Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) Quotes

“I'm not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic - the part of you that you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex: And Other Desperate Measures

“The problem is that no matter how good your intentions, eventually you want to kill someone yourself.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“If blue helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run.”
― Andrew Thomson, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“I was hell-bent on being an effective humanitarian in Cambodia and Somalia. But a naïve fog is finally lifting. Revealed is a train wreck of illusions, the depravity of someone else's war, the futility of a competence stillborn there. To understand this you have to become this.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Iwent to school with African-American girls during my entire adolescence in Michigan and never noticed them as potential girlfriends, never even wanted to meet them. How did that happen? I'm nine thousand miles from home and a pernicious wall of segregation I never noticed in high school suddenly materialises. A young man should travel.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“At daybreak on the first day, thousands of Cambodians are already calmly waiting outside my polling station. They squat on the ground, silent and patient. We didn't expect this at all. We thought they would fail to understand how democracy works. We thought they would be afraid of the Khmer Rouge. We thought they would passively accept their fate. We were wrong.”
― Heidi Postlewait, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“I'm not convinced that it's worth it. How many Cambodians ever asked for a $2 billion election? Nighty percent of them are rice farmers. I lived with them, watched them die at the hospital, and never was the word "election" mentioned. That money would repair hundreds of roads and bridges and pay for tons of seed and fertilizer. And clear a lot of landmines.”
― Andrew Thomson, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Israelis are a mix of North African, Levantine, and Eastern European, which inflames the politics but does amazing things for the women.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Meanwhile she's coldly interrogating me with her eyes. She's definitely in charge of this house and this moment. This must be Chloe.

She escorts me to a table full of people and presents me. She introduces them briefly. This one's from Morocco, that one from Italy, he's Persian--I'm not exactly sure what that means--this one's from "the UK." They're all in their twenties, poised and dismissive. They don't know or care who I'm supposed to be at home or where I went to school. They're measuring something else I can't see and don't understand.

They nod and turn back to each other. They seem to be waiting for a cue from Chloe to release them from having to feign interest. She introduces herself at substantially more length. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Swiss; she grew up in Hong Kong and "in Europe."

I grew up in Michigan and in Michigan. But she didn't ask.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“If blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“He did well, but he couln't afford the blood for a transfusion.”
― Andrew Thomson, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Be careful, he says, the official US position will be that they refuse to negotiate for hostages, but they may try to enlist the U.N. to do it.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“That’s my lesson in courage from Cambodia. The larger the threat, the more profound the doubts, the deeper you have to dig to find faith and conquer your fears.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“I was out on the Mekong again today when an entire village of refugees floated past. They had been attacked upriver by the Khmer Rouge. It was a pathetic sight, a flotilla of hundreds of ragged houseboats lashed together into giant rafts, drifting slowly. They were carrying their dead with them. I could see the bodies, wrapped in cloth. They stared at me blankly as I glided silently past, my multicolored sail bright in the sunlight. A small child waved but didn’t smile. Then a gentle gust caught my sail and I was gone.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“Then I think, what the hell, a flight from Newark to Jamaica takes as long as the walk to this village did, so yeah, I do live near Jamaica. Their eyes light up with excitement. One of them runs out and returns minutes later with a cassette tape. It turns out that James is the only one in the commune who owns a cassette player and his friend is the only one to own a tape, and it’s Bob Marley’s Legend.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“There's a hostage crisis and I'm a bureaucrat.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“But then the friends are saying good night, shaking my hand, smiling. Off into the night they go and James and I are left alone again. I realize one of us has to make a move or we are never getting any sleep tonight. I move over to the mattress and lie down. I let my sarong slip off to the side. I let my bikini bottom show. He’s busy, moving buckets from one side of the room to the other, shaking some dirt off the bottom of one, moving another just so. I’m wondering if this is some kind of Masai feng shui, or if he’s avoiding joining me. I don’t press him; I let him go on with whatever he is doing. A nervous man is a wonderful thing. It gives a woman all the power, but it only lasts so long, so I try to enjoy it, this moment of feigned control and confidence on my part.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“There are used condoms everywhere and no place to dispose of them, so I lift an edge of the mattress and kick them all under. The afternoon is passed in typical fashion – having been here two days, I already know what is typical. We smoke, we listen to Bob Marley, we smoke some more, and occasionally we talk. Mostly we talk about Bob Marley. We are on our third or fourth joint of the afternoon when one of the guys asks, ‘Do you know Bob Marley?’ ‘Bob Marley is dead,’ I tell him, although even as it comes out of my mouth, I’m thinking maybe he’s not. I think to myself, he is dead, isn’t he? Yeah, he’s dead for sure.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“But what does a woman expect for her money? Why do we need to first be made to feel comfortable, flirted with, seduced? Why do we need to create the false sense of emotional ties? Why couldn’t we just say, okay, that cave over there, we go in, we fuck, hand over some money, and go on with our lives? Why do I feel so guilty? The feeling that I have used and kicked to the curb another human being won’t leave me.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“When the French were here, they began cutting down the trees. Haiti’s dictators finished the job, leaving the topsoil to run into the ocean. All that splendid mahogany furniture in Paris salons and this is the result: a bald brown island with a muddy coast.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“Welcome to Haiti, Doctor. We need people like you here.’ If you need people like me, it’s because of people like you.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“I push through the seething crowd to the UN car. The driver takes me past the slums by the harbor, up the hill to the lush suburbs where the rich, light-skinned Haitians live, far above poverty.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“An American Special Forces guy greets me at the airport. If you liked Beirut, he says, you’re gonna love Mogadishu. I only half understand the reference and the implication. There’s so much fighting in the city today, he says, that we have to shuttle incoming UN staff from the airport to the office compound via Black Hawk helicopter. Jump on, son, welcome to Somalia.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“hate Nairobi. It’s dreary and chilly and always rains, and the high crime rate doesn’t help. They’ll pull a gold chain right off your neck in broad daylight and there’s nothing anyone can do. The cops are more corrupt than the thieves. We call it Nairobbery.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“This is a UN bus?’ I ask. One of the Somali guys with the guns comes up behind me. As I stand there in the aisle, ready to punch the silent fat guy in the head, the Somali gunman, nodding and smiling, says to me, ‘Yeah, UN, UN.’ ‘Three kids armed with AK-47s, that’s some way to greet people,’ I tell the fat guy. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘welcome to Mogadishu.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“In Cambodia I treated children who stepped on landmines, villagers stabbed in their sleep, shoppers shelled in the marketplace, drivers shot up at roadside checkpoints. The victims all made a beeline for our hospital and I was usually able to help. We didn’t care who they were or how they got there; everyone knew that the killing stopped at the red cross on the front gate. Once you made it past there, you were safe, a custom of war so accepted that I never even heard it discussed. Check your weapons in at reception, get a receipt. Do whatever you must to your enemies out in the killing fields, but do not ever bring that shit inside my hospital. Maybe there are no rules here.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“For us, Cambodia was an election amid minor eruptions of political violence from a decrepit Khmer Rouge, just dangerous enough to add an edge to the otherwise bacchanalian proceedings. We thought Somalia would be similarly exultant, but instead we’re inserted directly into combat. This is a hot war. It’s hard to make peace in a society of nomadic warriors who like to fight, and twenty thousand UN and U.S. soldiers are failing.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“The UN’s mission here is to restore order, Foot says. Our part of the job is to kick-start the judicial system, and the Mogadishu Central Prison is a good place for you to start. Aidid’s militia is in control there. He holds prisoners because they attract resources, they’re an economic and military asset. It’s too dangerous for lawyers to get to the courthouse and there’s no money to pay for judges. So there are no trials and the inmates languish, permanently untried and unconvicted. In the meantime, prisoners are dying of every imaginable tropical disease.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“A long line of Humvees passes me as I walk along the tarred road running through the center of the compound. Some of the American soldiers riding along smile, some don’t, but they all look steadily at me. I’m the new girl in town. Being married for ten years, I’d forgotten about the power of sexuality. The ring on my finger acted like a protective shield, giving me immunity from the heat, pain, elation, humiliation, joy, violence of that power. But it’s all coming back to me now as I find myself surrounded by tens of thousands of men.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“I seek work of moral significance.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone