi back to the apron now to make room for the Air Solomons plane to depart, and then we’ll have another go.  It won’t take long and we’ll soon be off.”  With that I gave a sigh of relief and looked forward to getting out of this ageing tin can, but at that moment, for the first time all afternoon, the Captain decided to act without passenger consultation, and in a complete contravening of his latest communication we hurtled down the runway and were off into the big blue!

As I clung to my seat for the next four hours, my knuckles getting whiter and shinier with every turbulent bump or shake, I reflected that I reckon the customer service industry R&D teams have got it completely wrong.  No customer really wants to know the whys, the wherefores or the what ifs.  Customers and service users choose to have others pour their drinks, fly their planes or re-insert their haemorrhoids because they are either too lazy, or prefer not to be bothered with the technicalities.  They choose not to be in the driver’s seat, and therefore they simply do not need to be part of the minutiae of decision-making or output progression.  Too much information just puts people on edge, or else highlights the service provider’s incompetence … and there’s no way in the world that either of those two outcomes are going to be good for business.

The only info that we passengers didn’t get was seeing this guy when he boarded the plane and took to the flight deck - all would have been instantly clear.  Pic: ww.123rf.com/photo_7259367_crazy-wwii-bomber-pilot-saluting.html

Radio Therapy

Say what you will of Western European nations as ruthless colonial oppressors and exploiters of some of the world’s most vulnerable people; indeed their legacy in many African, Southeast Asian and Pacific countries comprises physical and cultural displacement, racial and political power imbalance which frequently topples into bloody civil war, and economic ruin either through depletion, or forced signing-over of valuable natural resources.

But it’s not all bad.  The Western Europeans may have been a bit heavy-handed on the governance side of things (and possibly a little discriminatory in their national view and treatment of their colonial citizens), but they did leave behind a commitment to fine dining which is truly a welcome aspect of occupational exile in some of the world’s far-flung locales.

While some colonial powers set fire and/or bombed fields, towns and livestock as they made hasty retreats ahead of angry, spear-wielding mobs of pro-independence activists in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the French chose instead to throw toasty, golden baguettes, flaming crepes suzette and sugar-crusted crème brulee in their wake.  This seemed to do the trick in Vanuatu, as the satiated masses embraced this culinary legacy, and such delightful treats are available in every corner store, often at any time of the day or night.

Great news for Donkey in some respects, but not so great for the ol’ waste-line, as evidenced during a recent clothes shopping expedition with Mrs Donkey while on holiday back in Australia.  Mrs D was in the change room trying on some little black cocktail number while Donkey stood outside the closed door, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible amongst the frilly lace and tiny bows of women’s lingerie hanging all about him (why do they put the change rooms amongst the lingerie?).  As I stood stock still, embarrassingly avoiding aggressive, accusing eye contact from the other customers queuing to try on their garments, an attractive young sales assistant wandered-up behind me and enthusiastically asked when I was expecting.

That was it!  As soon as I got back to Port Vila, things were going to change.  No more hazelnut praline-filled baguettes for breakfast, no more pain au chocolat with chocolate ice cream and fudge on the side for morning tea, no more brie and bacon pies aux frites for lunch and definitely no more garlic snails followed by duck a l’orange for dinner.  True to my commitment, my life since returning to Vanuatu has become a thrice daily monotony of breadless lettuce sandwiches washed down with a straight glass of tepid water (the temperature being conducive, so the diet gurus tell me, to more frequent bowel movement).

On top of this gruelling feeding regime, in order to both divert my attention from my groaning abdomen, and to try to shorten the period of time I shall be subject to this dietary boredom, I have also embarked on a sustained exercise program which I must grudgingly admit, is finally starting to yield results.

But the selection of an appropriate form of exercise was not an easy process in this country where the roads and traffic are not conducive to safe cycling, and where the forty-eight-degrees-in-the-shade summer heat renders traditional, vigorous exercise such as sit-ups and push ups completely out of the question (after a single lift, the sweat pouring off one’s body makes it impossible to get any purchase on the floor, and one is left floundering on one’s back like an up-turned tortoise).

The only option left was swimming … in this country with not a single serviced swimming pool greater than ten metres in length.  I did give it a go, but after seventy-three strokes and as many tumble turns, I blacked-out from dizziness and had to be retrieved from the bottom by a burley construction worker and his heavy-duty crane with which he’d been laying building foundations nearby.

A week later, with the humiliation of front page local news behind me, I realised there was nothing for it; if I was going to lose this massive paunch, I was going to have to embrace the concept of living on an island, ignore all the horror stories and take to swimming in the ocean.

“What’s the big deal?” I thought to myself as I launched out from the sea wall one fine morning.  All about me was a kaleidoscope of blooming coral formations and a menagerie of brightly coloured tropical fish.  “This is fantastic … so peaceful.  I should have done this months ago”.  I pounded confidently out from the port and was still congratulating myself on having discovered this wonderful, submarine paradise which was going to turn me into a herculean specimen of manhood, when I suddenly came to my senses above a deep, blue, murky darkness.

I’d left the drop-off well behind and was now floating vulnerably above an abyss from which I imagined all manner of deep sea beasties zeroing-in on my fleshy white thighs.  My panicked brain convinced me that if I was desperate enough, I might just manage to outswim a giant squid, great white or whale shark, and feeling pretty desperate at that point, I set to pounding back towards what I thought was home.

Of course, one’s sense of direction in open water is never an easy concept to grasp, nor is one’s ability to stroke strong and true when driven by sheer panic.  In my desperation to get back to the reef, I was floundering like a harpooned killer whale (perhaps not a great analogy, given the circumstances), and heading in a completely different direction, towards the rocky headland at the opposite end of Port Vila harbour.

After a while, the forbidding black depths changed to a more palatable, murky blue, and I managed to reign in my debilitating terror.  My stroke improved and before long I was powering along; back into that monotonous trance one gets from the relentless plodding of right arm, left arm…

right arm, left arm…

right arm (“Oh how nice, Angel fish”)…

left arm (“Wow, coral trout”)…

right arm (“Gee, that’s a big fish…”)…

left arm (“Aaaaaaargh!”). 

Back in first year physiology, we learned about that basest of animal instincts, the ‘fight or flight’ response.  When an animal senses danger, their body reflexively gears-up for ‘fight’ or ‘flight’; the options for success are weighed-up and the decision made by the creature’s very fibres at near supersonic speed.  Obviously, ‘flight’ gets them out of danger, and ‘fight’ is the only alternative if the former is not possible.  The body’s essential systems fire-up for the selected action, and all extraneous functions shut down to preserve energy.

How is it then, that when Donkey looks down to see a massive tiger shark swimming towards him, his body’s fight or flight response includes the immediate release of two malodourous, bulky, fright nuggets into his Speedos?  How can that be fight or flight?  For a start, the extra drag from this oozing pouch would surely slow my flight to a messy, mortal end, but even if I did manage to get the jump on my sinister predator, if sharks really can smell blood like they say, then he’d have no trouble tracking my stinky wake all the way to shore.

Stewing in my own mess, then, I resigned myself to meeting my maker, and with calm resolve, I turned to face my toothy assailant.  It was then I noticed the horizontal, not vertical tail moving slowly up and down, and realised that rather than meeting my end in a bloody, mashy mess, I’d found myself with the rare privilege of an encounter with a peaceful dugong, slowly meandering along the sea bed, snuffling away at sea grass.

An hour later, I emerged from the sea before a crowd of alfresco diners tucking into breakfast in one of the town’s fashionable cafes.  Although my life was intact, my dignity before the shocked crowd was sagging lower than the saddle of my laden Speedos. 

Defeated and resigned to life as a fat bastard at that time, I now have Mrs Donkey to thank for helping me to get back in the water.  She did so thanks to the wonders of modern technology, which have enabled me to strap on a waterproof iPod and crank up the volume of power ballads enough to distract me in the water from mortal fear.  Now I churn along the coast three mornings a week to the spurring drums and guitar riffs of such fire-up classics as:

·  Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger [shark],

·  ELO’s Don't Bring Me Down [to the dark depths with your massive tentacles to chew off my head],

·  Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water [Humph],

·  Hunters and Collectors’ Throw Your Arms Around Me [and get me out of this school of killer jelly fish],

·  The Choirboys’ Run [for your freakin’ life here comes a manta ray] to Paradise, and of course

·   Great White’s Once bitten, twice shy.

The distraction seems to have worked, and everyone’s happy.  I’m happy because I look and feel great, and Mrs Donkey’s happy because she’s no longer getting around town with a pregnant hippo on her arm.  But the happiest person of all is Ms Nicole, the unfortunate soul who is tasked with doing my laundry – as she’s told me in no uncertain terms, any day without having to scrub the gusset of my Speedos is definitely a good day!

The Western Europeans may not have been the most culturally sensitive of masters, but they certainly managed a mean chocolate dessert.  Pic: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/12/11/belgian-court-rules-tintin-not-racist-just-gentle/

Aversion Therapy

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It’s hard to pin-down exactly what turned Breaking Bad’s Walter White into a homicidal, manipulative, self-serving, methamphetamine producing-turned cartel baron egomaniac, but definitely a running theme of the fantastic TV series has been his unrecognised potential as a chemist of some brilliance, and the deep resentment he feels towards his University peers who reached great heights in the field of industrial chemistry to become multi-millionaires, while the equally brilliant Walter wound-up teaching high school chemistry to disinterested, unmotivated teenagers by day, and scrubbing strangers’ cars in a run-down car wash by night.

There’s nothing like returning to one’s home town to bring back all kinds of latent memories, and in particular, to drag from one’s closet - clackety clackety – a whole crypt of condescending, grinning and highly reproachful skeletons.  Yesterday, in the stinking summer heat, the family and I commenced a road trip to the high-brow climes of the Mornington Peninsula, via a short stop to catch-up with an old friend in one of Melbourne’s beautiful, bay side suburbs.

It’d been ages since Donkey had spent much time in this part of the leafy South, where he’d previously spent years of his life servicing the bored housewives, distinguished gentlemen and plastically-enhanced daughters of Melbourne’s established, moneyed families.  Day after day, Donkey had slaved away in accordance with their whippish demands for buffed bunions, magnificent nails and honeyed heels; a little callus chipped off here, a nail edge filed away there and wrinkled old ladies groaning in long-forgotten, post-menopausal orgasmic pleasure as Donkey’s magical, lubricated hands did their thing to wind-up a messy session of grinding away at gnarled toenails and horned corns.

For all this labour, and the accompanied pleasant, inane conversation which was all part of the service, Donkey would extract a pretty penny from his clients, but after a few years, the high-yield and resultant, high-paced lifestyle of shiny red sports cars, cocaine-fuelled cocktail parties, court-side box seats and luxury holiday villas proved too high a price for the sheer boredom of the work, not to mention the all-too-frequent, inadvertent glimpse up an octogenarian’s panty-less skirt which is an occupational hazard for any hard-working podiatrist.

As the horror and mental burn-out set in, Donkey set off on a new adventure and new career, and before long found himself saving the world in far off, exotic locales.  I’ve never looked back, and in truth have found the mental stimulation and physical exertion of working in and with remote island and mountain communities to be tremendously fulfilling and truly life-giving.  Well, that is until yesterday…

As we drove past the beautiful homes of Ocean Highway, with their steady, socioeconomic scaling-up in proportion to their distance from the city, I pointed out to Mrs Donkey the various homes, sports cars, tennis courts and swimming pools of my former colleagues, and before long, their well-appointed, beach-side holiday homes and luxury yachts.  I ignored her popping eyes and increasing, green-tinged pallor as these dwellings became more and more extravagant, and I ignored her uncomfortable fidgeting beneath tightly packed luggage inside our rusting, third-hand beige Toyota.

Before long, we stopped at my friend’s home for a very pleasant lunch of antipasto, French champagne and post-meal cognac.  We marvelled at the marble floors, seventeen-foot ceilings, walk-in wine cellar and three-hundred and twenty-five inch flat screen TVs in every other room, and we listened attentively to talk of the booming podiatry business, mid-week golf and winter-long Mediterranean getaways.  Eventually, we waved good bye with a promise to visit again soon, and drove in tight-lipped silence all the way to the coast, where we joined our newer friends in our rented holiday home for the next few days which, we were relieved to discover, was similarly appointed to the home of my friend and former colleague, with beautiful, architecturally designed hallways, sea-view balconies, airy designer kitchen, multiple cavernous bathrooms and pleasant hallway water features.

Within an hour I was fully relaxed and just settling into a chilled beer and crisps (definitely more Donkey’s style these days) when I noticed a note from our landlord requesting his tenants to be careful not to mark the ancient teak floor boards - ‘imported from Borneo’ - with high heel shoes (and this accompanied by a picture of a stylish man and his fashionable lady returning from a polo match).  As I read casually through this missive, my eyes were drawn to the bottom of the letter, and to the landlord’s name resting beneath an ostentatious, flourishing signature. 

An icy chill crept up my stiffening spine as I realised that the owner of this magnificent, beach side monument to modern hedonism was none other than one of my fellow podiatry students from years ago, who had failed his final year of university and who, rather than repeat the year, opted to open a podiatry equipment supply facility which he later franchised, floated on the stock market and went global in the biggest small business start-up of the pre-internet age.

It was quick work, but Mrs D managed to talk me down off the roof within the hour, and the hyperventilating soon subsided.  As a precaution for the safety of private podiatry practitioners and their families in the greater Melbourne metropolitan area, she’s got me tethered to the extravagant, four-poster bed from where I am being forced to write this using voice-recognition software (hence the typos) while staring at the kind of ocean vista that can only be purchased on the backs of a million well-manicured toenails.

Seems a bit over the top from my good wife.  I mean, it’s not like I’m bitter or anything.  Sure, this landlord … and all my podiatry friends, in fact, are rich beyond my wildest dreams, with Swiss bank accounts as fat as their spoilt, sedentary offspring, with wives as well manicured as their landscaped gardens, and mistresses as fresh as the waxed ducos of their Jaguars, but it’s not like I am going to turn homicidal and hunt them down in merciless, resentful cold blood.  Sure, I might be up for a bit of hedge burning and perhaps even a spot of spooky stalking of their children down the well-lit streets of their exclusive, gated communities, but I’m not about to commit anything which could be considered physically dangerous.

No, that’d be an act of a bitter man … a man who felt that he had been denied all the breaks and opportunities to excel in his field and become rich, fat and powerful.  I’m not that.  I made my own choices.  I love being this poor … ah, I mean, happy.  Happy, not poor.  And in fact, in the happiness ledger of life, I am rich indeed.  You may untie these bonds my good wife.  I am stable and I am content.  Now, I am just popping-out to the shops for some matches … I mean milk.  Too-da-loo.

What would tip a mild-mannered, failed podiatrist into a Walter White-esque, homicidal maniac.  Pic:  http://www.entertainment-bureau.com

Fighting the good fight

A rare encounter with truth and honesty.

Isn’t it amazing how much more difficult it is to try to do something properly, compared with the relative ease of simply shooting one’s mouth off with whatever vacuousities pop into one’s cavernous skull at any given moment?

Such as it is that this year’s World AIDS Day post seems to have taken me quite a few weeks to write.  The reason being that for this year’s post, I’ve decided to hold-up on the belly-aching introversion and soul-searching from years gone by, and instead focus very much on the here and now.  This year I am going to come clean on a whole chapter of my life which certain, pretty awful circumstances demanded I kept secret from this blog, and the internet generally.  I’ll leave it up to you and yours to decide on whether action is required.  But in short, for this one-post-only, never-to-be-repeated occasion, I am going to have a go at using this blog for good, rather than evil.

Most of you will know a little something about Tibet; maybe you’ll be aware of the chuckling fat statesman living in India’s hilly north, and perhaps you’ll know that he’s there as a result of an invasion of an ancient kingdom by a now-great superpower some sixty-odd years ago.  If you know that, then you’ll have heard that many countries (a majority of those being ‘Western’ ones), while verbally condemning said super-power for its continued occupation of Tibet and rumoured oppression of its people, have never once made a substantial attempt to moblise international, diplomatic, political and/or military pressure towards the exiled leader’s return, nor the restoration of Tibetans’ religious, political and civil freedoms.

This is the stuff which makes the news (albeit still a long way from the headlines), but what is not so well understood outside of the politically secluded and media-shrouded Tibet Autonomous Region,  is some of the very real vulnerabilities which the average Tibetan faces on a daily basis.

A rough business.

Within what I could only, honestly describe as a pretty fortunate life, I consider one of my greatest fortunes to have been the four and half years I spent working with an amazing, dedicated group of young Tibetans who, every day for the past eight years, have taken to the streets of Lhasa to provide educational resources and condoms to young Tibetan women and men who work in, or live on the periphery of the Tibetan capital’s thriving sex industry.

This might seem a little surprising to the reader who knows Tibet only as a seat of Buddhist enlightenment, but it’s not uncommon in societies whose culture and practices have not been influenced by conservative Christianity, to have fewer hang-ups when it comes to handing over a tenner for a quickie on the way back to the office after a heavy lunch of soup and wontons.

But despite the remarkable client through-put, one shouldn’t go mistaking the commercial sex scene in Lhasa as akin to the seemingly sexual enlightenment of say, Bangkok or São Paulo.  On the contrary, this is an industry whose continued existence is very much driven by the political, social, religious and economic oppression of these unfortunate people.  The reality for Lhasa sex-workers (and their clients) is gritty, grubby, dangerous and (in terms of health, well-being and life-expectancy) very, very dire.

Tibetan sex workers are young; they hail from rural areas, and in most cases, have never engaged in sex work prior to arrival in the city.  They were drawn to sex work as the only alternative for survival, due to a variety of factors which severely limit their opportunities for formal employment.

First and foremost, the majority of Tibetan sex workers have little or no formal education (a few might have completed the poor standard of primary education available in their home county), so literacy is low.

Many of them are also non-citizens.  While there is some relaxing of China’s One Child Policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region, larger, traditional Tibetan families are penalised such that the third, fourth and fifth children are not registered as citizens, and therefore are ineligible for government work, housing and all other state-run services (healthcare, education, social welfare etc).

But one government service that Tibetan sex workers, be they registered citizens or otherwise, are all too familiar with, is the security service.  As the Central Government decrees quotas for city clean-ups, sex workers are systematically and regularly harangued, harassed, locked-up, exploited and abused by the civil and military security forces, of which there has been a dramatic increase in recent years.  Since the civil unrest in Lhasa in March 2008, poor and hungry sex workers have had little alternative than to risk incarceration by working the streets during regular security crackdowns and week-long curfews.  With military foot patrols working day and night and perhaps one of the most sophisticated closed-circuit TV camera networks in the world operating on every street corner, sex workers are regularly caught and/or extorted by the authorities, and incarceration is common.

Added to this, their state-supported, Han-Chinese bosses further exploit them by taking the lion’s share of their meagre earnings, and are complicit in the government’s regular rounding-up of sex workers for enforced blood tests; a human rights violation in itself which is further compounded by the authorities rarely bothering to communicate the results to the frightened sex workers who have unwillingly contributed to meeting government HIV testing quotas.

These young women work out of grimy, confined, poorly-ventilated, unsanitary spaces designed for shop store-rooms, seeing upwards of ten clients a day.  With few exceptions, these Tibetan women had no awareness of sexually transmitted infections (and certainly not HIV) before commencing sex work.  Most had never seen (or even heard of) a condom.

Tibetan sex workers are frighteningly vulnerable to the short and long term effects of sexually transmitted infections; their poor knowledge of these infections and how to prevent them makes them vulnerable, as does their limited literacy, which excludes them from accessing safe sex messages within information booklets and pamphlets.  Added to this, they have few resources with which to obtain condoms, and even if they can buy them, they have little power to negotiate safe sex with their clients.  In the event of contracting a sexually transmitted infection, many have limited legal opportunities to access the government treatment and counselling services, and are forced to secure health care services from exploitative private providers who peddle questionable treatment regimes.

A glimmer of hope.

So you see … not a feel good story this year.  But there is hope, and that hope lies in the hands of that dedicated team I mentioned earlier.  They have been working with young women and men from the Lhasa sex industry for nearly a decade, educating them about the dangers of sexually transmitted infections, both in terms of their immediate health, and their long-term opportunities to give birth to healthy children.

The program works hard to assist young women and men to remain disease free and healthy long enough for them to reach the inevitable end of their sex work careers.  In the meantime, the program staff engage with the sex workers to foster an understanding of, and promote healthy sexual relationships and gender equality with a view to their contributing to a family and/or community in the future.

Sadly, the program is in danger of coming to an abrupt end early next year.  Since the civil unrest in Lhasa in March 2008, China has made it very clear to the outside world that it will not tolerate political dialogue from other nations on Tibet.  It has closed ranks on the issue and shut international tourist traffic down to a well-muzzled trickle.  As such, governments and other international donors who used to support HIV prevention programs in Lhasa, are now too scared to do so for fear of damaging those all-important trade relationships.

And so it is not even a slight exaggeration to say that without support from interested, non-government donors, the vulnerable young women and men of Tibet who find themselves with little alternative than to work the Lhasa sex trade, will soon lose one of the last vestiges of support open to them.  And without this support, they could well be denied the opportunity of reaching any kind of potential as citizens, or simply to dream for a healthy future.

Maybe you’d like to help?

This World AIDS Day, or perhaps this Christmas, if you really want to make a difference to someone’s life, get onto your local MP and tell him or her and their government to grow a pair.  Tibetans suffer some of Asia’s worst poverty, are poorly educated, have limited access to health care and suffer the ongoing physical and emotional abuse of systematic oppression.  The Australian Government should be doing more, and supporting non-political programs like the one I have described could well be a way to make a difference to Tibetans’ lives, without contributing to the propping-up of an unjust regime.

Thanks for remembering World AIDS Day, everyone, and Merry Christmas.

Ego: it is a dirty word

The lack of anything like it where I live was all the justification I needed while in the Regional Capital this week to take an hour out from the gruelling schedule of world-saving talk fests to go for a long swim in the National Olympic Pool.

Although I’d never been conscious of it before, I realised as I approached the ticket office that afternoon that visiting public swimming pools in developing countries is something I seem to have done quite often over the years … curiously, only ever alone. 

But despite the solitude, there is a great deal to enjoy about visiting the local pool.  First and foremost, it’s the colour.  Growing-up and living in Melbourne for most of my life means one usually only ever swam inside, in the dim, grey light emitted from heavy clouds through permanently condensed windows.  By contrast, I am always dazzled when walking through the gate of a local swimming pool in a foreign country, to see the sparkling, rich azure of the water as it reflects the tropical, midday sun.

These brilliant hues never cease to give me a tremendous, emotional lift when I first lay eyes on them, and so it was this week, when, drunk and distracted from the brightness and cheer of my first sighting of the public pool, that I completely ignored the attendant’s directions to the male change room and instead wandered over to the grassy square at the Southern end of the pool, where I disrobed and dove straight into the electric water.  One, two, three strokes and I was off in a reflective trance …

Another thing I love about swimming pools in developing countries is the chance to feel like a bloody world champion.  I am by no means a brilliant swimmer, but I can and do swim a long way, especially in comparison with local people, very few of whom have ever been taught to swim, or have attempted to complete an entire lap.  By contrast, Donkey, with his steady, relentless stroke becomes quite a point of interest for the local populace, and it has happened on more than a few occasions that on emerging from the water, Donkey has run a gauntlet of admiring, doting smiles, handshakes and back slaps from balding, pot-bellied, moustachioed men (and in some cases, women).  I guess it could get tiring, but I love it!

So it was that on this recent, sunny afternoon that something roused me from my contemplations at around Lap 14, and I noticed there were many young people sitting poolside and in the stands, admiring my stroke and appearing not a little impressed by this athletic new-comer.  Full of piss and vinegar at my own self-importance, I puffed my chest and poked my Speedoed arse a little higher in the water and ploughed on ahead, musing over what it was that had caught my attention.  Assuming it must simply have been the attention of the masses, I made the turn and headed back whence I’d come.  Before long, my mind was again trailing off …

The pool in India was by far my favourite; so busy and so well appointed in that country which was otherwise pretty filthy.  I had really been part of the furniture for a while, and I do believe some came there in the mornings just to watch me.  Why did I stop, I wonder?  Oh hang on … that’s right … phlegm!  After about 4 months of daily swimming, I came to learn that if I hadn’t had my head down in physical exertion, I would have noticed that the general populous of South Delhi used the facilities not only for their morning exercise, but also for their respiratory ablutions, and once I’d come to recognise the hoiking and spitting (even from the pool attendant), it became increasingly difficult to ignore the floaties getting caught on my goggles with each lap…

I was just coming around for another turn at the Northern end of the pool when I was again, suddenly snapped-out of my musings.  “Whoa!  What is that stench?  Good thing I hadn’t bothered with the male change rooms”, I thought as I executed another crowd-pleasing tumble turn, and pushed-on.

The Chinese hot springs, too, had emitted an odour that had been truly something to behold.  Not so much natural volcanic pool as power station cooling pond, and the toxic, green slime along the blue-tiled walls was only slightly less offensive than the truly disgusting latrines adjacent to the poolside, which hung out over a chasm onto what would have once been a pristine mountain stream.

Last turn before home; the foul smell from the men’s bogs threatened to eject my breakfast into the sparkling blue, but I ignored the gag reflex by fantasizing that all the staff in the office blocks overlooking the pool had stopped their productive work days to admire my shapely back.

And with that, I was done.  I came-up puffing and gulping-in lungs full of air, and once I’d recovered a little, I turned to notice that I was now the only person in the pool.  Everyone else had gotten out at some stage during my session, presumably to admire my fetching figure.

I emerged from the water, all glistening and triumphant, and towelled-off in the sun.  Realising I had little choice other than to enter the male change rooms to get dressed, I took a deep breath and trekked to the other end of the pool.  But just before I reached the end, I finally noticed the cause of that stench; not the change rooms, as I had assumed, but rather a toxic, floating scum of [at least] human excrement congealing along the wall and extending about half a meter towards the middle (just centimetres from where I had just swum).

What is it about swimming pools and body fluids in these countries?  And what is it about me that I can’t learn from my mistakes and take just a few moments to give the water a bit of a once-over in the interests of a hepatitis and tuberculosis-free future?  Once again, I had been lured into truly murky waters by the Siren of my athletic and aesthetic self-delusions. 

The Skyhooks were wrong; Ego really can be a dirty word, especially if it leaves a toxic residue on your skin that can only be removed with turps.

The Skyhooks clearly never found themselves in a developing country on a hot afternoon.  The Ego can really be dirty if it gets in the way of basic concepts of public health and just a little common sense.  Pic:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/ego-not-a-dirty-word-for-skyhooks-star/story-fn9n8gph-1226446754662

Gaol break … quite literally

There’s nothing like an election year to encourage fat, lazy politicians to get off their over-paid and over-fed arses and get on with doing something … anything for the electorate.

As the polls approach, every Minister worth his gargantuan weight in gold has had his (sic) disgusting snout in the public coffers and the nation’s constituencies are awash with bags of rice, three-course barbecues and upsized boxes of washing powder (something for the ladies).

On the prison-front, Prisoner Paul Shem was still at large following the March breakout, and the community was demanding results.  So with an election looming, some cashola was finally funnelled to the Corrections team, and a taxi was summoned to travel two suburbs across town to apprehend the villain, and to do so ‘with whatever force is necessary’.  In the event of his being brought to justice, they went in so hard that both of Mr Shem’s legs were accidentally broken in 15 places, and this later resulted in one leg needing to be amputated.

Ironically, the political focus groups down at Government HQ informed the pollies that this latter outcome was a little too strong, so Prisoner Shem (who’d been living with his folks in plain sight of the world for 3 months) was released on bail (and let’s face it, in this country with no capacity for manufacture and fitting of prostheses, he’s not likely to be skipping risk). 

Public opinion for the Minister rose considerably after this, but to seal the deal, he finally ordered the construction of a sturdy, extra high security fence around the prison.  It was all finished and unveiled with great fanfare this week, and will almost certainly give the Minister the green light for his return.

But the best bout of pre-election shenanigans to date would have to be from the outgoing Police Commissioner who, in an attempt to limit his outgoingness, has used his first week back from suspension to accuse his deputy (and acting Commissioner) of mutiny, a charge which carries a penalty of life imprisonment (and, for the first time ever, in a secure facility).

We’ve still got months to go before the big day, but already the electoral bunting is stained with blood and tainted with the stench of corruption – but while it may be bad for democracy, it’s great for development – the only two months, every five years, that anything gets done.

With the graffiti still fresh, Port Vila’s new prison wall looks set to securely house the mutineers ‘for the terms of their natural lives’.  Pic: http://prisonsociety.typepad.com

Trust me, I’m a doctor

There’s an old adage that gets bandied around bars across the Pacific which postulates that expatriate communities are made up of missionaries, mercenaries and misfits.  Usually there’s no doubt about who makes up the first two categories, but defining those who fall under the latter can be a little more tricky.

There are those amongst the ‘misfits’ who are really easy to pick; such as the skinny, long-haired, dope-smoking yachtie who washed-up on a bar stool in the late ‘80s and who never quite got it together to move on, but then there are those who might have arrived as missionary or mercenary, but who then fell -out with the missus and shacked-up with a local dame (and not necessarily in that order), who now have a couple of light brown kids but never quite crossed that line to being ‘local’.

But then there are the professionals; lawyers, stock-brokers, scientists, doctors.  Folk who, back in their home environment, have the run of the land, what with their six- or seven-figure income, their automatic social respect and their multiple dwellings and holiday homes.  But there are some amongst these professionals who don’t quite fit the mould, and they end up in some pretty out of the way places, no doubt having fallen through all types of social and professional cracks along the way.

One such example was a European doctor I once met who had voluntarily exiled himself on one of the most remote Pacific Islands he could find.  Here he used his significant medical and surgical qualifications to serve the local community out of the sparsely equipped, wall-less hospital, and in non-work periods, took long, naked runs around the island, drank fermented coconuts and embraced his ever-encroaching senility.  Why he was there, and not back home with his kin was never clear, but the last I heard he was still there, performing hysterectomies wearing nothing but a surgical gown and gloves.

More recently, I have come across a much younger European doctor who has found himself on a distant shore, serving well-healed expatriates and well-insured travellers from a small private hospital.  This short, skinny, bespectacled squib is friendly enough, but one might questions his commitment to the health of his patients, when he clearly has such little regard for his own. 

Arriving at his office for a consultation first thing in the morning, and you will be accosted by the stench of cigarette smoke wafting through his office door, or the repellent sight of a desk littered with burned-out cigarette stubs resting precariously on empty Coke cans, or two or three half empty coffee cups which, by the looks of their foaming, milky contents, look as though they have been curdling happily away through the sultry tropical evening.

Other than his questionable levels of personal and environmental hygiene, his obvious obsessive compulsive tendencies, his inability to remember a patient he may have seen only the day before, his rock-solid standard prescription of Penicillin V and his tendency to follow every patient out of the consulting room while lighting up a ciggie, this sickly-thin, weedy medico has a rather strange obsession with buff, male body-builders, and without exception, has a number of body-building websites open on his desktop every time I have entered his room.

Clearly there are reasons that this doctor has not quite fit the medical services environment of a big, European teaching hospital, nor even that of a small, suburban or provincial family medical clinic.  Why this misfit has found his way to tis part of the world is understandable, but why his current employers are happy to threaten their duty of care to their clients is a little more difficult to fathom.  Perhaps the reason so many misfits do end up stopping on the islands is because in a world where no one else will take them, the Pacific will always have something for someone to do … no matter how scary or weird they may be.

‘Would you like some Penicillin V with that?’.  Pic: http://cutcaster.com