It’s been a busy week here at the Rockefeller Report. The first order of business was heading up to Ratanakiri Province to investigate reports of illegal logging. Before going up there, however, I made the decision to finally register myself as an NGO: Rockefeller Without Borders. I’ve always had difficulty referring to myself in the first person. Well, now I can. Officially, even.
Apparently some doctors got upset, arguing that I’d copied their name, threatening to ‘shut me down unless I backed down’. After first chuckling at their feeble attempt at a rhyming couplet – I mean who does that in (dubious) legal speak? – I replied with a carefully crafted and legally sensitive sentence of my own, containing not one but two rhymes (take that, you medical thugs!) Quoting from said letter: “How can you lay claim on a name when you are not within any jurisdiction? You’re borderless people!” That silenced them immediately.
Full disclosure time: my last two attempts at running an NGO failed rather miserably. The first effort, The Conscience Collective, was a self-regulating society that had within its charter one simple rule: “If we so much as engage in anything that even smells like we have no conscience we will all agree to shut ourselves down.” One member went so far as to demand that we include thoughts that demonstrated no conscience. I handed him my backpacker-soiled copy of Orwell’s 1984 and sent him on his way.
The Conscience Collective’s ultimate undoing was when an unnamed member took home a kitten that she’d spotted crawling out from underneath someone’s heavily fortified gate. Right from under the nose of the diligent, honest security guard and a trio of hyper-vigilant tuk tuk drivers, she (OK, it was Tina N; but Tina, know that revealing this is hurting me a lot more than it is you) took the kitten – yes, say it readers: someone else’s family pet! – home without asking so much as one word of permission. Then, as if to rub salt in the wound of the family and the honest security guard, who, rumour has it, had to seek new employment (and counselling) because of massive duress, she, Tina N, insisted that one of those tuk tuk drivers take her and stolen kitty home (side note: she only paid 500 riel for the extra kitten passenger). Our group sent it to immediate vote. Is theft of kitten from someone’s home a clear demonstration of no conscience? All in favour… unanimous! No more Conscience Collective (side note: after finishing 1984, Peter moved on to Lord Of The Flies and was last spotted in BKK1 insisting that a mango could replace a conch, so everyone “shut the f*&% up and hear me out”.)
Rockefeller Without Borders (never shorten it to RWB) will not repeat the thoughtless errors of our (sorry, ‘Tina N’s’) conscienceless past. With Rockefeller as leader (sweet Lord, that feels good), it’s a new day. So, with NGO certificate in hand, I – excuse me, Rockefeller – promptly hired my/our first employee, Ricardo, a hardworking chap who came to me via an NGO Employment Agency; a sort of human trafficking group without the trafficking. When I put this to them they got supremely insulted and threatened to sue me for defamation. I apologised, but only after suggesting that ‘human trafficking employment agency’ sounded a lot better than ‘headhunter’ (which, by the way, is exactly what you’ll encounter if you so much as whisper the word ‘head’… never mind… in Irian Jaya).
Ricardo is the ultimate in equal-opportunity checklists; he’s the model NGO employee: orphaned at birth in Colombia (pre-Medellin cartel – and yes, Rockefeller Without Borders drug-tested him); walks with a slight limp; home skooled by Amish (I cut and pasted that line from his resume, so don’t dictionary check it); straight As from an American university in Iran (me too, readers, an American University in Iran, who knew?) triple major: World Religions, World Governments and World Music (specialising in early Jackson Five hits). I could go on, but you get the picture. Ricardo is an employee that Rockefeller Without Borders can take anywhere and he’ll fit right in. Did I mention he’s especially great at embassy cocktail functions? Ambassadors’ wives are really fond of him. Latin lover (Ooops! Did I just say that?).
OK, now back to the story of my trip to Ratanakiri Province to investigate reports of illegal logging. It certainly was a long bus ride! An NGO with no vehicle? Correct. Rockefeller Without Borders does not waste money on Landcruisers. The new Q7? Well, OK, but…
Anyway, so we get to Ratanakiri on the red-eye and our mission was complete in like 15 minutes because I saw no trees at all. Thus, there clearly is no illegal logging going on up there. End of story. That was simple. I took a few really great selfies of me in the lovely tree-less surroundings and then asked Ricardo when the next bus back to Phnom Penh was. “Our business is done here.” The poor chap didn’t say very much; obviously disappointed, hunched over, lots of shuffling around in the dirt; at which point I tried to humour him with a reference to Michael’s moonwalk, seeing as he does – sort of – have a major in that, but got no reaction.
His behaviour must have attracted the right attention because the next thing you know, Rockefeller and Ricardo are invited into a spotless black Range Rover by some kind fellows in rather drab green outfits – who were followed by other fellows in similar Range Rovers and similar drab outfits. Our new kind hosts insisted we have a look at the real Ratanakiri and promptly took us to a splendid little waterfall where we had a tasty lunch of grilled chicken. The only awkward moment, as we toasted to our success, was when I somewhat foolishly demanded to know if these were free-range, grain-fed chickens. After an uncomfortable pause and some quick discussion among the group, it was officially declared that yes these indeed were free-range, grain-fed chickens that we were feasting on. We toasted to our success for real this time and right there on the spot made a pact to insist every waterfall food hut only sell free-range chicken (I purposely left out ‘grain-fed’ after I saw a roaming fowl take down a cigarette butt).
A delicious lunch – and equally tasty meeting with strangers – complete, we were given a (free) Range Rover ride to the bus stop, bidding our troupe farewell. With 30 minutes to spare before our journey home, I ducked into a small shop selling an assortment of locally made items. Using Ricardo as my interpreter (level 3 Khmer from copied Rosetta Stone DVDs), I purchased a lovely end-table that was apparently made from real Ratanakiri trees. Not seeing any trees, how could I know that our good man and his lovely wife were telling the truth? We laughed, I handed over some cash and off Rockefeller and Ricardo went (and yes, with conscience fully intact because Rockefeller paid the asking price).
Said table fits perfectly in my humble home. On top of it I’ve placed my book of Khmer Rouge poetry entitled: 1,000 Words That Rhyme With Comrade, Collective And Imperialist Aggressor, first edition, signed by the authors, and my gosh there are a lot of them! I can’t help but think that the book launch party would have been a tough one to organise. I mean, do you give everyone a chance to read a passage or limit it to just a few of the authors?
Dear readers, I’ve come to the end of my first Rockefeller Report. Only 18 months until Dolce and Gabbana are out of prison (Hooray! Finally some decent-looking uniforms in those penitentiaries!). At time of writing I got a call from the Australian government seeking Rockefeller Without Borders’ help in freeing these fashion icons. Apparently they have a prison swap in mind; either that or some sort of plan that will declare the pair ‘landless refugees’, allowing them to be housed in Cambodia. Either way, something exciting is brewing and yours truly will be right on top of it!
Until next time…
Your humble servant,
Rockefeller St Bernard.