Guns and Almond Milk (book review)

Twenty years ago, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures was published.

The catchy title ensured that the book became one of the first modern classics of aid worker literary endeavours, mixing autobiographical anecdotes, a bit of fiction and an unfiltered view of what it is really like to be a humanitarian.

Mustafa Marwan’s Guns and Almond Milk is a contemporary answer to the question of how we ended up in a hospital in Yemen’s port city of Aden with a lot less sex and a whole lot more desperate measures…

But let’s start at the beginning, perhaps even a bit before…
When I first saw Marwan’s book, I expected something a bit more light-hearted. After all, “almond milk” has become a trope in aid worker social media circles after someone posted a question about the availability of non-dairy drinks in Lebanon in a large and well-known global aid Facebook group. “Almond milk” turned into a meme for privileged Western expectations of life in “the field”.

We are not in Solferino anymore
The 72-hour long attack on a hospital in Aden forms the backdrop of a novel that contrasts the humanitarian emergency of a doctor in Yemen with a life-long story arch of struggling as an Egyptian-born man in the UK, from growing up as an orphan to losing his medical license due to addiction issues. This is a far cry away from your typical expat assignment.

On the other hand, Guns & Almond Milk is firmly placed in our contemporary humanitarian “here and now” when expectations meet grim realities: Hospitals should not be attacked; international support should be available to evacuate medical staff all of which should have impeccable credentials to work professionally in such a demanding environment…alas…welcome to Yemen!

Head shots are no longer the measure of a savvy sniper, nor even best practice.
Snipers now compete to hit major blood vessels. Most famously, the femoral artery in the thigh. This kills two birds with one bullet. First, the wounded soldier drops out of battle, with the Grim Reaper sucking at his soul like water down a plughole. Second, valuable human and logistical resources will be depleted to evacuate and treat the wounded, as opposed to the mere old blanket and rectangular hole needed to deal with dead ones. (p.6)

When a family member of one of the leaders of one warring faction ends up in the hospital run by the humanitarian team and their local support staff, an opposing rebel group lays siege to the place…

Long gone are the days where stories about aid workers included parties at the guesthouse, one or two irresponsible flings and drunken commiserations from colleagues because you missed your child’s birthday again due to the Internet being down.
Luke, born to Egyptian parents, raised by an English family, the guy who clearly does not look British besides his name and struggles with drugs and petty crime, is perhaps much more the epitome of the modern aid worker than the stereotypical chain-smoking French logistics guy who hits on younger colleagues with his terrible accent.

Portrait of the Doctor as a Broken Savior
Instead, Luke’s addiction and mental health issues, the impeding break down of a couple of married aid workers, appearances of Russian mercenaries and a tiny bit of flourishing romance round off the cast that seems a mile away from the “American secretary” who set out into the exotic wilderness of “emergency sex” … But Luke remains the central character of the novel and rather than being some kind of hero his slightly self-absorbed struggles with demons past and present, medical and personal are reminder what happens when the “aid worker well-being” discourse hits the realities of modern urban warfare.

These realities Marwan describes, often in graphic detail, are not as new as I have made them out to be in my review. Working in a hospital in a war zone was not “better” 5, 10 or 20 years ago. Sending in “brown” instead of “white” saviors creates new problems, as does sending in married humanitarian couples or relying on local staff.
Destructive, “senseless” wars, often under the radar of whatever “international community” still means have always been around as have people who help without asking questions how you got your bullet wound.
In the end, Guns & Almond Milk retells an old story with contemporary astuteness of how damaged and damaging the humanitarian project has become.

As an academic, book nerd and humanitarian storytelling aficionado I can recommend Marwan’s novel highly, of course.
Not only because it adds different and new “voices” to the genre, but also because the pace and tone are fit for the age of Netflix: Guns & Almond Milk can be read as a “normal” thriller set in a distant location if humanitarian challenges are not your primary concern and it has binge-worthy elements, perfect when your flight to your R&R destination is delayed again...

I am definitely looking forward to season two!

Marwan, Mustafa: Guns & Almond Milk. ISBN 978-1-62371-105-4, 232pp, USD 17.95, Interlink Books, 2024.