Zehra's Blog

DUCK!!!!!

2011-05-10T13:12:00.003-04:00

So when not running around saving the world (it's called irony, people), I like to cook. This is no surprise to readers of my blog. I decided a while ago (almost a year ago) that I was going to get out of my cooking comfort zone and start experimenting and actually adding to my repertoire rather than sticking to what I know (I just defined what coming out of a comfort zone means....this obviously means I am fresh off a mission where I am used to saying the same thing in four different ways so that everyone on the room can understand what it is). ANYHOW...I love duck and so, tonight, I am going to cook duck! One of my absolute fave things to eat is confit du canard. One of the travesties that I have experienced with duck is something the Brits call crispy duck and it's gross and is served in Chinese restaurants. It tastes like nothing. Or perhaps I had a really bad version of it. It reminded me of poppadums and chutney served in an Indian restaurant in the UK and everyone thinks it's THE thing to have and eat and an Indian meal is not complete without it. It annoys me. Greatly. But I digress....the topic du jour is DUCK!

I've never cooked duck before in my life. A slight issue but not something that cannot be solved. And that's the whole point.

I polled my foodie tweeps. Got some GREAT suggestions from @cooksisterblog @cookinacurry and @RushinaMG went the extra step and actually emailed me a recipe. I am not a foodie blogger type, I just blog when I feel like it, but since I did poll people and they made the effort, I figure I should also make the effort and blog it so that they can see what the result was in the end.

I tend to look at recipes but not really use them. Most effective for me has been actually watching someone cook...I can read recipes all I want but seeing is just different and it works better for me. I need to see what the timings are, what things should look like and then beyond that...it's me. I adapt according to my tastes and those of the people I am feeding. I think it's why I love Alton Brown's show. He actually explains food and the chemistry of it so then I can figure out what mixes with what and what the reaction might be. My mom would also say, don't put in the tomatoes in until the end of the simmer process, or the lemon juice should be added just at the end and I still don't know why chemically, however, I do know it makes sense what she says. One day I will figure out why.

OK...so duck adventure is on. Stay tuned for what actually happens. I should probably take photos, but I have just an iPhone. That might be a first...nasty iPhone photos to compliment a foodie blog post.

And very fitting for someone like me.

Tweeting is ruining my blogging....

2010-12-10T14:24:00.001-05:00

I didn't think it was possible, but it seems I can say everything I want to in chunks of 140 characters.

Bits n bobs.

2010-12-04T20:12:00.004-05:00

I write and leave and then come back again....

Problem is: there is SO MUCH other good stuff to read out there!

On my mind these days is the winter and how much I hate it. I kinda really do. I like it for about 4 days and then I get really tired of it. It's cold. It's not very nice. Luckily, I live in a very warm apartment.

FOOD! Food is on my mind in a big big way again....I think it has to do with how I plan on remarketing myself...to myself even. Hah.

Remarketing myself: Yes, that too is on my mind. We get so easily stuck in our boxes that it irks me and I've never been very good at accepting it and fight it, from inside my box, of course.

Charity Water and other social change projects. I'm just not convinced and I want to be. I really do....

I think that's good enough for now. I always have to come and write first and just spit it out and then I can get onto actually getting into (or not) some of the stuff. Too lazy to actually link anything at this moment either. I just know I have been feeling guilty about not writing ANYTHING at all and I felt like I should...say something, anything at all (I have James playing right now..blame him).

Christmas lights make me happy. And I don't even celebrate Christmas. But if I give presents and take a holiday and like the lights, that's celebrating isn't it?

A Jehovah Witness came to my apartment today...she wanted to tell me that Jesus wasn't born on the 25th of December. I didn't have the heart to tell her it didn't matter and that was the least of her issues. He existed, right? She asked if she could come back and I did have the heart to tell her, no, I think this is plenty. Leave your magazines with me and I will try to awaken and if I do manage to wake up, I'll call you.

There is something to be said about belief and how we do believe. I come from a family of believers and I respect it. I see what it does for people. I believe in things too...in my head. And I know how strongly I do believe in these things of mine. They don't have to be religious or spiritual the things we believe in but they so provide us with comfort.

It is exhausting to not believe.

The Girl Effect

2010-11-16T10:41:00.003-05:00

Any chance to write about work....especially a good uplifting story and I am on it!

Check out this org: Girl Effect.

Great video posted on there about the girl effect (ie: if you can get a girl in poverty (age 12) out of a vicious cycle you can build a more positive self generating effect.

Here is the video and my post below:

Today, it's about blogging it. Tara of wiseliving came up with the idea for bloggers to blog about it today to raise awareness. Do go check out the website so that you can read the other blogs that have posted about this. Last I checked (20 minutes ago, about 32 blogs were up...)

The girl effect.

I've seen it.

I just saw it in Pakistan...it was pretty amazing especially since I was despairing about life as a rural woman in Pakistan. In a totally flooded village, in Sindh, near Mohen Jo Daro. The only village I managed to visit where two of the women were educated. They were the only 'educated' people in the village. Village of about 1o0 households or so. They spoke Urdu, while most of the other women spoke Sindhi or Siraiki. They were two sisters who married into this village. The village, pre floods, had a school, where they taught (and yes, both girls and boys). The village also had healthy people since the two women had made sure that everyone was aware of simple hygiene practices. Deaths from pregnancy were not that common since the two women refused to have home births. Others followed that practice. Girls were not married off at 14...the practice of watta satta (literally, an exchange...read about it at the link...it's a terrible concept but I can understand part of it given the cultural norms...but I do not endorse it...however, just saying STOP IT is not the solution. Need to be a bit more creative around it) was rife in the neighbouring villages but not so much in this village.

Talking to the two women was amazing. Even more amazing, they made sure everyone else was heard. I didn't have to ask, they just did it. I can speak Urdu but not really Sindhi, so they were doing simultaneous translation so that I could be understood by everyone AND were making sure other voices were heard. They also illustrated a point I make anytime anyone works in a village: those who have more education are the ones that get their voices heard. In this case, exceptionally, it was two women...it doesn't tend to be where I have worked (except in Tamil villages in Sri Lanka...you do NOT want to mess with those women...they will show whose boss..and yes, they tend to be educated). Access to information is a whole other post and how we, as aid workers, think we are looking at social practices and structures but in reality, we listen most to those who know how to talk to us (and those we want to talk to in orer to meet donor demands). That changes the social dynamic...are we aware enough about our own role as an active stakeholder in the community participation we talk about?

When leaving and talking with the head of the village as I was leaving, he was like, it has been SUCH a blessing for us to have these two sisters in our village. Things have been better since they arrived.

Is that a girl effect story or WHAT?

The Pakistan Post...(one of)...

2010-11-13T09:11:00.004-05:00

Do you see ME there? I was asked that by a friend...he spends time shuttling between Karachi, Toronto, New York, Bombay and who knows where else. He wasn't asking if someone like him would be needed there...he knows they would....he asked instead, rhetorically: do you see me there? As in, I'm not, am I?

In ko apnay haal par chor dou.

Guess who else I don’t see here?

Baraish kitni khubsurat hai. Tree hugging hippy and it pops out of my mouth-it’s automatic aid worker guilt of living a lavish lifestyle. Unless you live in a tent on the side of the road.

I don’t and you don’t and we all scoffed at Sean Penn.

Guess who else I don’t see here?

Who do I see?

Bosnia, Rwanda, Myanmar, Timor, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Ache, Haiti-I see lots of Haiti but then again, I saw a lot of Sri Lanka in Haiti.

It’s not a global community and you don’t know best.

Sindh:

I see ghar aja pardesi, tujhe desh bulaye. My eyes do look for Shahrukh and Kajol. Wrong country…same fields. I wouldn't even know which Pakistani stars to imagine instead...Nadeem and Shabnam were before my time. Babra Sharif might be too dirty.

Allah kay naam pay, beti, dua karouN geeN. I give her ten rupees and say: dua karna, amma.

She cracked me a huge smile and leaned forward slightly and opened up her fist and gestures at my Western colleague two cars away from me..

Unhoun nay mujhe 50 rupay diye.

She did her routine first and unable to keep the news to herself she shares it with me.

You say I’m not local?

It started with her: Her face, the way she spoke, her clothes and the way they wore her. Her script: beti, allah kay naam par, bhalla, dua. I know that script.

I KNOW that script. I know her. She made me feel at home.

These are my people

I want to say it but am wary about how empty that will be- if I were to say my people out loud I would have to move here. I bite it back constantly.

So you see ME here? Guess who else I don’t see?

I thought there was a drought and then massive floods. I see really healthy buffaloes everywhere…and lots of them.

That is an elite Karachi girl speaking...how much more local do I need to be?

The world's a buzzin!

2010-11-13T08:55:00.003-05:00

It just feels that way to me. Must be the happy pills....hmmm.

So, on my mind: Stuff I forgot to write about yesterday in the looooong post...twitter (yes, again), music I'm listening to, books I'm reading, shit i'm thinking...I guess that comes through anyhow.

I do have a life outside of the Fluevog obsession. It might not extend past that and Twitter though.

One of the things that I have been seeing, which after the initial surprise, I thought, enh..of course. I got two twitter streams going on...one that monitors Haiti and one that monitors Pakistan. Haiti twitter feed: all about cholera and the earthquake reconstruction. Pakistan twitter feed: floo...oh wait, no, it's not about floods that are STILL WREAKING HAVOC in parts of the country...it's about cricket. And bombs and a Christian woman being persecuted there. No good news since when does Pakistan ever have good news coming out of it, but the most flood related things I have seen: outrage at a flood tax (only the rich tweet from Pakistan), and donating goats for Eid. Unbelievable. Every once in a while, an aid agency tweet will find itself in the feed saying something about affected people.

That Pakistan post is coming...real soon. In fact, I wrote something (ok, scribbled) in my notebook while there...I should just transcribe and put it up here.

That was the most important thing on my mind this morning, as it turns out. I think it just makes me mad at Pakistanis so now I have lost the will to write anything else. Ewww.

Don't you worry...I'll be back. You know I will. Haven't yet met the thing that can stop my yappin...

The great Fluevog Escape plan

2010-11-12T15:45:00.004-05:00

OK then....as I already mentioned, I have a Fluevog Obsession....Obsession with a capital O. Obsession to the degree I have with television and therefore I don't own one or turn it on if I am in one with a room by myself. It turns me into a one eyed zombie and I am incapable of conversation or picking up the remote control and turning it off. So, I don't have a television set and will not turn it on of my own volition. I do not have the Fluevog website open since all I will do is drool at the shoes on there.

I mentioned before that I would have to win the lottery in order to go and buy these shoes but I have an even better plan....

Russell Crowe (yes, that Russell Crowe), tweeted (yes, I know, I am admitting in public that I follow his tweets...and I can't recall how I even started doing it, I just know that he pops up every once in a while...and I like Gladiator...I thought it was a great film. I'm trying to recall if I saw Robin Hood...I did want to...I think I did...bleary eyed on a 14 hour long haul to South Korea...but it wasn't like Robin Hood as I know it...and Maid Marion wasn't a maid...she was like a widow (but Cate Blanchett who I adore)...and there was no big John...there was a Friar Tuck and there was a forest, I think and people did end up there living in tree houses at the end, dancing but there was a whole angle of like..revolution or something? And Robin Hood was actually a child of a revolutionary and had 'good' blood in him? The movie is starting to unfold in my head like a Dances with Wolves (skirting around Robin Hood, the cartoon and Kevin Costner versions) meets Gladiator and any other medieval type film with a hot white guy in it fighting for justice (Braveheart, that other movie with Liam Nieson, Sword in the Stone (cartoon version only) and Last of the Mohicans....Mohican which the Brits think means mohawk, the hairstyle....what do they call a fauxhawk then? Fauxheecan? Your man, David Beckham had one...I wonder what he called it)...

Anyhow, so he tweeted about his new movie...called The Next Three Days (it's directed by Paul Haggis. He made Crash. I really liked Crash...so I'm guessing I will like this one...even if I already know the whole entire story. I think it's going to be one of those movies where it's the journey not the end result...which actually, is still a mystery to me...I don't know how it ends). Anyhow...So...the movie. One of the publicity thingies is this grand prize you can win etc. You can choose from 8 different locations to go have a vacation. One of those places is NYC. And you can stay at the blah blah and do the blah blah tour and blah blah restaurant and you get 2 grand spending money. AHA!!

So, the plan, is really very very simple. Win the grand prize, choose the NYC destination, get the prize money bit of it and go BUY MY FLUEVOGS!

So simple. So genius. Easier, I would think, than winning the lottery. Less people probably entering to win this giveaway grand prize thingie than those buying lotto tickets so my odds are better, no?

I do currently own shoes that cost more than Fluevogs do. I have a job and make money too. But, THAT IS MISSING THE POINT: I want my impulsive, indulgent shopping to be funded by free cash money and not by the cash I am currently not earning since I am writing a blog instead of actually working as I should be. (Employer: It only took me 15 minutes to write this...stop being a slave driver).

I need to write out my plan, ala Mr Crowe in his new movie (he has three days to spring his wife from jail...go see the trailer, don't ask me), and figure out how to make this work. Lottery plans or Grand NYC prize. Two columns...many rows...what will she do?

Must get post its. Lots of them. Different colours and sizes. I love post it notes. I in fact, travel with them to every mission I go to...yep...that's the kind of dork I am. I am waiting for someone to create the inflatable whiteboard....that would SO make my life. Maybe when I win the lottery, I can dedicate my time to making one.

Boring.

Lots of bits and pieces (aka: browser roundup)

2010-11-12T11:34:00.005-05:00

My browser is being overstretched...why? I blame twitter and my sudden obsession to know what is happening in the rest of the world. I have one too many things open now, all demanding a blog post/my unsolicited opinion.

I'm terrified (in my hyperbolic American way) to lose any of the info so I'm just going to write mini blurbs around all it..

I should prolly categorize but given that I recognize this as me procrastinating before i actually hunker down and do some work, I need to just get this over with.

First up: Haiti and Cash For Work.

My biggest pet peeve. I fucking hate CFW at this moment in time. The actual definition, for anyone who cares, of CFW is: Payment for work on community or public works programmes to improve or rehabilitate the community.

What has ended up happening instead is PAID LABOUR. The objectives of CfW programmes have started reading like food security objectives: ie: people will have cash in order to meet their food requirements. I fine this abhorrent and offensive. In the start of an emergency, people have MUCH BETTER THINGS TO DO than be part of CfW schemes in order to have some money in order to buy what they need. Examples of things they need to be doing includes getting their documentation in order. People lose stuff (Haiti-earthquake, Pakistan-floods...think back to tsuanami...things are lost)...if they don't have their IDs, home documents etc, they can't register for aid (government or otherwise as well in many cases).

In the Haiti example, and I was there and I saw this: rubble removal was the pet project for CfW. There is SO much freakin rubble in Haiti that even big mac trucks (and the country has 300 and no proposed dumping ground...it's an ISLAND), if these trucks were to work ever single day...it would take ten years. I heard other figures as well but all pointing to how massive the problem is. Get some professionals in to sort it out...stop giving people gloves, vests and wheelbarrows and getting them to haul it off. For what purpose? You want them to have money...just GIVE IT TO THEM...don't force them to work for what should be a basic right (food and basic needs being met in an emergency situation). It's gross.

The article I link to is a good one. Read it. Pass it on. I am not done with my CfW rant but am happy to say that when I left Pakistan, at least the agency I was working for...I made sure we didn't have a separate CfW budget line. It was incorporated where it should be..within community projects and grants. I got yelled at for that, but I stuck to it. I am not about to further bad practice if I can help it. This whole current situation of CfW is a bad hangover from food for work, another disgusting form of programming.

Second up: Psychosocial work in Pakistan.
I need not say more...just click on the link. Diaries by Sara Klevmar...she writes wonderfully and simply and it's a way to see the work we do from the ground up. Well done, Sara.

Third: Sri Lanka. And Porn.
Yep, that's right...Sri Lankan porn. Why can't this country, which is so beautiful, and with beautiful people, get their shit in order? There is a hunt on for porn stars in Sri Lanka. No joke. Is there nothing else the police could be doing right now? They are publishing the photos (of what they guess to be teenagers) in the newspapers. Thankfully, there are sane people and advocates in the country that are pointing out that the people in the video might be there without their consent or through coercion and such a public exposure could harm them but the militant and weird brand of Buddhism in the country seems to support the moral outrage these porn videos (shot it seems, mostly with cell phones, by the way) are causing. No Sri Lanka story I read is complete without one classic line...Here's the one from this article: Police plan to publish images, taken from the films, of around 50 more in the coming days. The mug shots have been obtained by a special police squad viewing films "round the clock", officers said.

Fourth up: Haiti again. Media being offensive to me again.

Story written by a Ms. Georgianne Nienaber: Investigative journalist, author, Haiti relief worker.

My offense is simple....yes, I think what is happening in Haiti sucks and it should be reported on for transparency and accountability and with the aim of getting aid to people properly. She is talking about Camp Corrail...I have worked in that camp....Here is the offensive line:
This was our third visit to Haiti since the earthquake, and what this man says is completely accurate.

As ANYONE with ANY field experience knows...one TRIANGULATES information. I can already tell you that this mans outrage is completely justified however, what is he is saying is NOT completely accurate as Ms Nienaber says. Two examples: People were not forced to move from Petitionville Golf Course camp...they were given options and these were explained. They were also given more than one bag of rice on arrival to the camp. I know, because I was there...and the agency I was working with didn't move them and we didn't give out relief items so I am not being biased here. Now, this one mans story, could be completely accurate just for HIS situation...however, he is NOT representative of the first batch of people that moved to Corrail.

All I am asking for is what I exercise as a field person as well. Proper telling of stories. I think it's just irresponsible otherwise. A little bit more integrity please. It goes a long way...pass it on.

Fifth up: China and Pakistan and Nukes.

Pakistan, I don't know if I love you or not, but you never fail to disappoint. I look at Zardari's face and I feel sick. Ugh is all I can say to this article. Ugh, Ugh, Ugh.

Sixth up: A collection of just really cool stuff.

@blurb has put up this beautiful picture on his website. I heart it. Once I get paid, I'm gonna buy it and he's gonna sign it for me. WOOHOO!

I am obsessed with Fluevogs...they are shoes. Heels, in fact. Who knew I had that in me. But I am in love. It started with my sister buying a paid before I went off to Pakistan, or maybe even before that but I was like, yeah, ok, whatever. And all of a sudden yesterday, I was like, hey, let me see those shoes again...and I tried them on, and though she is like, three sizes larger than me, I put them on and was like, HOLY SHIT, this is amazing! I need to win the lottery in order to buy a pair. I am buying tickets starting tomorrow. You gotta be in it to win it.

Social change and media has my attention...I like it. Here is a piece on using mobile technology to gather data fast. It's important to be able to do that, and I like that I saw it being used in both Haiti and Pakistan. Real time info, as fast as we can get it and then use it to meet needs gets massive brownie points from me. The UN also has an initiative to harness this hype around technology called Global Pulse. There have been bits and pieces around mobile phone subscriptions in India and the continent of Africa and how the numbers are getting higher and higher and how people use the technology for all sorts of things (of course, they don't dis-aggregate African data but what? It's a continent, not just one BIG massive homogeneous country? Wha?)

For you apple mac lovers out there....some nice geek stuff on how to make full use of the automator.... I need to re read the piece in order to figure out how to actually do it and what added value, if any, it might bring to my life.

Seventh up: Gender Equality and Business.

I'm to tired to write anymore, but I have it up here so it's important enough for everyone to read it. I will post it in conjunction with a report from the Women's Refugee Commission...scroll down to the middle of the page and download the report: Peril or Protection: Link between Livelihoods and Gender Based Violence. . It's important. Read it and be educated.

WHEW! I'm done. For now. I need to stop reading and close my mind off to anything else for the time being and get some work done. If only things weren't so interesting and I didn't want to know something about everything.

Jane of all trades, Mistress of none.

Cuddle Class

2010-11-10T20:06:00.002-05:00

For someone who flies as much as I do this is welcome news...

Cuddle class in economy. Way to go New Zealand Air.

It's for long haul flights. Set to launch in April. I can't wait to see what this looks like. I HATE flying. Especially long long flights, which if you live in the States like me, you end up taking to go anywhere there is a disaster (cept Haiti and the rest of the continent below us).

I need to fly with someone...or learn to cuddle strangers.

I just googled cuddle class after hearing about it on one of my favorite shows...NPRs Wait wait, Don't Tell Me. It's great. You can podcast it.

FOODIE!

2010-11-10T19:51:00.003-05:00

Oh man....check out Jamie Oliver's new place called Barbecoa in London.

I WANT!

Read the story of the place and how they started it. I love good stories. And and and and and...they have a butchers shop downstairs! I am so jealous. So very very jealous. I want one too...cept of course, I'm not the greatest chef (I'm ok), and I don't have the patience to have a restaurant etc etc...but still...I WANT.

The menu is amazing...they have all sorts of bar b q ovens all over the place...

I am drooling.

I hate Jamie Oliver's tweets by the way...he misspells everything and they are like half thoughts etc. You have 140 characters, dude, it's not that hard. But anyhow, he has redeemed himself in my eyes by this new restaurant. I have no idea what other restaurants he has, actually, but still...this one looks FREAKIN COOL and I want it.

Calling London! We will be going there when I'm in town. Along with my three other faves: Sake No Hana (posh Japanese in posh part of town...I can't recall exactly where but close to that place where you get amazing...food/picnic/Christmas baskets. Something & Something or maybe it's just something something), Cafe Helen (awesome late night shwarma, Edgeware road), and Tayyabs (amazing Pakistani food...STAND IN LINE....I swear to you, it's worth it-East Aldgate). The other one to add to my list of London places actually is also Poule a Pot...I think that's what its called...at Orange Square...so near Sloan Square and Victoria stations. Great for winter to go into this cosy cosy place and eat lovely lovely French food. Mmmmmmm

I just ate daal and chawal. Nothing in the world beats that.

Still, I'm coming Jamie. Make way.

World Kindness Week

2010-11-09T12:12:00.005-05:00

What a lovely idea...

World Kindness Week.

There is a foundation: Random Acts of Kindness and it was started in 1995. Not sure where they get their funding from or anything, but what a great idea. Works for me.

I was told recently that I need to keep business as business and not be so friendly. I disagree. Part of me is wanting to be a good person and I see that as spilling over to anything I do. I will go out of my way to help people when I am working or not.

Anyhow, this is not about me and what a nice person I am...even though it should be. Hah.

It's about how we can all be kind and the benefits of doing that. Here is a great article on how 7 ways of sharing can make you happy....

Anyone got random acts of kindness stories to share? I'll guest blog you! I like stories of kindness. A lot.

We are all stalkers

2010-11-08T08:41:00.002-05:00

I just looked at the live feed on who comes from where to view this blog. I can't see WHO you are dear readers, however, I can see where you are coming from.

So, the people who do a search for f zehra rizvi....you know me. There are tons of searches for just zehra and zehra rizvi and there are lots of zehras and zehra rizvis out there...

Some of you arrive direct. Interesting. Some of you are still arriving from facebook. I deactivated facebook, so I am indeed curious how you do that.

That was fun and I've been dying to update my facebook status to say, I DEACTIVATED! I am free of facebook! Except I can't do that anymore obviously. The withdrawal symptoms of leaving facebook have faded by now.

I'm back from home Pakistan by the way. It was a pretty amazing experience. I am still deconstructing it in my head and will write about it in all probability.

Anyhow, if you know me and come onto my blog...send me some love. It makes me want to write and that should make it easier for you to stalk me, no? Especially since there is no facebook to track my EVERY movement :)

Amazing but I can still function without a passive audience watching my every move. I miss talking people on facebook...to be fair, I had zero time in Pakistan to do that, but still. My sisters and I are close so they have had to adjust to not being able to stalk me as well.

We go old school now...ie: talk to each other.

i like this

2010-10-27T13:23:00.002-04:00

By martial

MARTIAL, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:—
The richesse left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind;
The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule, nor governance;
Without disease, the healthful life;
The household of continuance;
The mean diet, no delicate fare;
True wisdom join’d with simpleness;
The night dischargèd of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress.
The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
Contented with thine own estate
Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.

I'm off

2010-09-05T09:43:00.003-04:00

It's off to Pakistan for me...

I don't feel so nervous this time going off on a mission. Normally, I do. I get massive anxiety around it and this time, I feel very calm. Almost to the point of denial. Ha ha.

I know the team I will be working with and that helps immensely. It's the unknown that bothers me, I think. I know the team and the first time going out in an emergency, I know the language. That is a huge comfort.

My South Asian heritage is going to be both an advantage and a disadvantage. I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out. It could go either way and once again, I have to have that balancing act in place. Things are easier for me, yes, but they also become much harder. The standards set for me are different as are the expectations.

Interestingly enough, for a mission that I feel comfortable with, I think everyone around me is a little freaked out. Everyone except for Micky. He might be but he doesn't say he is. He's seen me in the field. Like, really, in the field. My dad sent me a message saying I need to be careful out there. This is a man whose wife has been going to Iraq almost every year since the war. His other daughter goes to Pakistan regularly. I haven't been in 8 years. And even then, it was for two weeks. The time I went before, it was for three weeks, 10 years ago. Both times for weddings. My about-to-be boss, someone I have worked with before, just admonished me to dress conservatively. Or else he would take me to the shops. I laughed. I push boundaries, yes, but I'm not stupid.

I'm good at what I do and at sensing situations and what I can get away with. This time, I'm not looking to get away with anything. I just want to go out and do my job and be proud of the work I have done. I hope it's helpful and of some use to the people that need the help. And there are lots of people that need the help.

I do wonder how this will all play out. Am I walking blind into a situation when for the first time, I don't feel like I am?

Friends...and other things.

2010-08-30T12:03:00.004-04:00

I'm glad I have the ones I love.

Have been playing catch up with everyone after a very hectic and chaotic first 6 months of the year. It's been amazing to see people and to reconnect with them.

Helps that the weather has been amazing and that I do love being in NYC. I have begun to realize (and this would have been blasphemy a few months back), but it's not about the place. NYC is just a backdrop. And a gorgeous one at that, but still..it's just a place. It is in fact, about the people that are there.

I have friends from all over just popping up. I was telling one last night that I am not interested in making new friends. I don't really want to make the effort with them. I like the friends I have. I like seeing them. And I am making an effort with them. To reconnect, to hang out, to be with them. I do miss it when I don't have it. It's one of the things I like to complain about when not 'home'.

It's interesting..Micky and I were talking about this...the web and network that I can sustain. He likes friends and people in a place, a location, where he stays in touch with them right there. I have a more amorphous friend network. And I keep it alive. I have lots of friends and I love that I can see many of them right here in NYC but the others, I keep alive. In a variety of different ways. Some of them don't get along with each other but everyone has something in common.

They like me. That's important :)
More importantly, they know who I am. That I will stay in touch sporadically but we will pick up from where we left off, maybe play catch up, maybe not, but we are who we are and even if we change, somehow, it's ok. We are still the friends that we are. I love that.

Living this close to Haiti has its perks as well. I keep hosting people coming through and I love it. We had Luca here last week and Tom is coming tonight. Overnight stops at our place. I am glad to be out of Haiti. Pakistan is looming and that is an overdue post but it's coming. Chances are I will be there in Sept but not sure exactly how and doing what, but I am on a roster for Sept and there have been noises about my being out there for a month.

I haven't been writing here and now I want to. This blog is like a friend of mine. Sporadic but no need to play catch up either.

I have my fingers crossed for a job in NYC. It's with a good organization and it's for a year and it will give me that stability that I seem to be craving and needing. Nice, how I distance myself from that sentence saying, it SEEMS to be what I need. LOL. Professionally, it will be really good for me. I went through three interviews so let's see what happens. It will be a first if I don't get the job that after interviewing, I haven't gotten a job. I didn't tell them that. What I did tell them, grinning away at the first serious question they asked me was: I can't remember the last face to face interview I did. It's strange not being in my pajamas when talking to you. I did manage to give a credible enough answer to the question as well.

The fringe was on in NYC. We saw one play. I didn't realize we had the fringe here as well. I know it's something I should know but I always just thought it was in Edinburgh. Whoops. Anyhow, a friend recommended it. The play we saw was called RASH. We were four humanitarian/aid workers of sorts and opinion was divided. My life was on stage so I was in love. Micky saw me on stage so he might have been scared but he thinks there is hope for me. The other two just didn't like it and I wasn't that interested to find out why. I loved it. That was good enough for me and my 15 bucks. If any of you get a chance to see it, do so.

Weird how things come together sometimes. The week before, I had turned to Micky and said, I love disasters. It is who I am. We need to deal with this. Without going into too many details, let's just say, I love them and he really does not. My work is the other man but I'm working on it :). The play spoke to that part of me. I could not just understand but empathized deeply with the character. I am two people at times and both are equally strong.

And both are equally pig headed.

More music!

2010-08-24T09:36:00.003-04:00

Why not continue on a theme I love...music.

The last post wasn't so much about it as it turns out.

Been listening to lots of music, especially since I am working from home right now. I love how music can do so many different things to me.

I have three favorite songs at the moment...well, more than three, but three different bands. Let's see if I can post them all up right now.

Song number one...by Travis (I know nothing about them...I should probably look them up). This song showed up on my genius playlist and I fell in love with it. I dance around in my apt to it all by myself. It makes me happy in a strange way.

Second video...kinda annoying that I can't actually get the real video up. I discovered V V Brown since it was free on iTunes and I was like, awesome! And i just rediscovered this song last night...and now it's on repeat. Another one that makes me happy just to sing it out loud and shout.

And the third...Scouting for Girls. Their new album. I downloaded it. It's the first new music I've bought in a long time. There are way too many songs to put up but one as an example posted below. My other favorites are: On the Radio, Good Time Girl, and Take A Chance On Us. I read a review of the album which wasn't great. They said it was all toooo perfect. All made for the radio. It's true. But I unabashedly love pop songs :)

I need to listen to Mumford&Sons. I keep hearing about them. Haven't yet, knowingly, listened to one of their songs. Maybe I should do that now. Stay tuned!

Music

2010-08-20T13:00:00.003-04:00

I'm listening to music that reminds me of my time in Uganda. Not because it's Ugandan or anything but just because I used to listen to it all the time while working. It's great how music can transport one. Sometimes great, sometimes not so great when you recall that you aren't still in that moment. Hah!

My weird dreams are continuing. Today was a big day for them. Not sure WHAT is going on...the last one, it's like I couldn't open my eyes and couldn't see. My younger sister was annoying me for some reason and I finally got away from her and was in this cubicle and was charging my iPhone near a sandwich and all of a sudden, the whole thing started smoking. I was able to unplug it but the smoke was still coming and I couldn't see it. I would close my eyes and could tell that there was light outside but when I would open my eyes, I couldn't see a thing. And I needed to see since there was smoke still coming from stuff. And, typically, I didn't want to ask for help since I was in an office type environment even though I think it was full of my family. I kept rubbing my eyes and trying to open them and squinting. Kept turning lights on and off since I felt like I was looking at things in the dark. The lights would pretend to work, then not work at all and then work with SUPER dim lighting which is worse.

I HATED that dream. It must totally suck to be blind and lose your sight like that.

Good anxiety dream. Well done, me.

In my earlier dream I was certifiable insane.

Great. Really, that's just great.

I love my job.

2010-08-13T00:09:00.002-04:00

So, I've been in Vietnam to help facilitate a training. Readers of my blog will know by now how much I LOVE this part of my job. It's hard work, and you have to be on but the interaction with people, especially if they are field people implementing in the field is totally one of my favorite things.

And it's for reasons like this. In about ten minutes, one of the participants put this together and showed it at the end of the training. How TOTALLY awesome is it?

World Humanitarian Day (not today, but still)

2010-07-23T14:01:00.002-04:00

My new fave video. And Matt is in it..dancing.

Maybe I am getting sentimental in my old age...I got a little teary eyed watching this. It is something to be a humanitarian. Something really special and I feel connected to people I may have worked with for only a few hours, but that connections, it holds. It's hard to describe. But anyhow, we don't do this enough (I am especially bad at it), but here's to us.

Dreams

2010-06-28T15:07:00.004-04:00

It's probably not healthy to find any meaning in your past self but I have a blog, and I know how to use it!

I wrote this post the summer I was off to graduate school. It's not necessarily interesting. Just that I said it was hot and that I was having strange dreams. If you read the blogs from that time, you can see that I was in a weird limbo place as well at that time.

Must history repeat itself? Or perhaps I am supposed to learn from it?

Last night, I dreamt of dolphins. I have never swam with dolphins or had other than a momentary thought about swimming with them. I could feel the dolphin in my dream. We were swimming together. It wasn't slimy and felt like I would imagine it would feel like. Firm-ish and smooth-ish but still icky-ish. We were just chilling, me and the dolphin. I was out of the water and could feel it swimming near my feet which were in the water. Something happened, which I can't recall now and all of a sudden, it became human/alien and like a grown fetus it came out of the water and was laying there.

That woke me up for obvious reasons. It wasn't scary but it wasn't nice either. It has alien like big eyes (or perhaps that baby like big eyes) and the hands are what struck me. They had gills on them. Neatly patterned gills.

Seriously....what the fuck? I am having strange dreams these days. Is it wishful thinking to attribute it to the heat?

Why don't I just go ahead and attribute my whole life to the heat right now? So much easier.

It's frickin' hot.

Zeb and Haniya

2010-06-28T14:54:00.001-04:00

Check out these videos. Coke Studio in Karachi has started this music sessions which are incredible. Zeb and Haniya burst onto the scene maybe about two years ago or so and Zeb has an incredible voice. I love their music. Two of my favorite songs and you can buy their stuff on iTunes! Also do click on the Coke Studio link...they have lots of videos and info on music in Pakistan which is fantastic these days.

I love you, Matt, whoever you are...

2010-05-23T12:36:00.003-04:00

LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! This has just made me SO very very very happy.

Enjoy.

And smile. What would life or this world be if we didn't smile...and in the wise words of Paulo Coelho #ilovelifebecause it is not a sin to be happy.

Au revoir...

2010-05-23T11:10:00.001-04:00

A week to go before I leave.

I have had to pace myself. A 7 week mission. Some people are out here for much longer and I keep saying, I know what my capacity is and how long I can go in order to still be able to function with some modicum of efficiency and effectiveness.

How are the others doing it? Those who have signed up for three months, six months, a year?

Everyday, there are new faces out here. With a week left to go, I am not even bothering to get to know them or find out who they are. That happens in every mission, without fail. You get used to the people you know and you are comfortable hanging out with them. By luck, or they know someone, a new face will become part of your group. It's just too much effort otherwise.

We were talking about this and it seems to be a mental shift. I know I am here for 7 weeks. Those on longer contracts know they are here for the long run. You pace yourself differently. Every 6 weeks, most people are entitled to a week R&R. That seems to be the marker then. You think in 6 week blocks.

I see myself coming back to Haiti. Not sure in what capacity or for how long, but I see myself coming back here. I would be surprised if I didn't.

A first mission delegate was out here and as she was gearing up to leave (after extending her mission more than double), she was struggling with saying goodbye. You dont actually ever say goodbye. Not a place and most certainly, not to people. You never know when you will see them again and that's the beauty of what we do. I am working once again with someone I worked with five years ago. We saw each other socially, twice since then, but here we are now. Having breakfast together, checking in with each other. It's great.

My tattoo brother is out here too. Five years ago, Oct 2005, Berlin, Germany, he gave me his tattoo from his calf for my back. I saw him after that last year, again, by mistake in Nairobi. People ask me about the frog on my back. It's not a frog but I can see how it looks like one. I was telling someone about my tattoo brother and lo and behold, the next night, he shows up. Random. And typical. And typically, I haven't seen him since then, three nights ago. I could track him down and find out but I like the relationship we have. There are no emails unless we have something important like a birth of a child (his), marriage (mine), and we see each other when we see each other.

You don't say good bye.

Just au revoir.

Yep, I changed it

2010-05-22T13:33:00.001-04:00

The fact that the stupid YouTube videos were too big and were blocking stuff on the side...it made it look messy. So, I changed it.

I feel like I've come home after a long time and someone has rearranged all the furniture. But that's ok. I will get used to it.

And so will you.

i can't stop lovin you.....

2010-05-22T13:12:00.002-04:00

....bollywood.

here's more entertainment. 30 full fledged bollywood stars past and present. More present than past. Some not so past but still past.

And I do LOVE SRK. King Khan.

I miss Bollywood. I haven't been able to see a Bollywood film in a while.

Actually, the last film I saw was Indian but not Bollywood per se. FANTASTIC film. Would highly recommend it. Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.

Recommended not for all ages, but for all sorts of people. You don't have to be brown to enjoy it. It is a film about activists...sort of. It's a film about life and activists are starring in it.

Back to the entertainment....

Addicted...

2010-05-21T17:31:00.003-04:00

...to Twitter. Again.

This happens every once in a while. I go through phases. I am totally back into blogging and tweeting, and honestly, it feels GREAT. There was a whole community out here that I just dropped out of. And they forgave me...or, didn't notice. Either way, it's how I like my life to be. I can come and go. My best friends are great that way to me as well. They know there will be times when I will be there and present and...well, there! And there are times when I drop off the face of the earth. They don't hold it against me.

What is weird with tweeting is that I was feeling out of touch with Stephen Fry, Johnathan Ross, Pink, Alyssa Milano, Susan Orlean and the person who is a tweeting train wreck because of his HORRIBLE spelling, Jamie Oliver.

I obviously don't know any of these guys for real. I will say though that Wyclef Jean is now following me (I am one of 7000 he follows, go figure), and I'm sure it's only cuz I tweet about Haiti every once in a while..Also, of the 100 people I follow, that's it on the celeb list. And they do know how to tweet, though seriously, if Jamie doesn't get his act together, I am blocking his ass. This is your last chance, Jamie. Learn something from Alyssa, Stephen and Susan...they're good. Boris, by the way (the Mayor of London), is way better at tweeting than Obama is. I have a feeling, and perhaps it's a good PR/comms person, but I actually think that Boris is in fact tweeting. Himself. With his own fingers. Obama is not. He's got WAY more personality than his tweets.

Anyhow, it does feel good to be connected again. It's great that I come on my blog and I do write. It feels more comfortable now. After a long time.

Yay for that.

Email can be dumb

2010-05-21T12:54:00.003-04:00

Do you ever think your email will change your life? Like, there will be that one email in your inbox, that all of a sudden will be like, Hi, I am not a Nigerian banker and am for real and you just won a gizzilion dollars...or even better...you didn't apply for this super fantastic job but we know you would rock it and you would love it and it's like you and this job were made for each other...here, it's all yours.

I check my email obsessively. And I know I do it because I keep thinking, something will be there that will change my life.

Am I unhappy with my life? No.

But there is still something about changes that I like. The unknown factor of it, I s'pose. Though I do deal with change badly. Well, not badly, per se...just not as well as I would like to. I try to normalize things and find the familiar in them as soon as I can.

Emails have changed my life. I have gotton lots of important news over email. Also, you never know what you will find in your inbox. Someone from way back when might email you and say, hey, I'm in town. An old CV from long ago might finally make it through some HR system and you will get an interview. Your friend might be pregnant. You might get poked.

I am needing a change...I am, weirdly enough, thinking my inbox is going to provide me with some answers. I might be a complete idiot or....

....the revolution will be emailed.

Wee Willie Winkie

2010-05-20T09:10:00.001-04:00

I looked him up for the last post...

Did you know there is a WHOLE entire poem dedicated to him? Beyond the first para, which I thought as the whole song...I love Wikiepdia.

Cool.

Wee Willie Winkie rins through the town,
Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-gown,
Tirling at the window, cryin' at the lock,
Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?

Hey, Willie Winkie, are ye coming ben?
The cat's singing grey thrums to the sleeping hen,
The dog's spelder'd on the floor, and disna gi'e a cheep,
But here's a waukrife laddie! that winna fa' asleep!"

Onything but sleep, you rogue! glow'ring like the mune,
Rattling in an airn jug wi' an airn spoone,
Rumbling, tumbling round about, crawing like a cock,
Skirlin' like a kenna-what, wauk'ning sleeping fock.

"Hey, Willie Winkie - the wean's in a creel!
Wambling aff a bodie's knee like a very eel,
Ruggin' at the cat's lug, and raveling a' her thrums-
Hey, Willie Winkie - see, there he comes!"

Wearied is the mither that has a stoorie wean,
A wee stumple stoussie, that canna rin his lane,
That has a battle aye wi' sleep before he'll close an ee-
But a kiss frae aff his rosy lips gi'es strength anew to me.

Versions paraphrased for English readers began to appear in print from 1844 in the form:

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Up stairs and down stairs in his night-gown,
Tapping at the window, crying at the lock,
Are the children in their bed, for it's past ten o'clock?

Hey, Willie Winkie, are you coming in?
The cat is singing purring sounds to the sleeping hen,
The dog's spread out on the floor, and doesn't give a cheep,
But here's a wakeful little boy who will not fall asleep!

Anything but sleep, you rogue! glowering like the moon,'
Rattling in an iron jug with an iron spoon,
Rumbling, tumbling round about, crowing like a cock,
Shrieking like I don't know what, waking sleeping folk.

Hey, Willie Winkie - the child's in a creel!
Wriggling from everyone's knee like an eel,
Tugging at the cat's ear, and confusing all her thrums
Hey, Willie Winkie - see, there he comes!"

Weary is the mother who has a dusty child,
A small short little child, who can't run on his own,
Who always has a battle with sleep before he'll close an eye
But a kiss from his rosy lips gives strength anew to me.

My childhood lullaby

2010-05-20T09:02:00.004-04:00

Along with wee willy winkee, which, now that I saying that, out loud, after many years, sounds like a porn star name, my mom used to sing us hindi songs. We used to have musicb playing in the kitchen when we were little...songs from when my mom was little. She had a million casette tapes which she gave away one day, (the day the music died.....)

Me and my sisters all have a very special place for the song posted below. It's gorgeous to listen to and I can recall my mom's voice singing it to us...

Brilliantly enough, I was hanging with Alka and Milan, her gorgeous baby boy, and she has this lullabies from the world CD that she plays for him at bed time, and out of the blue, this song came on. We sat there, both of us humming to it, with a fourth generation child soothed by the voice of Lata in black and white.

For you listening pleasure.

yaddi bladdi

2010-05-19T16:24:00.002-04:00

My jaw hurts but it's certainly not because I'm smiling too much. No way.

I look down a lot, I have discovered. At the ground. I can not make eye contact in NYC...it's much easier, but here for some reason, when I want my five minutes of cigarette smoking privacy and I stare off into the distance, or look at the ground and AVOID eye contact, it's hard. People are going out of their way to establish eye contact, or WORSE, they walk up to you and start talking to you...and the way to start a conversation: you looked so peaceful and lost in your thoughts.

And you had to interrupt my peace and my being lost in happy land to tell me this?

My normal face, is not a smiling face. I'm trying to think how many people have a normal face that is a smiling one. I want to say not many, but that's so that I am not standing on the fringes, but actually, I haven't looked enough to know. I am going to start observing...and if, IF, most pepole have no smiling faces then........

.....then the next time someone says to me: HEY, pretty girl! Why aren't you smiling?

They will get smacked because neither are they.

Fantastic photos from Haiti

2010-05-19T10:06:00.005-04:00

Check it out. A GORGEOUS slide show on Haiti. Courtesy of Jake Price and Phil Coomes and the BBC.

I wish I could embed it somehow. Hmmm. Maybe I can.

I tried. For two minutes. You can just click on the link instead.

I do wish I were patient enough to learn to be more tech savvy. Maybe that's what I will do on vacation one day.

I need to go and grapple with excel anyhow right now. Time to generate some data!

From the hammocks at base camp....a little piece of heaven.

2010-05-18T19:06:00.003-04:00

I felt like I was dying last Saturday and I remembered that we had hammocks on base camp. I found them and I didn't LEAVE them at all. It was fantastic. I spent the whole day there and was under the ONE tree we have...which, as you might be able to hear, attracts birds.

I did eventually get up...and make dinner for 90 people. Which is in fact, as difficult as it sounds but totally worth it as so many people told me they really liked it. I think just having something different makes a BIG difference. I will try once again to cook for everyone...

My view from the hammock.

Well then!

2010-05-18T14:38:00.003-04:00

OK, there's a lot going on in the world...(at least mine).

Firstly, there is 8 year olds dancing like Beyonce.

Secondly, there are philosophers doing cool stuff.

Thirdly, it's still too hot in Haiti.

Fourthly, there is a sketchbook project which sounds amazing and I am totally signing up for it.

Fifthly, I have to pee like NO ONE'S business but the god damn chemical toilets are SO far away...will I make it?

Sixthly, and most importantly, I only just noticed at the multitude of pokes that I have on facebook that I have done nothing about.

Where am I supposed to start?

A to do list...

(that's four separate links there, people...people love their to do lists...)

It's too hot

2010-05-17T12:23:00.002-04:00

It really is. It's so freaking hot today. I say that EVERY DAY. And believe it or not, EVERY DAY, it's freaking hot.

It's hard to work in so much heat, especially when you aren't used to it.

One of the offices of the organization that I am working with, has an AC. There are some local staff there and they keep the door closed so that the AC air does not come into their office. It's too cold them for.

Samuel, the field offider that I work with, came in with a glove on one hand. He lives on the outskirts up in the hills (they really aren't that high), and the air is cooler there. He wears the one glove since when he hails a tap tap, his hand gets cold.

Many of the African expats that I am working with all wear long sleeve shirts and long pants and yes, they are sweating too but they are comfortable and able to function efficiently. We had a long conversation about it. The conversation started with mangos but that's another post for another day.

Can it be for real that you can get used to working in heat like this if you are born into it? I love heat, I tell people I am a tropical girl, but who am I kidding? I am an east coast American...I HATE the winter but I think most people struggle with it.

Why can't it be permanently spring wherever I go? In the little bubble that surrounds me?

Blogging aid

2010-05-17T09:03:00.005-04:00

Here's a site to check out. Saundra, who writes the blog is out here in Haiti and we have been having interesting discussions around the aid community and bloggers. It's big business now and I think it's great. It's a good informal way for all of us to keep in touch and share stories (and therefore, lessons) and also, it's a good way to know what the trends are and for someone else to do all the reading and research for you and synthesize it...

Saundra's blog is all about donor education. When she first said that, my brain went straight to DfiD (now known as UKAID, which is a dumb name but no one knew what DfID stood for), ECHO, USAID, etc. But what's really cool about her blog is that, she is talking about the average joe (the plumber), donor. You and me.

If you know someone who works in the humanitarian sector and you see a disaster on TV, you will ask them, who should we give to? Where will our money actually make a difference? I get asked that all the time, and now I will point them to the charity rater/tracker that Saundra has developed. It's very cool. It's not a 'give to this agency and that's that' kind of thing. It is a multiple choice thingie and it makes you THINK about how you want your money to be used and for what and helps you make an informed decision about how best you want your money to work.

The blog is called, wonderfully: Good intentions are not enough. Love the title. It gets quoted in the NYTimes and Saundra has plans for expansion. It's tough what she does but as I was saying to her last night, it's reallly realllly reallllly important. I have always believed that the giving public is actually smart. They get treated like idiots by mainstream media but I just feel like if you put out ways for people to self educate and think things through, they are more than able to make informed and smart choices and decisions.

I think lots of people miss that point in our education system. It's not about knowing dates and formulas, but rather, a good teacher will show you how to think critically...and then...you have a brain: use it.

That's Entertainment....

2010-05-13T17:53:00.001-04:00

I am SO entertained by this. Sitting in Haiti, at my desk and it was an amazing ten minute break. Huge smile on my face as each new song came on. LOVED IT. Well done young 'uns.

Enjoy.

Photos.

2010-05-13T15:53:00.009-04:00

I was talking about breakfast and mornings in this post recently. It was this breakfast that inspired me to write about it actually. A photo of the breakfast I was having about a month ago. At the Oceanview hotel. By the beach. It was lovely. I should put up photos.

Let's see if I have more.

Part of the volunteer training. This might have been the first day we all got together and did our 'team building day'. That was fun.

They are a very cool bunch with all sorts of different personalities mixed in and it's been a ball getting to know them all. And for them to get to know me.

Me. After a morning spent in the sun. This was just last week at Moulin Sur La Mer. That was fun. Lovely place though the food is lacking. And even if you are brown, you can BURN. I put on factor 55 and people think I'm crazy. Burning is crazy. It...burns.

Note the UGLY green bracelet thingie. They make you wear those at hotels here. It's very annoying. It scratches at night and I don't like wearing stuff when sleeping, other than my earrings (they are tiny), my rings (not bulky and they are my normal two), and my piercings (they don't come out). I had to wear the damn thing in the shower too...my wrist felt like it was dirty.

Dislike!

Maybe I should take more photos. I like posting photos. I don't have a camera. Just my iPhone, but it seems to work well enough!

The PoPe

2010-05-11T18:22:00.004-04:00

Do you think the Pope just feels like a rock star, all the time? I'm reading this BBC story about the abuse scandal and he's in Lisbon and 80,000 people come out to see him.

Can you imagine being the Pope, or Bono, and only five people show up in the city centre to see you? That just doesn't happen does it? With Bono, I guess it happened when he started out but the Pope just starts from...Pope. And yes, there is an individual who becomes the Pope and he's worked his way up etc, and maybe at his first sermon, in a backwater somewhere in some village in eastern Europe, three digruntled people showed up and old skool movie style, threw rotton tomatoes at him, but when you are Pope...you are Pope. And that just commands crowds.

Does he ever think back to the rotton tomatoes, do you think?

In my lifetime, will there be a gathering where the Pope is present/making an appearance/presiding (whatever it is they do other than ride around in the pope-mobile), where there won't just be 80K people at the drop of a hat?

Oh, you know what? Maybe he should go visit his followers in Iran or Pakistan. Wonder what kind of crowd that commands. We got Christians, persecuted ones, in Pakistan...not sure they are catholic though and if they care for the Pope.

I'm guessing it will be a much smaller audience than perhaps the Pope is used to....

I should get back and read the article I have linked this too...and see what the latest on the kiddie fiddling is about.

I don't care and I probably should. Actually, I don't care. I care that kids are at risk from figures of authority and trust, but it doesn't matter if you are a priest...it still happens and this grand focus on this issue should really lead to a larger impact on the WHOLE issue, not just it happens in church.

Why do people struggle SO much with perspective?

Back to black

2010-05-04T22:46:00.004-04:00

I don't even know what that means, back to black. I should probably properly listen to the songs...

I am back in Haiti. Went home to NYC for R&R for about five days and it was awesome. Great weather and just good to hang out at home. Very important.

The day I got back, we had an aftershock. Which wasn't fun especially since I have been waking up every night thinking there was an aftershock...I didn't last night. I just recalled that I only just got back yesterday at mid day. I feel like I have been back for a week already. WHOOPS. The next 22 days are going to be interesting to get through.

Anyhow, I was talking about aftershocks. So we had one, and then 20 minutes later, I was CONVINCED, totally CONVINCED that we just had another one. Smaller than the first one, but I SWEAR I felt the desk move the same one.

I imagined it.

I think that's another whoops.

Let's hope I don't wake up tonight thinking the earth just moved. I don't want to feel that way. Or think that I have some sort of PTSD. That would suck. It would suck for the sake of sucking but also, HOW LAME that aftershocks and not even a real earthquake are giving me PTSD. That really is lame.

I went to the field today. We gave out money, finally today. Went out to do monitoring and it was sooooooooooooo good to work with the guys that I work with. I have this style of hanging back and just watching and letting them learn on the job. It's how I learned. If something is going TOTALLY wrong, yes, I will step in and take charge, but if it's not then let people discover their own rhythm and what works for them and how to make things happen. Everyone is clear on our end result. We all have different ways to get there, but get there we will!

I didn't have a camera. I don't like taking them to the field. I don't like taking photos of people. I probably should but it feels wrong. I have always had an issue about that. Objectifying people. I know it's worth a thousand words, but I'm a better writer than a photographer. That's my excuse. Truthfully, it makes me feel icky. The time it does not, is when I have spent time in a community and they feel comfy with me and vice versa. Then it's ok. Then I don't feel like I am imposing or being rude or just...nasty.

There is so much potential coing out of what we found out today and I do wonder if anything will be done with this or not at all. I have no idea how any of it will play out but I guess we wait and see.

I am getting tired of the wait and see attitude by the way. It's an excuse to me now. An excuse of being afraid to do anything and somehow thinking that saying wait and see and sounding prudent is fine somehow. It's not. Not anymore.

It's inexcusable.

A whinge

2010-04-28T09:20:00.003-04:00

I lost/misplaced/had stolen from me a shit load of money.

I think that bite was a spider bite. It's better now.

I live in a tent.

It's been a 100 degrees.

I live in a tent without a fan and zero air circulation.

I get whistled at a lot. Whistle is the polite way of saying it.

I see things that need to happen or get done, and I can't do them. Not because I don't want to, but because I am not the person to do them.

I feel like running and hiding. Actually, I don't, at all. I want things to MOVE, but it's a little slow, all of it.

-------
I love what I do.
I love who I am.
I think I want to whine because I feel like I should. I can see things that should make me want to whine. But really, it's none of that. None of the above is actually a problem.

The volunteers yesterday were asking me about strategies, since I am a 'trainer, with experience', on how to talk to or approach people when interviewing them.

My answer:

Let me tell you a secret: There is no strategy that can be taught. I like people. I like talking to people. I have seen you guys over the last couple of days, and you like that as well. Listen to people...that's all they really want. Care about people and it shows and people will open up to you. Care about what they are saying to you. Do unto others. Above all...respect people. It really is as simple as that. There is no formula and it's the one thing I have learned working in the sector that I do. There is no checklist, no book that lays it out for you. Be yourself, follow your instinct and your heart...open that heart to others. It's the best thing you can do for yourself and for others around you.

There was a lot of head shaking like in a church and then...as is inevitable, a hand went up.

So, is there a strategy you can give us?

Sleep

2010-04-27T08:48:00.004-04:00

I slept HORRIBLY. It was so still. Hot, muggy and still. I have woken up with a massive bump on my arm (ok, not massive, but largish...it's very obvious when I hold my arm sideways that there is a mini mountain/molehill). It's kinda itchy but not really. And there might be teeth marks in it. Can't imagine what bit me but since I didn't wake up, it wasn't a rat. And since I am still alive, it wasn't poisonous. And it hasn't gotton worse so I am going to not think about it anymore. Slightly pinker is not cause for concern. And to be honest, I am a little bit too tired to actually care unless it decides to self combust.

I wish I had slept better. Hate when that happens.

The last time I was here, in one day, we had three tremors. The last one, in the middle of the night, scared the shit out of me. My whole body went cold. It was right after the second one as well which woke me up.

I have been feeling tremors since I got here. At night. My whole body goes cold and I am convinced there was a tremor but no one else around me moves, and it's probably actually, my neighbour in the tent pod next to me as our camping beds sort of touch and he moves a lot.

I wish my body wouldn't go cold the way it does.

If I am affected from three tremors in one day, small ones mind you, can you imagine what people go through every day here?

That thought, as hackneyed as it is, is real. And I can't let it paralyze me....it needs to galvanize me.

I wish there were a better outlet for the galvanized me.

Inside Disasters

2010-04-26T18:23:00.000-04:00

Trailer...

Watch it.

Inside Disaster Trailer (April 2010) from PTV Productions on Vimeo.

Scary....

2010-04-26T09:30:00.000-04:00

Shit like this, because I'm such a baby, scares the shit out of me. A ghost in a castle..in Scotland.

I grew up with stories about paranormal stuff and witches and djinns etc. And snakes in stoves that protected families. I don't want a snake protecting me. I don't want a ghost or djinn protecting me either.

I close myself off to stuff like that. Because, in my head, I think if I open myself up to, I will see it all around me and that's scary.

I know people, who I respect and trust, who say they talk to djinns. You can control a djinn. Control is the wrong word. I am trying to think of the word in Urdu and how to best translate it in English. The word in Urdu is kaboo. Which means control and possession in the same breath.

My understanding of djinns is that they can travel and appear at will. No waiting in lines at the airport. And they report back.

Witches have feet turned in. I think that's just a thing that has come down from the ages since people differently formed, from polio, perhaps, were seen as misfits.

How hard it must be to be a misfit. Six fingers and toes is good luck in India. Ask Hrithik. You could be a differntly formed human being and it can be a boon or a curse. Depends on where you're at. Where is it that twins are bad luck? I just read about this somewhere.

People don't like different things. They say they do but anyone walking outside the line of normal is shunned in one way or another. We then put a label of special on them to make them feel like it's ok. And it is ok...there need not be a label in the end. We spend so much time worrying about what is normal, and trying to be normal.

No one really is. But we all pretend.

We all lie.

Re visit...

2010-04-25T21:28:00.002-04:00

revisiting my own blog...

I like this post.

It's the first time I felt panic at a new job. First time I was going off to a new mission the way I do now.

Not much has changed from when I wrote that post. Down to leaving my mac behind and being hard on myself and not wanting to pack...I suppose it's comforting...that I can, whatever I do, just be..

me!

End of April...

2010-04-25T20:53:00.006-04:00

I have been waiting for the end of April for what feels like AGES! I know it hasn't been ages. It's here. The end of April started today. It will go for a week. And then it will be May.

How anticlimactic.

Whatever.

Where has the year gone? I had just moved to NYC. It's May already. Wow.

So, here is an embarassing admission. I am TOTALLY into a Britney Spears song. Unusual you. It came onto my iPod today and I was like, wow, what is this, who sang it? And immediately wanted to throw myself out the window when I discovered it was Britney....who I do have a lot of sympathy for, by the way.

Went to Indigo finally. Beach resort type place in Haiti. Brown girl got BURNT (and I laugh at that...yes, I have been burnt...)

Feel very tired which just having a day off can do to you. That with the combination of sun and half a bottle of wine. And never ending heat.

I go home in three days. And it's cool so I can snuggle into a blanket. I can't wait. I want to just sleep. And sleep and sleep and sleep.

And there are miles to go before I get there.

Anywhere.

Innit amazing?

2010-04-24T13:56:00.003-04:00

....that a small change, some words, something, anything can change your mood, completely and totally.

I am no longer restless.

Perhaps, because I know now. I think that was the problem. I didn't know something and now I do and it feels GREAT. I hate not knowing shit. And actually, it's not even like I know, but it's more, I don't NEED to know. Whew. I am about to be a joy to be around and not the moo cow that I was being all morning. I mean, I was still smiling but damn, the difference! I got my music on and am bopping in my chair and it is amusing every single person walking by. Good. I like that.

There was a big bollywood party last night, Basement Bhangra's 13th birthday. I missed it and yesterday, I didn't care. MAN, I wish I had been there and had been able to dance my ass off. I feel like dancing. Lots.

I might actually go to the bar tonight. I might actually be myself again.

Disco wale khisko, aj desi beat bajanee.

Restless

2010-04-24T13:01:00.003-04:00

I'm restless today. Not sure why. Might be the heat. Might be because it's Saturday. Might be because I am sitting behind a desk today.

Have enjoyed training volunteers over the last two days but it is absolutely exhausting. I haven't done this in two years. I was doing LOTS of trainings two years ago. Did some last year as well but I was a co-facilitator so that was easier. I didn't have to be ON all day long. And that is hard. How the hell did I do it before? I am getting old obviously.

Almost lunch time and I am hungry. Good. Cept, it feels too hot to eat.

Why don't I just WHINE this whole entire blog post?

I don't sleep well at night (but am thankful I am in a proper tent with a camp bed or sorts that isn't on the floor on the pebbles).
It's freaking HOT all the time and it's horrible at night (I have nothing positive to say about that...it IS horrible at night and it contributes to the bad sleep).
There is nothing to do other than work (there are and I am being a miserable bastard and not partaking in the bar night activities or talking to people...it just seems like a lot of energy and going back to my hot and stuffy tent seems like a better alternative).

I'm actually done whining. It's not like I have a lot to whine about. I have my social network out here. The breakfast table and I see them for dinner sometimes. Sometimes, I see them in the hallways and we smile at each other knowing that there will be cigarettes and coffee and silence with each other in the morning.

For all the time I seem to spend by myself, I can't seem to stop craving more time. But, I think, given the way i am feeling, that is, perhaps, a bad idea.

That might have been the most commas I have ever used in a sentence.

The pauses. And that is not where comma's go. I know. But, I like that friends reading this can hear me, my voice, that way.

I should look up comma rules.

And I should stop being restless and get up and do some work...

Saturday in Haiti. What joy. But really, what would I be doing anywhere else? Haiti is just Haiti and it's just a backdrop but I would be restless anywhere right now. That much, I do know. Thank god for that.

Sometimes, it's just nice to know.

I gotta feeling....

2010-04-21T11:05:00.003-04:00

That tonight's gonna be a good night....

I love music. This song reminds me of Uganda. I'm trying to recall the first time I heard it. Might have been there. And then they would play it on repeat. Which I do. Songs I love, I play on repeat. I will make a playlist and play it to death. It has baffled people I live with.

I need to have music playing all the time. I remember when we were little and living in Pakistan, we had music always playing in the kitchen. Maybe that's why I love kitchens and music. My mother used to play old Indian songs that she had grown up with and they are still my favorite. She stopped listening to music at some point. She still does every once in a while but not with the crazy fervour that she used to.

God replaced that.

I miss DJ-ing. Something strange happened though. I used to just do it and it was fun and easy and I loved it. I struggle a bit now with it. I mean, I guess I could do it, but I like things to just flow. I was saying that at lunch with colleagues recently. With musical instruments (or anything really in my life). It's not that I don't work hard, I do. But with things that come to me naturally. I'm not into struggling. I don't see the point. The acheivement in the end. I say that but perhaps it's situational.

I have just tangented and JAMMED so much into one paragraph, all half thoughts and sentences.

Musical instruments: I would like/LOVE to play one. But, I want to pick up the cello and just start playing it. That will never happen. I might actually work at it, who knows? Depends on how badly I want it. I was saying at lunch, that perhaps, since I never learned to play an instrument, it's possible that I was a child prodigy at it and it was just never discovered since there wasn't the opportunity for that discovery and perhaps, I am a cello genius and once I pick it up, sweet sweet music will pour forth.

Long fucking shot. Doesn't hurt to dream.

Working hard versus effort versus natural ability: How I wish there were just one witty sentence that I could just write and explain the relational quality of the three vis a vis my life.

It's another sunny day in Haiti.

And I gotta feeling....

Fuel shortage

2010-04-20T08:58:00.001-04:00

There is a serious fuel shortage in Haiti.

This restricts our movements to what is totally necessary.

I know that sentence is not vague, but it is amazing to see what people think is necessary and what is not. One thing I have learned in the Red Cross is to S P E L L O U T what necessary means. Or even better, in an insecure environment, to spell out what common sense or precaution mean. Some people, are idiots.

I have learned to work with the LCDs in this world. I want to put that on my CV. It's a really important skill....and no, I am actually not being facetious about it.

And it's not about being an idiot, it's about communication and just being clear. Which, I think, is fair enough.

I heard about the fuel shortage and am weighing in my head how necessary my outing is tomorrow. Not very. I think we'll survive if I don't go to a coordination meeting or if we don't visit a site that really, I only REALLY must see before next Tuesday.

This time around, I have been able to drive around PaP and see stuff. I have not been to a camp yet...they are in fact, all over the place so it's not like you don't see them, but I know what you see on the outside, and there isn't much that you can see from the outside, it's totally different on the inside. I have heard, and seen photos, and there is no place to walk. People are jammed in next to each other. I would like to see a camp and be inside one, but there is no need for me to do that so I haven't gone yet (just for the fun of it). I feel like I understand that bit enough for the purposes of my being here and adding value.

I don't know how many of the staff that are working in the base camp or how many people who work for the Haitian Red Cross live in camps or outside of camps. I know them as the woman who sits at the reception who is a singer, the finance dude who is a music producer, a field officer who is a business administrator. I hang out with these guys over lunch, we email websites and music to each other, we chat in the hallways. I went to a party in Petionville the other day, (the posh area) and it was a mix of people, expats and Haitians. I could have been anywhere in the world (in an office, in a posh house). A very different world from the camps.

The streets, by the way, are TEEMING with buyers and sellers. TEEMING. A sea of people. Who may or may not be coming from the overflowing camps. It's not like you see someone on the street and think, you live in a camp. It's not even like people that you see in the camps look like they live in camps. What does someone who lives in a camp look like anyhow? The British Red Cross has this great T shirt, which I love wearing...look beyond the label. It's about refugees. It's about dehumanizing people. It's about not seeing the teacher, the civil servant, the engineer, music producer but instead, seeing someone in a camp and that is their identity.

I will get off my soap box.

I feel like I live in a bubble in the base camp. I feel like the people that I work with, the humanitarian community at large, areb living in a bubble of the camps.

I was talking to a friend and asked, what's the furthest place from Haiti?

His answer:

Haiti.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

2010-04-19T20:02:00.006-04:00

I wake up at around 5 30 am. People look at me and are like, hey, you're a morning person!

I am not.

I still say that but I think when I wasn't looking, I became a morning person. It was in Uganda. Perhaps because the light streaming through the curtains (flimsy pieces of shit that they were), woke me up, but I do LOVE a bright sunny day and it does make me feel energized and as if I don't want to be in bed anymore. So, there is that aspect but what does get me out of bed is my morning ritual. Coffe, cigarettes and my computer. I love it.

I love sitting there in the silence, in a space, that's mine (not physically mine but just the space around me, I own that), and it's me and my thoughts and I guess the computer, once I am done checking my emails and facebook (which is still evil), is just an excuse to sit there and just be. Music on, coffee right there and nicotine going through the blood stream.

I used to do this in Sri Lanka as well. Wake up in enough time to be able to just sit for some time before I had to start.

I currently live in a place where 300 plus of us eat communally. There are 2 separate kitchens but it's still a shit load of people to share space with. I feel blessed that I have found the table where there are a bunch of us that just sit, and don't feel the need to talk to each other. It's not grumpy or anything like that. It's lovely companionable silence which we do break on occasion but mostly, we leave each other to it. Cigarettes, coffee, sunshine which is not yet strong when then kitchen opens at 6 30 and a light breeze. Outdoors. It's lovely.

I am just a happier person in the sunshine. I feel as if I was made to function in the sun. I HATE winters and dreary days and need to find someway to mitigate that.

In a place where you are surrounded by people ALL the time, having moments to yourself are special. To have the space to stare off into the distance (at some chemical toilets on the right, people on the left, and in the far distance: clouds). To my mind do what it loves to do and does best...

Run amuck.

Haiti

2010-04-17T10:54:00.003-04:00

I'm back in Haiti.

Maybe I should just end the blog post that way. As always, I have the issue of coming and writing here after a long time and try not to think that way and play catch up since that gets to be overwhelming.

I'm writing since I have been advised to do so. And really, I like writing here. Like I said in my last post, it's a good journal (for the whole world to read), on my life. It is fun to come back and read stuff.

Am still with the Red Cross and we all live in tents. I had never lived in a tent before coming to Haiti. I don't like it much...as in, I don't get WHY people do this for fun. It works for me now, because I have to live like this, and actually, it's fine. It works very well and I am impressed that the RC can keep the show on the road the way they can with so many of us here. And...it's Haiti. My upbeatedness about living in a tent with this mission in no way means that I endorse tent living in other circumstances.

Am working on a massive cash program. Giving people money for what they need. We are doing it through SMS/text and a remittance agency. It's cool. I am not sure, since this is my personal blog how much of it I can write about so I will err on the side of caution. And say NOTHING MORE!

I need to get my iphone to start taking photos and videos so that I can post them up here. Will get on that. And let me end this post in the way that I probbaly end most of my posts...I like this and I am going to get onto writing on my blog again! (I really do mean it when I write that...)

Not really blogging....

2010-03-22T22:13:00.002-04:00

...just messing around.

I was in Panama recently, working...(on my way back home from Haiti), and I went to my blog. I googled someone and was like, wait a second...what shows up when I google myself..and of course my blog does. I started reading, when I should have been working but was pretty brain dead by then, and was looking at old old old posts. I love that I have this blog and that I do come and record my life every once in a while. I went to Sri Lamka round one and got all sentimental about my first time in the field. My first mission. It was all very sweet.

I have been blogging for...almost five years? Something like that, and it's like coming and reading an old diary of mine. It makes me want to blog again, properly. How many times have I said that?

I am back in NYC but haven't really been here. Was here for a week and then off to the UK for a training and then was back for a week and then Haiti and then am back for two weeks and another two months in Haiti.

I didn't have time to even pick my nose when in Haiti, much less blog. It was FULL ON, but totally awesome. I loved it. Adored it and was reminded how MUCH, how very very much I miss it. It was my first time in an emergency setting like that. It felt very emergency to me but it was still a month after. I would love to go in right at the on set of something and work in that. I have no idea how I would fare in it, but something tells me I would like it. And that I might even thrive on it. Which is a bit dangerous...on different levels.

Lots of people I know already think I am some sort of a disaster junkie, and I might very well be. I think about what I go out to do and won't do it (and people that hire me, won't let me do it) if I am just going to be in the way. I don't know how to quantify/qualify what I can bring to a situation like that since I'm not a doctor or an engineer or something tangible like that. But I do feel strongly that I do have an added value out there. It's something I struggle with and have struggled with for a while...and will continue to struggle with. Which, I think, is a good thing. Self doubt keep you on your toes. And one (I) need that for what I do.

The time I am spending in NYC, I am enjoying. Catching up with family and friends which is much needed. We have had a fab four days of weather (which ended with horrible rain today and for the rest of the week) and I have actually been working as well...which is kinda shocking given how lazy I can be. I have been taking French classes.

My head hurts SO much..or did the first three days. I felt like a total dolt and was speaking in a way kids in high school do when they are embarrassed to be speaking in a foreign language and don't really want to make the effort. Figured that I didn't want to lose my Spanish and actually, deep down, I am frustrated by French and how everything, though written differently, must sound the same. I am also frustrated that there was a time, when my brain was a sponge, that I didn't struggle so much with it and was able to hold conversations and now, I get what is being said to me for the most part, but god damn, speaking back to people is really tough.

Having said that, I am so eager to just talk to people, that I will do what I always do. Speak badly, but speak I must! Practice will get me there. And necessity. The great impetus of necessity will most certainly get me there.

I hope necessity is there on the other side...everyone speaks Creole, which I am not learning. Which might be a mistake. I think I will like Creole. It's written as it's heard..which I like. Lots. Like Spanish.

Ok, enough babbling. Micky is struggling with my taxes while I play scrabble and blog. Which is very notty of me. But he needs to concentrate and this keeps me from talking to him and asking him questions pretending to be helpful to keep the guilt away that I won't do my own taxes when all he really needs to do is have me shut up and get on with his mathematical genius.

Back in NYC!

2010-01-12T16:58:00.004-05:00

Woohoo, I back in NYC! We moved here. For me, that means I am back home but for M it means a whole new life in a partially new country. And in the best city in the world. He grew up coming to California in the summers since his dad worked out here for like ten years so he is not so new to American culture (plus, he married an American so there is no escaping).

I felt like I would quickly acclimate to living in London when I first moved there and very quickly realized, umm, they might speak English but dude, this is totally a different country and culture to the one I know. I thought I was taking time off and would not be foreign but that just wasn't the case. I felt even more foreign out in the UK. It was all very strange but once I got over it, I lived a good life out there. Looking forward to seeing how M adjusts to life in the awesome city of NYC.

So looking forward to having a nice life and living with all my stuff surrounding me....having said that, I have a SHIT LOAD of stuff. I keep throwing it out and somehow, it keeps accumulating. I don't really get it. I have yet to unpack (that's tomorrow and M arrives tomorrow too, with his visa in hand!), so we will see if it all fits in our fab new loft that we are subleasing in Brooklyn.

I am thrilled to be back in Brooklyn. New neighbourhood for me but not so far from the other one I lived in before.

Haiti is in the news today. Been following it on my favourite thing to follow stuff on: Twitter! If you are not signed up, you should. It's awesome but I have already blogged about how awesome I think it is here.

There are tons of movies that I want to go and see, and readings and art exhibits and TV serials (we are on season four of the wire, which I adore). There are also tons of people that I want and need to catch up with and see and chill out with. Life is good.

I needed to get this first post out after a while so that I don't feel the need to catch up. So I have just babbled here instead of really writing anything substantial (one could argue that none of my posts are actually substantial). I also need to stop writing since my younger sister is sitting on my head and won't let me write and I need to pay attention to her (yeah, you...you actually read this blog...you da best!).

Yay for NYC, yay for blogging (maybe), again, and yay for life.

Off to Soroti!

2009-09-16T01:28:00.002-04:00

I am so totally excited....I am off to the field. Woohoo! Outside of Kampala for the first time.

Am organizing a recovery training in Uganda and we need a place where we can do field visits and have the training there as well. Four hours away, we have Soroti and it's been recommended, so I am realllllly hoping this works out.

I leave in about an hour and I have yet to pack. Or get anything organized. So I am off to do that.

If anyone else has recommendations for places in Uganda to have trainings, pass them on!

It's published, it's published!

2009-09-14T10:39:00.001-04:00

I don't know why I am so excited about this, but I am. Desicritics published my twitter piece about the Kampala riots. You can go and read it here for now. I would need to reformat the WHOLE thing to put it up here, and I will since I am proud of it.

Watch this space!

I twittered and tweeted and now I Wii.

2009-09-14T02:59:00.004-04:00

Hello everyone! I am feeling super happy today. Why? Because, my friends, I did it. I ACTUALLY wrote a post about twitter. You have to wait to see it since I had to FIRST put it up on the desicritics website because they will not publish stuff that has been previously published. It was a real hang up for me to write. See, on my blog here, I can just come on and write and it's not a big deal. For some reason, I have a real mental hangup writing on other blogs. This is why I have been unable to blog for work. They asked me to, they trained me to but I just feel like there are too many quality control issues and I can't deal with that pressure. This space, my blog, is MY space. I can say or do anything and it just feels better.

So, I blogged about the riots we have been having in Kampala and I'm very proud of the post and as soon as they publish it over on the other site, I will put it up here. Yay!

In the meantime, my darling husband returned from a week of working in the UK at his head office and he brought back a Wii!!!! Woohoo! I had been wanting one for the last two years and would forget to mention it to him and out of nowhere, he brings one home. He's so great. I love you, Micky.

My body is in so much pain. I am so utterly unfit, it's sad. The stupid Wii Fitness thingie calculated my fitness age, and though my BMI is PERFECT, I have the fitness age of a 42 year old. It's only because they had this one test, where you have to shift your weight around to fit into these tiny blue boxes, and dude, I can shift my weight around as well as the best of them, it's just that I can't coordinate my eyes with my legs very well so I totally messed up that test. It's not fair, but that's ok.

My knitting, a blog post waiting to happen, with photos (!) has now been put to the side but it's ok, since I am almost done with the great knitting project of Aug-Sept 09. I have never knitted this much in my life and having M away for a week helped with that.

I added something TOTALLY cool to my blog by the way. It's on the right hand side. Scroll down a bit. It's a live traffic feed thingie and it shows me where people are visiting from! I love it. I still love my cluster maps thingie too but this one is more precise. Like Burdett NY...who are you? Tunisia, you came on too. How freakin cool that I can stalk people who stalk me. I can't really stalk you, it just tells me where you have logged on from, but really, that's good enough for me. I am a lame stalker when it comes down to it.

I now need to go and work but i wanted to touch base, say hi and share my joy of being well, alive and soon to be super productive at work!

Itching to blog!

2009-09-03T15:36:00.003-04:00

So, I have been wanting to blog. I keep going and seeing my cluster map and it tells me about visits in each 24 hour period and it's cool when I post, that I do get traffic (not because I am trying to be popular but I do find it fascinating to connect to people in this way...RANDOMLY).

Speaking of connecting to people....I made a new friend! Through my blog!! Again!!! You know who you are, new friend. I use the term loosely. A fellow resident in Kampala came and left a comment on my blog...confirming my worst fears about jiggers (they do exist...they are actually called mango flies...I had my facts wrong-Micky did, to be fair and I do believe him...most of the time) and they do lay eggs in your body. Thanks new friend!

Here's the thing: If I see this expat mom in the grocery store...I will have no idea, but she will know it's me and Micky since there are photos of us up. I have over thought this, but still, it's fun and I'm bored in Kampala. I went to the 24 hour Nakumatt the other day and was like, OMG, it could be her, or her or her...and then I realized that was lame and I should be more nonchalant about it...y'know...play it cool and shit. Not be walking around the Nakumatt (with the carts they have to entertain little kids but they fit me and my arm span better...I'm not super short...I do have super long arms though)...where was I? Oh, right, the Nakumatt...right, so I should not be walking around there at 10 pm on a school night gawking at every white woman who passes me by (the only thing I know about my new reader is that she's an expat mom (guessing white) who grocery shops but can't be arsed to go to the post office...ahem).

I have totally over thought the situation but it is awesome to get comments from people and have that connection.

I asked her not to stalk us and now she's definitely not going to. I am not a weirdo, I promise...not like a major one at least. Someone, a chartered accountant in fact, which is a good profession, married me, so I can't be totally insane...though I bet a chartered accountant could be totally creepy when not at work...mine isn't and he doesn't do the whole CPA thing anymore anyways.

On another note, I read a book on tweeting by Tee Morris. Called All a Twitter. I'm not a total newbie at it and I learnt some good stuff. Yay for that. I want to write about it but I want to do it first on the desicritics website since they won't publish previously published stuff. So any reviews etc, I am going to write up there first and then post here after...annoying but I can understand. I have no pretensions of turning into a social media anything...well, a practitioner..a user. I just wanted to know if I was using it right and getting the most out of it. There were things I didn't get when I saw them posted, but now I get it! And can't wait for #followfriday!

There is a post about facebook and twitter that need to happen. Everyone writes about it now. I mean, they have been, but all of a sudden, when there is no news (no news of strategic interest to America), they come out with a FB or twitter article. Each contradicting the other.

I might just write the post, so I should stop. My hand hurts anyhow from writing too many thank you cards and playing computer games. Still have not finished writing the damn cards.

I wanted to blog, and I did. Well done me.

We got married!

2009-08-30T08:55:00.002-04:00

We got married. We did it. Yay for us.

I felt like I needed to announce that on my blog. Do we feel any different? Not really. We deiced to move to NYC and stop the hobo nomad life and have nice kitchen appliances. I guess that counts.

I think the change is more for Micky than me. Maybe I am in denial about the changes.

I think the changes are more subtle. Like, for instance, I feel like doing more things for him…like cooking and getting him a glass of water when he wakes up. Subtle and TOTALLY LAME changes. What the hell am I turning into??? I shouldn’t be mean to myself. It’s cool that I love Micky that much.

I might be turning a molehill into a mountain and attributing normal love patterns into marriage changes. I don’t really have a way to know, though, do I? It’s not like parallel universe me, living in sin with Micky is sending me messages or anything. Biatch.

Am going to add a tag to my blog called married life and just attribute anything and everything to it. That should be fun.

My active life on facebook means, by the way, that I live facebooked my wedding, instead of live blogging it. Facebook sucks and I am addicted to it.

Some photos for your viewing pleasure. It was a blast.

View from the Bride cam!

The wedding ceremony...and elephanta.

Chillin with Elephanta..before I make my entrance.

Tunga penetrans

2009-08-30T08:25:00.007-04:00

Normally, in my profession, when you move to a new country, you get a security briefing, which is not just about the conflict etc in the area but also on health issues. Since I have moved without actually being assigned to a delegation and as a consultant, I am on my own (my line managers back in Geneva and London are kick ass so I’m not really alone)…

Lucky for me, Micky actually got a briefing etc from his agency and when I arrived, he sat me down and gave me the low down. He did this since he knows now from experience how seriously I take security briefings…he was my boss in our last job. He talked about the north of the country (it’s pretty much fine now and we aren’t really going there anyhow), the situation in Kampala (so safe and so nice), atms and credit cards (not as bad as it could be), health (malaria in the country, but not so much in Kampala, yellow fever but we are both vaccinated against that and oh, there are these things called jiggers…they lay eggs in your body and get into your clothes and it can cause an infection and…WHAT??????) My jigger paranoia, like a female jigger attaching itself to your body, took root.

It’s the only thing I have been terrified of in Uganda. The dreaded jigger. You can get malaria, bilharzias and other nasties but the one that has captured and wrecked havoc with my imagination is the jigger. There is something so totally gross about the idea of something getting into your body (and it’s miniscule), laying its eggs and multiplying. I know Micky and I are perfect for each other since so many things point to it (and I just KNOW), but he laughed when he saw my face when he first told me about jiggers and said he had the same reaction when getting his briefing. We bond on our mutual jigger fascination (ok, mine is a way more heightened fascination).

It must have been high school, and this is probably an urban legend, but I heard this story about this girl who got a spider ‘bite’ but really, it was a spider laying it’s eggs in her face. What started out as a pimple, grew and grew and one day, shit loads of baby spiders emitted from the girl’s face. I have carried that story with me for so long and the story about the woman who stuck a lobster up herself and the lobster, I guess, ejaculated inside her and the next day, she started having lil baby lobsters (which when she saw that, she freaked out, hit her head on the bathroom floor and died).

Neither of these stories is probably true but they make excellent daymare material.

I walk around Kampala and our house citing any issues on jiggers.

I got a suspicious looking bite on my inner thigh which kept growing. I was not a happy camper. The only person who took me seriously that this could be a jigger bite was my mom, a bonified doctor who knows her tropical diseases. Bless her. It wasn’t diagnosed as a jigger bite in the end, and some antibiotics cleared up whatever it was (sort of), but that’s not the point. I just finally googled jiggers and wikipedia says that (thankfully), the eggs actually fall out so there will be no baby jiggers growing in me, HOWEVER, I could still have a jigger bite and other nasty consequences (which wikipedia doesn’t get into and my internet is too slow and I am too scared (and a hypochondriac to boot which really, doesn’t need ANY more encouragement) to look up other sites), could still occur.

What a totally horrible sentence. It’s because I add things after writing one complete sentence. I have a parentheses problem.

Maybe it was a jigger bite, and this means that there are now baby jiggers growing into adult jiggers at my parent’s place in NJ. Whoops.

I am putting myself on a medical alert and am shouting out to Micky as I type this to monitor me for jigger reactions.

He just looked at me and said, that’s nice and smiled and went back to his computer. Hmph! You wait till I start frothing at the mouth in a jigger reaction, buddy.

Wikipedia also says that jigger is an ethnic slur. That’s not nice. It means lots of things actually.

It’s a small town in Louisiana.

Tennis!

2009-07-28T06:07:00.004-04:00

So, I love tennis. I may have nothing more to say about it than that. Played for the first time last night...like properly played...though it was lessons so that doesn't really count as playing, but still. I am sore. Very. My upper body gets a zero work out and is very weak so this is an excellent sport to go with for me. It will force me to get some arm strength. Sometimes, when I carry home some grocery shopping and walk for 15 minutes, my arm shakes with the trauma of it. That's the definition right there, of a total sad-o.

Sad-o is a great word. Mick used it on me (I was whining about being away from him..because I am a sad-o) but then I heard my British boss use it too! I was going to credit Mick with creating a cool word but I think it's a part of the Brit lingo, (something I am still figuring out). Lucky for me, my boss didn't use it in conjunction with me. Whew. I would have had to quit my job. I do and seek constructive criticism but when I get it, I get really gutted about it. Gutted is another good Brit word. I think I have heard it used in the States as well, but not in the same way and with the same feeling that the Brits do. I have started picking up Brit words...not a surprise though, is it? That's pretty good though, innit? By the way...when Micky calls me a sad-o, he says it in the sweetest way ever. That's yet another sad-o remark from me. I'm going to tape him and put the audio on here and then you guys will see what I mean (and agree with me).

I was speaking about tennis. It's great. I have immense issues in moving my whole body around, not using my wrists but my elbows and whole body instead and I can't do a proper follow through. I had a one hour lesson and it was very funny to hear the guy shouting at me...in a good way. He was like, WHY are you scared of the ball? Stop crouching down! Direction, please, direction! Follow through, don't use your wrists only!

All in all a good lesson and i am thrilled to be playing a sport and learning how to play one. I am trying to recall and I think this might be true...: I have never really learned how to play a sport before. Not swimming (jump in the pool and don't drown), not badminton (hit the birdie), not soccer (my first broken bone, my wrist, in gym class when I was 14, so that put an end to that), not baseball, not basketball, not cricket (swing; jump and shoot for the hoop; if you can do baseball, cricket is easy). So, actually taking lessons to learn how to properly hold a racket is really great (and there is a proper way to hold the racket...I let go of the my way or the highway and I'm special and rules don't apply to me attitude pretty fast once I figured out that just placing my thumb closer to my fingers and not in a wayward way which I wanted to, made a huge difference).

Lessons will have to take a three week break while I go off and get married but am realllly looking forward to the next one...which is where I will re-learn everything since I will have forgotten it by that point. Oh well. Maybe I will just take a racket and swing it around and get practice. And do push ups to get some arm strength going. Micky is going to have real competition.

Next things to learn: Cello and Golf. I wonder if they have lessons for that here. Or the piano. Or violin. Any musical instrument that doesn't require me to blow into it. My lungs would never cope. Also need to learn Luganda...though most people speak English out here but I have a real issue with not being able to speak or at least follow along with context if I live someplace. Really annoys me. Feels like you are half under water most of the time. It's amazing how much ambient noise and sound are actually conversations and the amount we can pick up about where we live and how we live through that.

I was going to hit publish for this post right there, but realized that there is little finesse to my writing actually. I could do better. End with a flourish or something. Or at least some coherence?

Maybe next time.

Visitors....toooreeeroooreee (creepy sci-fi music)

2009-07-27T05:59:00.004-04:00

I have a cluster maps thing on the right hand side on my blog. Scroll down and you can see it. I am obsessed by it. Only because of the random places people log on from to see my blog. The Uganda blob on the map is obviously me. And Micky...I make him read my blog everything I put something on it so that counts as two people. Though just one click. Such efficiency.

Have had this cluster map for a while but they recently archived it..which is a good thing since it was just becoming one big red dot over the world and you can't really see what's going on then. Since I have started writing again, have had about 184 visits. I have more facebook friends than that, but I am pretty sure they are not clicking on my blog..and not from the Middle East. I am pretty sure that I currently do not have friends in the Middle East...or in Ukraine. Or in Israel, Senegal and Argentina (or is it Peru?) to name just a few of the lonely one off clicks to my blog. Who are you people? I know I come on and ask every once in a while...WHO ARE YOU?? but that's only because it is fascinating to know that people are logging on and reading me, but I don't know them and they don't know me. Why would you even want to know me? I'm not that scintillating regardless of what I tell Micky every day about my never ending charms.

Tell me people, who are you? How in the world did you find me?

Feeling like home

2009-07-27T03:30:00.003-04:00

It is beginning to feel like home now. I was getting all crabby about it right at the start but realized, I am a dum dum who likes to create her version of home wherever she goes and that's not always possible..not only is it not possible, it's dumb to do that since it closes you off to all sorts of experiences and why would I want that? Micky on the other hand, loves to go jumping off the cliffs of his comfort zone..which is why I love him. I think he's fearless and it's a good counterpart to my private fear filled life.
He seems to be more the cautious one...he certainly gives off that impression but really, it's me who is way more cautious, totally risk averse and he will happily put on a helmet (that's his cautious side) and just jump.

We had planned to go away this weekend but explored Kampala instead. We got into a car and just drove around to places that we had heard about and wanted to check out. Health clubs mostly. We want to play a sport. Badminton is normally what we like to play but with the wind, we need an indoor court. Turns out both of us are going to plan tennis instead. I can't play and never have and M plays badly so we are guessing we might be somewhat matched up. We go tonight and have the first game. Very exciting. I got an instructor for the first session so that I can at least get an idea of how to hold a racket and what I should be doing instead of just pretending that I am Venus Williams and getting really frustrated that I'm actually not.

We also found a great place to dance. I have not danced in ages and I love it and was really very pleased that close by to our place, is a bar called Iguana, which is where most people end up going at night. It's a real party town, Kampala, by the way. People get home at 6 am. We are still lame and get there early and leave early, but I have a plan. It's called a nap. Like I used to in NYC. To get me prepped for the long night ahead, though I discovered much to my joy and possibly Micky's doom, good music will wake me up and I need nothing else...cept for maybe some more stamina. I was getting a good workout dancing around and pushed myself harder than I do when exercising...it's just way more fun to dance than run. Running has it's lovely moments though.

Speaking of running (none of which I am doing right now)...I read the Murakami book. What I think about when I think about running. Or some long winded title like that. I LOVED it. Adored it. I am a long distance, neither quality nor quantity, runner. I love the long runs and don't do fast. I can't even really call myself a runner. It's more like a trot but I still love it. Micky does fast and short runs but I am happier going off and just being out there for an hour. And following random thoughts and just letting everything go. It's brilliant and I would love to find a place to run in hilly Kampala, but till I get fitter, that just ain't gonna happen.

We got some more things for the house, we made some better meals, things are looking up. It will most certainly feel like home when we get back from our three week wedding break. I know what to expect, I know where most things that I need are, we have a carpet in the house that I love, and a lamp as well, all my spices that I need and those that I don't have, I now know to bring them from home. It's perfect. So...yay for Kampala, my new home.

Painting weekend!

2009-07-20T04:50:00.003-04:00

Mick is working for VSO out here (no, not as a volunteer...first question he gets asked: Where's your placement?). The VSO volunteers in Kampala, there are about 30 of them (disclaimer: I know very little about VSO and am still learning...my info is not necessarily correct!), got together this weekend (most of them, not all) and were painting Ward 3 at Mulago Hospital. Ward 3 is where malnourished kids come for treatment. It was really fun and I have some photos which have miraculously loaded onto my work computer. It's a real strain to have to re-learn an IBM computer. I was using one previously at work but not for play and it's the play part that I have to learn again.

Anyhow, we went both days but not as early as everyone else but we had an excuse for the second day we went...we made lunch. A huge biryani for the carnivores and some pasta for the vegetarians. Very fun, met good people and life in Kampala settles down some more (just as we up and leave for three weeks for our wedding). I am supposed to be blogging for work and will start doing that soon and even though I work for the Red Cross, I think there will be a combination post on VSO and the Red Cross. Red Cross is all about volunteers afterall and since M started working for VSO, there's been lots of thoughts I have been having about volunteers and what it all really means...for now...photos for your viewing pleasure...

Actually, the internet is being bad and won't upload my photos....(I am blaming the internet and not my own IBm deficiencies...)..photos later, post now.

Rozee.Pk

2009-07-17T03:32:00.005-04:00

I'm a livelihoods person. It is only fitting that I write about a friend's website that I had known about in the back of my head but only just fully looked at today. Rozee.Pk. Rozee means....livelihood! It's a jobsite for Pakistanis looking for jobs in...you guessed it, Pakistan! Monis was kind enough to give me a quote for my blog:

ROZEE.PK is Pakistan's most powerful recruiting platform used by over 1,000,000 professionals and 20,000 employers. Even Zehra uses it. She would be an asset to any organization that does not have a drug screening policy.

What a nice guy. He's the CEO of Naseeb networks (some of you might know Naseeb.com..it's like Match.com but for Muslims). I got onto Naseeb at its inception and was pretty quickly banned for writing down my hobbies of coke and sex. I think I also lost my password and did only get onto it since my younger sister wanted me to be on it. We just wanted to check it out since we are bitches and wanted to laugh at people but as you can see when you visit the website, there have been great sucess stories about people meeting and hooking up and finding real love. In a place like Pakistan where dating is still mostly frowned upon, what a great way to find someone rather than being set up by your extended family and parents.

I think it's very cool that Pakistan has all these things now. Very much needed. Rozee.Pk has a accompanying blog that has posts on how to write a good CV, what the hottest jobs and trends are, making decisions about your career and info on physical and virtual jobs fairs (Rozee is the first to host such events).

My fave article, from which even I learned something was the one on writing a good CV. My fave quote from that article is:

Create a professional email address, preferably with your own name e.g. “omar.khan@hotmail.com”. Don’t use a humorous or inappropriate email address such as “lover_boy@hotmail.com”. This may make a recruiter smile but won’t fetch you an interview.

So, go check it and let Monis know what you think. Tell him Zehra sent you.

And no, coke and sex are not my hobbies. They are necessities.

Update: For all you concerned citizens out there, I don't do coke. And I am not a sex addict. Thank you for all your emailed concerns though. Much appreciated. It was artistic license. And a dig at Monis.

Moment of Truth

2009-07-16T02:43:00.005-04:00

For the last couple of nights, we have been seeing promos for Sach ka Saamna. It's based on an US TV show called Moment of Truth (I think that's what it's called). It's like Who wants to be a millionaire but the truth will get you there (translated tag line of the show, the last bit). Haven't seen the US version (or heard of it before this Indian version of the show). We got intrigued and did watch it last night...in complete horror (!!!) at the questions being asked. It was the last thing I thought about before going to bed last night.

We thought it would be a dumb show but Jesus H Christ. The questions they ask can be answered in so many ways but it's a yes or no show. What I love about Indian TV is how they can take a show and make it so Indian. Unapologetically. India's Got Talent is another favorite and will get a post on it's own. Getting back to this show...

The questions being asked got more and more personal. And horrible. The woman who was up didn't win in the end and she was like, ummm, it's not true and the host was just like, umm, sorry, the polygraph is the only one who can make that decision. The question she lost on (spoiler alert) was: Would you sleep with another man if your husband would never find out. She said no, but the polygraph in the sky said she was lying.

The whole time she was answering terrile questions about her mom, kids, and husband and I kept thinking, it's ok, they'll forgive her since she'll win lots of money and everyone will be happy. Now, she has no money, and her whole family hates her AND, the worst thing in an Indian society, EVERYONE FREAKIN KNOWS!

The show ended and I was thinking if I could go on a show like that and decided immediately that there was no way and turned to Micky and told him to go onto the show since he is such a good clean boy and he looked at me in panic and was like, HELL NO. I then started asking him the horrible kinds of questions from the show and he stuck his fingers in his ears and started humming.

Once M resurfaced as a human again, we got to talking about the show and that it's not fair that you can ask questions that are about thinking or feeling. Like in a parallel universe where your actions have no consequences, would you sleep with another man if your husband would never find out? have you ever thought about cheating on your husband? (Micky said he would answer yes to that since his brain works in a way where even if he thinks another girl is hot and that he would do her, that constitutes cheating...how sweet. But really, you can't control if you think someone else is hot...and that you would do them...that's human nature! It doesn't constitute cheating in my book). It's about your brain getting the question down to an essence really and concentrating on what you think the answer is. But only super spy brains work like that. The rest of us are screwed. It's the thought police coming to get you.

Anyone seen the American version of the show? Is it really horrible too?

Have stolen episode one from youtube for your viewing pleasure. You can follow along even though it's in Hindi. The questions flash up in English as do the answers.

Kitchen Stories.

2009-07-15T06:50:00.005-04:00

Why is it considered rude to have a guest or someone wash their hands at your kitchen sink? At the office two days ago (my first day here), the woman helping me out with my lunch looked at me shyly and was like, is it ok if you wash your hands here?

I grew up washing my hands at the kitchen sink. The only thing my mom didn't want us to do was spit in the sink since I guess that's where our dishes were. Though, if they are in the sink, they are dirty and it's not like my spits going to make it any more dirtier.

I do the same with guests at my place. Direct them to a place to wash their hands outside of my kitchen when the kitchen sink is about 2 feet away. Is there a reason we do this other than pretensions of humility that the dirt on someone's hands are is far superior to my dirty dishes? I am doing them a favour by letting them use soap and water in my house and practice good public health. I have started washing my hands obsessively, by the way. All the hygiene promotion sourse work I did rings in my ears all the time, especially since I seem perpetually covered in dust. I got some Dettol soap, especially for the kitchen sink.

Speaking of kitchen sinks...ours got blocked last night. Actually, last night, all in all, was a bad night. We cooked our first (and I sincerely hope our last) worst ever meal of our shared life. Neither of us ate much of the steak and mushrooms we made.

The steak was freaking me out and the mushrooms were freaking Micky out. As M put it:
It all tastes too real. As if the cow and the mushrooms were just walking around two minutes ago and we just cooked it.

Perhaps we are too used to processed foods (I tend to buy organic when I have the chance, so not sure how much that argument holds water but it sounded good last night when nothing else came to mind as to why we hated our meal so much).

We ate chocolate and beer instead. Thank god for small miracles.

Seriously?!?

2009-07-14T04:11:00.005-04:00

Am feeling seriously annoyed by this photo on the AlertNet website. It's the photo of the day.

An Afghan woman wearing a burka and platform shoes squeezes past a donkey on a suspension bridge over a river in Kashem district of Afghanistan's Badakhshan province.
REUTERS/Tim Wimborne

Why am I annoyed? Not only because the photo when you click on it is named burkadonkey but also because for some reason people seem to think that capturing a woman wearing a burka, with gasp, platform shoes is newsworthy or photo worthy. As if women who cover up have no sense of style and that it's incongrous in some way. It's not.

Check out the blog, hijabstyle where it's all about hijab and style. The article the link takes you to is about top designers who are trying to break into the hijab market. As a former hijab wearer, I can tell you that my sense and desire for style remained intact and it would have been ridiculous to assume otherwise. It's a whole different matter that the regime people live under will stone you for having a sense of style and that is not what this post is about. It's about me taking umbrage at the way in which the photo is showcased and captioned.

So, please people, stop with the stupid photos of women in burkas who show some style and thinking that it's some new discovery. It's not.

My New Home: Kampala, Uganda

2009-07-13T04:52:00.002-04:00

Here I am...in Kampala, uganda. As of about ten days ago. They have wireless here. Sitting in the Ugandan Red Cross office (first day) and it's FAB. I love it. It's quiet and since no one really knows me or what I am doing here, no one is asking me to be in meetings or coming over and talking to me. I love it. I need the time and space for a bit to just be able to get some work done.

Have already moved into and had first weekend of home rehab on the new two bedroom flat. Flat makes it sound like an apt building. It is and it's not. It's part of a complex of five apts, basically. Not free stnading but not stacked on each other either. I didn't want to have to do that anymore. I was despairing of it when I moved in but I thin it's because I did it by myself and once micky came back, it was OK and we did have a good weekend giving it some loving touches. Photos soon. Have switched computers yet again but have not moved everything over as yet. Will get on it, soon enough.

Am hoping to be blogging more regularily..and in fact, will be blogging for work (once they sort out my contract issues)...Will let you all know where that is...

Yay for Kampala...it is lovely and I do need to write about it and I will but i am starting off slow...an teaser, an intro if you like, just to let everyone know tha I have moved.

Quote of the day.

2009-04-30T15:36:00.004-04:00

Sometimes in life we come across lines that will just floor us and we need to know the context in order to be so floored.

Some of you will get why what Mahinda has said below has me peeing in my pants from laughing so hard.

I can kiss a job in Sri Lanka good bye after posting this and I don't care. It's outrageous. Maybe I can work for someone other than the Red Cross (sacrilege!)

COLOMBO, April 30 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Thursday his government had no intention of a ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels, telling international critics the military's actions constituted a "humanitarian operation".

Full article courtesy of Alert Net can be read here.

Long suffering blog

2009-04-14T12:26:00.002-04:00

My poor blog. I have been ignoring it. I have meant to write, really and truly, I have. I've just not managed to find time to write, which sounds really lame as I am sitting and typing this.

I just had to get up and move away from my computer but I am determined to get one post out atleast. Have been reading some graet blogs of late and will update mine with the links to those accordingly. Am in London and working at the head office at the British Red Cross as a recovery officer (Knowledge sharing) and it's a joint position with IFRC. Liking the job very much so. Am also getting married in the near future (August) so the blog might starting talking about that aspect of life as well....how exciting.

For now, will post two youtube thingies that I saw over this Easter Break at the home of the inlaws on Britian's got talent. We all know how much I love this shit.

Not allowed to embed it so go see it here

And this next one, not as fave as the first one but still pretty cool.

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Million years

2008-09-11T01:23:00.002-04:00

It totally does feel like a million years since I have written here. I am so sorry, especially to all those who have written and not complained, per se, but asked me to write again. Bad Z. But here I am, and going to write. I started using Twitter too. Hmmm. Not sure how I feel about it, but let's see. Read this awesome article in the NYTimes, (which you can find here), called the Brave New Digital World. I like how it is written. Got me on Twitter. AND to come and update my blog. I don't know why I have been so lazy about it. I just have.

But am back and will try to write more frequently. There is lots going on all over the world. I have to wake up early tomorrow so can't write lots now. I have a phone interview!

Amanat Ali

2008-06-23T10:15:00.003-04:00

most of you, I am sure, know this man. I can't believe I didn't write about him before. Like American Idol, India has htis show called SaReGaMaPa (that's the different sur's one sings in...sur is...tone)...Anyhow, I think this guy is toooooooo cool and I love hearing him sing and I didn't see it on TV but on my beloved You Tube, which I have not had time to scour with the same urgency I used to in London. Grad school obviously didn't keep me busy enough....

He didn't win the competition in the end however, he should have.

It's a lovely song. Dude is from Pakistan. They get internationals in to sing. It's a fun show. I have no idea what is going on with it now. There was this girl from America on the show too. Mauli something. She sang well too and didn't stop being her bad ass desi American self.

Stuff like this makes me mad

2008-06-02T00:44:00.004-04:00

Ok, so I am just as concerned as the next person about the victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, but god, I am getting irritated and sick at the whole conversation around letting in foreign aid workers (and I am well aware that my livelihood depends on being let into places)...

A quote from this alert net article:

A major problem in delivering foreign aid has been an inability to get enough international aid workers into the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta due to visa hurdles and red tape.

And more:

"We haven't been able to get the whole mechanism going. Progress has been slow," Hakan Tongul, deputy director in Myanmar of the U.N.'s World Food Programme, told Reuters in Yangon.
Around 500,000 people have received some food and water since the storm struck nearly a month ago, but another 200,000 have received no international help at all, he said.
"CRIMINAL NEGLECT"
Some 45 U.N. visa requests were approved after junta leader Senior General Than Shwe promised last week to allow in "all" legitimate foreign aid workers, but obstacles remain.
One western aid worker said on Saturday that a two-day processing period to enter the delta area, which had been earlier cut from two weeks, had now increased to three.
Speaking to reporters in Singapore, Gates, whose government is one of Myanmar's harshest critics, accused the generals of "criminal neglect".

The Criminal Neglect from my POV is the fact that we have people that need help, we seem to think that only FOREIGN aid workers can do this, there is WFP on the ground and should just be mobilizing local people (who are going to the regions to deliver aid themselves, whatever they can afford to), and instead, our hang up is on visas to let in WESTERN aid workers. Have all the other people/aid workers in the world that is not in the WEST died or something ? Is it really just rhetoric when we talk about community participation and consultation and local solutions since when we have the time to show that yeah, it's not just lip service and local solutions, partners, communities can be used, we sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for the WESTERN experts to come in.... such bullshit.

If we as the international community were really concerned about the PEOPLE, the victims (of both the cyclone and the regime (and with that line, there goes any chance of my job there)), we would be making huge efforts to get aid to the people in any manner we could. I refuse to believe that agencies on the ground already cannot do that. Just cuz some foreign aid workers can't get in everyone gets into a huff. So childish. Organize with what you have on the ground, and if you have people who are willing to work, you can do this. It is that simple. if the UN thinks there is still relief that needs to go out, GO DO IT using the local capacities available and there are local capacities available....there always are. Deal with the messed up nature of the government later. Now is not the time for petty politics. Gawd!

Dear Future Employer

2008-05-28T01:28:00.003-04:00

You may have googled me and found my blog...I don't really hide it. My current employer big boss man just recently, as in this last week, said to me, careful Zehra, your blog is out there and more and more, employers use google and can see blogs etc and read about you and gauge your employability on it. I didn't believe that employability was a word but my spell checker is not picking it up so I guess it is...good one. Learned something new today, but I digress...

I think it's sweet that my Big Boss is telling me to be careful of my internet footprint. I don't want to make fun of British people since I do love them, but dude, how is it that they are sooooooo far behind on the curve? Things always seem to be at least 5 years behind in the UK than they are in the States. I am fully aware and would hope that I would be googled before I took a job. I google future potential employers. (MR if you are reading this since I just applied for a job with you, only good interesting things showed up)...

I am who I am, and this blog is meant to entertain and keep me sane. It's thoughts and bits and pieces all strung together and it's mostly apolitical...mostly. But when working, I am super careful about what I write and tend to keep off controversial stuff. It's cool. I don't really have an issue with it. I hope you don't either.

My line manager said something interesting to me about how annoying I can be. Turns out I am not, which I still find hard to believe since he is a Brit and I am an American and a loud one at that and overly earnest about work, but it seems the only time I annoyed him was on the phone interview. After which he hired me even though he found me irritating. I still think he is being diplomatic since I think I am a handful to manage but in a good way. I let my managers manage me, which is important.

So yeah....if you all are reading this and wondering if you are going to hire me, the answer to that is yes, you do want to hire me. Even if I am irritating over a phone interview. At workshops, when we are laying out 'ground rules (phones on silent, when someone is talking we listen, respect for all opinions etc), I sometimes say to the group, I know I sound American and I know it can be grating on the ear and soul, but really, give it 15 minutes and it will be OK. You will get over it. Which irritates people that I say stuff like that since I am doing it in an American accent and attitude which yeah, most people hate, but really, in 15 minutes, they figure out it's not so bad and they like me.

What a weird post this is. But I enjoyed writing it. I don't really expect any future employer to really be reading this...just being facetious since it's fun and I wanted to make fun of Brits being behind the curve on the "INTERNET". Don't really like missing chances to be able to publicly make fun of the Brits...we are a language separated by culture. And I only make fun since I love you so much....

Space Toilet

2008-05-28T00:54:00.003-04:00

I don't seem to be writing anything of my own but rather, just posting stuff I find...but what can I do when it is just so funny....

There is a space toilet on the fritz, according to CNN. The astronauts have rigged up something they can pee through and luckily, the solid waste function of the toilet is still working.

I wrote a post about living on the moon recently...I said I didn't want to. Fritzing toilets have sealed the astronaut deal for me. Not interested.

This is why I love the French

2008-05-27T09:28:00.002-04:00

Just read this on CNN and you need to read his quote in the accent that the French dude in that Ricky Bobby movie of Will Ferrell, which is called Talladega Nights or something would say it.

The dude wanted to skydive 25 miles down to Earth but his sky diving balloon got messed up and escaped him. He could get blood clots and die etc.... His quotes on the issue are excellent.

I have a post on French aid workers that needs to happen one day. I love you guys. Don't let the rest of us aid workers get you down...but again, that is what I love about you....you just don't give a fuck (said in a French accent).

Yes, I want to go

2008-05-06T12:45:00.003-04:00

to Burma....

Two months more to go in Sri Lanka.

My great grandfather made his fortunes in Burma. Back in the day.

That's all i wanted to say for now. Well, that's not true. Lots to say but little time.

No plans to go yet. Yet a desire to do so.

Who wants to live on the moon?

2008-04-17T01:51:00.003-04:00

Just saw this article on the beeb about how plants thrive on moon dust or something...maybe I should have read it properly, but sometimes the impression we get when we read is more important than what we read (don't EVER quote me on that anyone!), and there was crazy scientist talk going on and they seem to be getting their knickers in a twist and are saying, hey, you could in fact, live on the moon!

I don't want to. I think it would be boring and too much responsibility. You would have to be soooo super careful about not messing anything up since messing up the moon means messing up Earth and it would piss off a lot of people. I know we should be careful about the Earth, and I do my bit. A bit. I guess there could be a renegade bunch on the moon, American like, who could be like, well, too bad suckas, we live here now and we will do whatever we want to do and save yourself since it's not our problem, we got to live on and pollute the moon and mess up your ocean flows, light etc and it's too bad for you but you got to do what you got to do.

It can't be nice, can it, living on the moon?

I did this career profiling thing last night with Mick and Hrusi (my colleagues) and there was 50 questions or so, and no results yet since we only put in the answers for Mick and H and I will someday sit down with all the numbers we wrote and stick them into the computer and see what it churns out but they were asking about Nature and how much one would like to work with Nature and if you know the names of plants and animals (tree, monkey, nasty snake 1, nasty snake 2, Ampara birds of paradise numbers 47, 52, and 5, grass that is tall, or green, dried up, poohed on by cows/elephants....I know my Nature), and as much as I would like to like Nature, I don't think I would do so well if I had a job that was about Nature. Or Math, or Science, or Computers. I like computers, but not if I have to sit in front of one for work all day. I can sit in front of one if not obliged to and can just google all day or pimp fight on Facebook (which is even more evil now).

Hrusi, who is awesome, made me sit down and write down what I can do (I kept drawing a blank which was scary but then it was ok, I started remembering who I was and what I had done before which didn't have to do with my current job) and community mobilisation, training/mentoring and coordination are the three things I love and want to continue to do. I would like to be a goat farmer one day and make goat cheese but that is some time away (and I will write books at that time and have a B&B/bookstore cafe where I will serve home made soup with my fab goat cheese) and being a chef would be lovely but I think too stressful (give me conflict zones over a 5 star restaurant to work in, any day), and even though I love music, no way I can make money off of it (I don't think that part of my brain functions properly), so, I think I need to look for a job that combines the first three things I started this rambling paragraph with. Don't know if it exists. I feel like my mom in this situation. She wanted to be a mom but also a physician and when she was at work, she thought about us and when with us, about work (I could never tell, but so she says) and if I am not doing one of the three things I want to do in this sector, I feel like I am missing out on something that I want to be doing.

Woe is me. Boo Hoo. I am sure something will turn up, appropriate for the likes of me.

I want to like the idea of living on the moon, but I don't think it's going to work out for me.

Appalling

2008-04-02T07:51:00.003-04:00

Here is a whole slew of appalling things:

I didn't blog the whole month of March

I may be addicted to Facebook but just the Pimp Fight application for which I blame Asad Jaferi.

I didn't quit smoking (I never said I would)

I posted a photo of myself in a bikini on Facebook after I made friends with everyone I knew when I was growing up in a conservative Muslim community and I suspect that they all have me on limited profile since we may all be in our late twenties and early thirties but god forbid we forget the year we hit puberty and hormones flew around under scarves, facial fuzz, between curtains and in the parking lot.

Someone I have never met but I guess knows me has decided that they don't like me. And I was told about it.

My all mighty adopted currency, The Pound, slipped a bit to the dollar. Damn thing always does around payday. Amazing what a difference a four day delay because of a trans-atlantic bank transfer can make.

I was sure I had more appalling things to talk about. Hmmm, seems not. Happy go lucky kinda girl. I need to finish writing reports. This was a fun procrastination which I shall try to indulge in more. Our program finishes in THREE MONTHS so crunch time is on!

And the Ampara blog!

2008-02-28T06:43:00.002-05:00

Nick Young the BRCS CEO wrote his Ampara part of the blog. It is tooooo sweet. We had a lovely time. Read about it here and it is the weekend, sooooon so I will write more then. I hope! The blog entry for the 25th of Feb is the one on Ampara.

BRCS CEO

2008-02-23T05:04:00.001-05:00

The Chief Exec of the British Red Cross is out here visiting us and he went first to our sister program in Batti and he blogs! I love the fact that he blogs.

Go read it here. The first post is up and I know there are more that are filtering through. I can't wait till he writes about Ampara.

February...my month

2008-02-23T02:43:00.006-05:00

Very sad that I call Feb my month and yet this is my first post for Feb. It is my month since tomorrow, I turn 30. YAY!

I have been meaning to write but I have been out and about traveling. And things have been busy. Was in Surrey, UK for some management training, a post that is waiting to happen, and got to see friends in London which was lovely and then back to Sri Lanka.

Emma wants me to write about the primaries in the US and I would love to but it is kind of strange since I am not really there and not following as closely as I should be. All I check to see is that Barack Obama, the candidate I am endorsing (belated drum roll please, but really, is it surprising?), is still ahead. It is exciting and I get made fun of by all the Brits that I work with because they think it is all a little bit soppy (I was telling people last night about how I love his line, We are the change we have been waiting for, and that will pretty much do it for me....I love it. How inspiring). I think he is awesome and I want him to win and I think the whole thing is very exciting and this is what I love about America. We are still a country who can have elections/primaries, such as this one. This is really what we should be about.

If Clinton really loved America, she would stop now.

I just had a week vacation with my sisters. They both came over for the first time to Sri Lanka and we had an amazing early birthday party for me at the house of my country coordinator, and it was nice to have my worlds meeting and liking each other. I think my sisters were surprised that people I work with put up with me with the same love and tolerance that they do.

I am back at work after a relaxing lovely holiday and so revved up to be back. And I turn 30 tomorrow which is totally exciting to me as well. Two photos of me...some from the party when I was opening up my gifts and the other from my vacation. I didn't really get out of my pajamas for the 4 days. It was awesome. Photo credit goes to my camera and the lovely Saks who was the official holiday photographer.

I do hope I write more about the month of February. Just wanted to touch base for now but lots to write about, stuff that has been going round and round in my head....I wish I were more articulate...

More on Slum Tours

2008-02-23T02:28:00.002-05:00

Things happen perhaps not so coincidentally....

Damian left a comment on my blog that I saw today about my previous post on Dharavi and slum tours and he has a post about Kroo Bay. I also went onto Facebook (evil) today after ages and I was invited to join a group that at this point has only 82 members and it is called, I love Kroo Bay.

Kinda cool, eh? Something I have not heard about and all of a sudden, it comes at me from two totally different places. Love it.

I would talk about what Kroo Bay is but go see what Damian has written about it since he writes better than me.

Slum Tour Anyone?

2008-01-22T16:04:00.000-05:00

I don't know how I feel about this. Dharavi is one of the largest slums in the world (and let me just thank my friend Joe for pointing me in the direction of the above link). The website looks fantastic (not the look look but the words on the website), where it does seem all PC and progressive...more progressive than PC. Like the term PC which people use pejoratively, the website is saying the word slum doesn't have to be pejorative but just descriptive. It's a slum that has a $665 USD income a year. People are productive and involved in all sorts of livelihoods.

I think I know why this feels strange to me....I hesitate to take photos in the villages where I am a visitor since it feels invasive and disrespectful. The villages in which I work, I have only just stopped asking if I can take photos since the people I work with had started rolling their eyes at me and said, look madam, every time you come here you ask us, and every time we tell you it's ok. Stop asking and we will let you know when it is not ok. So, labeling something a slum tour reeks of disaster tourism for me BUT but but but, this is being done with the permission of the residents and it goes into that debate about images and how aid agencies like showing people as victims and not people and it seems that this tour group is not doing that...80% of the revenue goes to NGOs in the area and they are creating awareness.

I don't know. What do you guys think?

Facebook, evil eyes and other random sentences stitched together.

2008-01-22T13:49:00.000-05:00

OK, for those that read my blog, you know that I think FaceBook is evil however I joined and I am semi active on it, I would say. Though that is relative since I know people who spends hours on it and have mobile phone connections to it and stuff so relative to that, I am barely on FaceBook. Weeks go by and I don’t go on and then there are my active weeks where I will check it out three times a week. Anyhow, today, I found this group through my friend Angad’s page (the one I met in Bombay who calls me Jungle Queen) and it is called, Anthropology+ Good Looks= A Deadly Combination. The blurb for the group is as follows: Sexy Anthropologists all over the world must unite in global awareness of our dashingly good looks and witty, unparalleled brilliance.

What can I say, I love it. One of the officers of this group (and I would just cut and paste the entire group here but I don’t want to be messing around with people’s privacy) says, “sexy is her name, evolution is her game”.

How could I not be in love with this group?

There were other groups before, like, I secretly want to punch slow walking people in the back of the head, or Lovers of Third World Shit Holes, and Drunk Dialing Appreciation Society etc and all funny, but really, it takes anthropologists to do it for me.

I still think FaceBook is evil.

Must comment on two comments I got: Lurker person, thanks for the postcard, I did so love it and I really wish I could have read it properly but really it’s al blotted out with the rain but it has a place of pride on my fridge, just below the other anonymous postcard I got that was covered in poetry. You are a star, send me more, the rainy season is almost over so it might make it in one legible piece.

Mr. nick naeem who wrote a comment along the lines of my blossoming into my own woman after my strict upbringing hijab wearing oppressed days…I hate to do this to you and disappoint all those people who saw me growing up, but I really do not even once recall growing up oppressed or strict or repressed in anyway. Your concern and backhand compliment is really very sweet but I think I grew up because of the way I am because of my parents and the environment I grew up in. I ain’t no rebel. I’m just me and like you, my parents are also very, very proud of me. Thanks for reading and the very lovely comment. And I shy away from these conversations since people see everything in black and white but my decision to stop wearing hijab was because my mom said to me, Look, it’s obviously not working for you…what are you afraid of? Take it off, try it out, you can come back to it if you decide to and you may not so live your life. I was never once told I HAD to wear hijab. It has always been a personal choice in my household (like everything) and I am super lucky to have grown up with the family I have. I look at other South Asian (and not just South Asian but any race) kids and their relationships to their families, and there is nothing that I would change in mine. I love it and love how it grows, changes, new people coming in and out and I think of what my dad used to say to us growing up (which obviously as a 12 year old was harder to understand since as much as I love my family, going to the mall with everyone in tow when I wanted to go with my friends was uncool), my dad would say: at the end of the day, it’s your family who is there for you. Time and time again, that has been proven to me. I now feel like I need to shoo away all the evil eye with my proclamations about my family and how kick ass we are. Will call my mom and ask her to do it. If Iqbal Khaldun had told me about how to get rid of the evil eye with chickens, I would do it here in Ampara. My sister has been privy to some egg charm…will ask her to test it out.

The flooding in Ampara seems to have stopped and I am gearing up for the next hectic 6 weeks and my bday extravaganza (relaxed day on the beach) coming up in Feb. I will be 30. YAY! And I decided that it will be in Sri Lanka, bombs or no bombs. Anyone want to come?

Still love my job and I have photos but dial up and no patience. And no time at work but soon.

Art in Baghdad

2008-01-13T23:32:00.000-05:00

Good stuff....Check out the article. I like. I must write more soon. I keep thinking about it. Got lots to say on a random postcard I got but it was all rainy so I can't read it properly, all the bombs in Colombo and the cease fire being called off, along with my birthday celebrations since I just can't take the responsibility of having people over and not knowing where they are at all times since I am anal retentive about security and people but I think I will be in Portugal instead and that might be an option if people love me that much to fly there instead, flooding in Ampara and how good it is to be back, elections in the US and how exciting that is, and just for Clem, I am watching Planet Earth!!! Mick got it for me as a Christmas present and I am thrilled but I miss my flatmate loads....

Soon, I will write properly...till then, enjoy the article...

Gallery Owner battles for art in Baghdad.

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer Sun Jan 13, 12:57 PM ET

BAGHDAD - By all rights, the Hewar art gallery should be a casualty of war. Months go by without a single painting or sculpture being sold. The gallery's cafe — once a noisy meeting ground for Baghdad's intelligentsia — now sees just a few hardy regulars.

The owner's balance sheet shows losses of up to $400 a month — a sum considered a good monthly wage.

On the plus side: three sheep that were a gift from a friend in his native Anbar province to the west. They grazed on weeds and hedges outside the gallery in north Baghdad's Waziriyah neighborhood.

But something keeps Qassim Sabti from locking the doors for good.

It's part stubbornness, part nostalgia and a dash of belief that, just maybe, better times are ahead — the same recipe that kept a handful of other cultural guardians, such as book sellers, poets and theater troupes, from abandoning Baghdad during the years of fighting and upheaval.

Now, with violence on the wane, the city's struggling artist community looks for signs that their patrons could someday return and the discussions in the coffee houses could again be about their latest works rather than the latest troubles.

Sabti's gallery is a bellwether.

The Hewar, or Dialogue, is perhaps the best known cultural crossroads in Iraq.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the two-story building became the main salon for debates and exhibitions basking in the heady freedoms that were long bottled up by the regime.

But as the insurgency took hold in Baghdad, the gallery's fate mirrored the rest of the capital. People with some savings left for Syria or Jordan. Checkpoints and blast walls rose up in the gallery's neighborhood. Sunni and Shiite artists — bound by lifetime friendships — took pains to avoid discussing the sectarian bloodletting.

Sabti estimates at least 70 percent of Iraq's artists and intellectuals are out of Iraq.

"My gallery, like Baghdad, is under siege," said the silver-haired Sabti, a Sunni Arab married to a Shiite. He still walks with a limp from childhood polio.

But Sabti, 54, has not stopped organizing exhibitions — 29 in all since 2003. "The Iraqis kept coming but none can afford to buy art," he sighed.

Sabti arranges for financial support to artists from an association of painters he runs, and some of the artists who exhibit at Hewar have taken advances against the future sale of their work. Dozens of pieces are stored in back rooms under a layer of dust — like the rows of empty chairs in the gallery's top floor where young people occasionally take music and painting classes funded by a private U.S.-based organization.

"Security has undeniably improved, but people don't yet have the confidence to leave their homes unless it's necessary," he said while sipping a coffee on a recent January morning. "People are barely surviving on their salaries, and these are the lucky ones with jobs."

Last month, Sabti tried to drum up business for the gallery by offering art to the capital's foreign diplomats in the heavily protected Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

"We only sold five sculptures," he said, with a hint of sadness.

Then comes his resolve: "I will never close Hewar."

He even manages to keep his wicked and wry sense of humor. He looked over at one of his three children, his stocky teenage son Ahmed, and jokes that the Americans must be spraying secret growth chemicals over Baghdad. "I don't remember us being so big as kids," he quipped.

"How are you? You infidel pimp!" he shouted from the terrace of the gallery's second floor to a Christian friend whizzing past on a scooter. The friend looked up and smiled.

After several weeks roaming in and out of the gallery, the sheep from Anbar have been taken to a friend's house with a healthy patch of grass.

"One of them will be lunch next month in remembrance of Imam Hussein," he said, referring to one of Shiite Islam's most revered saints whose 7th century death is the holiest day of the Shiite calendar. "I will invite Shiite and Sunni artists to a lunch of lamb and rice."

In 2006, Sabti sold 250 of his works to a U.S art dealer — collages made of hundreds of books charred by a fire in the library of his alma mater, the Arts Academy, the day after Baghdad fell in April 2003.

The works defined his strong feelings about the chaos and lawlessness that swept Baghdad and saw the country's national museum and library looted and torched to the deep dismay and anger of many in Iraq. Sabti blames the Americans for the looting, arguing they should have done more to stop it.

Sabti now has found artistic inspiration in something else — the changed landscape of Baghdad since the invasion. "They speak of the conquerors who have laid Iraq to waste over the centuries," he said of the new project, in which he uses rags, pebbles, match sticks and glue to create street scenes on wood.

"There is little empty space in each one of them, but the rest is filled with destroyed sidewalks, rocks, concrete blocs and blast barriers, barbed wire and bits of the human flesh found on streets at bombing sites," he said of the works he began three months ago.

"They reflect what the tanks did to our streets, but they are not about the ugliness of Baghdad. Rather, they reflect the city's melancholy. We used to be very proud of Baghdad."

Sabti says only three close friends have seen the 20 works he has completed so far. He says he wants to keep the pieces under wraps until he has completed the project, but he doesn't know when that will be.

"I don't want anything to disrupt or distort the life story of the works," he said.

___

On the Net:

http://www.qasimsabti.com

New Year Grinch

2007-12-31T07:26:00.000-05:00

So, supposedly, I have the look of a Bombay girl gone baaaaaaaaad! I don't know how I feel about that. I am not sure I even know what that means.

It's the 31st of Dec, like any other day. That is my story and I am sticking to it. I hate new year's and all the hype around it which is always anti climactic. Why do we feel the need to celebrate this day? Why the need to celebrate it SOOOOOOOO much? Yuck, thooey.

We never did anything about it when we were kids and I always felt like I was being left out of something. I recall once as a kid, and this is the only new year's I remember as a child, where my sisters and I heard firecrackers outside and we bounded into our parents room all full of vim and vigor and my mom totally deflated us and sent us back to bed. We cracked open a kit kat between the three of us (the fourth extra stick was evenly divided and I think our feeling of bonding was so strong that there was no argument who was getting the bigger piece of the fourth bar and in fact, we were all being sacrificing souls and pushing the minusculy bigger piece onto each other so that the person with the shortest piece could justifiably feel even worse and be the heroine of the night), we wished each other and went to bed.

My first new year's party was in Todt Hill, Staten Island. My older sister had a friend and it is the only time we went to her house and every time I pass the signpost to her house on the highway, I think about it. I must have been 17, I guess and it was this aunty uncle party and I recall thinking, wow, my parents are letting us go to a new year's party. It was a big step for us. This must have been when my sister came back from doing her first fieldwork since something happened and all of a sudden, we were allowed, just the three of us to drive ourselves far distances...distances beyond the mall which had also just opened up to us even though Appie could drive perfectly well for years. You give an inch, they take a mile...my younger sister in her last year of high school drove herself to school everyday...unheard of. Never mind that she now lives in her car and comes and goes at all odd hours and my parents don't bat an eyelash if all of a sudden they wake up in the morning and find her sleeping on the couch when she is supposed to be four hours away in DC and probably started her drive at 8 pm with stops all along the way to say hi to her various friends who are scattered over the DC to NJ belt which I think they should rename in Saks honor. Beltway Saks.

So, I hate new year's but at least I tried it first before I started to loathe it. I like learning by doing.

Plan is to make some pasta and sit with a bottle of wine, like any other night, talk to the people I am living with and fall asleep peacefully. Hurrah!

I don't do resolutions either since I make and break them all the time....actually, not true. I make only the ones that I know I can keep for the most part....you know what? I don't make resolutions. I just live my life.

Happy fucking New Year people with lots of love from the New Year Grinch.

Random; Jungles and Bombay Ramblings

2007-12-29T02:28:00.000-05:00

I like writing random posts. I have been wanting to write in my blog ever since an anonymous commenter said they liked reading my blog. That makes me happy. But you anonymous people should tell me who you are. I like hearing from you.

So, like I said, I am in India and it is fun. I am bored and worried about work but somehow, I would still call this fun. I was here two years ago and it is interesting to note the changes in myself. I am less....frentic, perhaps? I was told already that I seemed calmer than the last time I was in Sri Lanka and I like that. I don't know if that means I am more boring or something. Doesn't really phase me.

I met a new person yesterday afternoon and then saw him later on at night and I told him I work in the jungle. Ampara is hardly a jungle but more jungle than I am used to and the most rural place I have worked so far. For a self purported city girl it is a jungle. And if you are not on the coast in Sri Lanka then you are in the jungle. Inland is a term only used to denote the inland side of a coastal road.

This guys wife when she met me later in the day said, you are from the jungle then? And he has taken to call me jungle queen. Walking in Bombay he asked if cities seemed overwhelming to me just after he had looked at me and said, yes, you do have a real jungle vibe, you do lok like you have just walked out of one (I don't feel like I look any different than I used to....nothing too jungle about me as far as I can tell).

I like Bombay. I would like to come and be in this city for a while. Only issue is that there is no real disaster or conflict and all offices of iNGOs that I want to work with are in Delhi. And I did decide this time that I didn't want to be in Delhi. I would feel constant Bombay envy. Delhi is sweet and nice and all but I can't do it. Too small.

Maybe someday I will come to Bombay. We will see. I am drinking water in India by the way that way I should in Sri Lanka. And my skin is getting dry. It is strange to be out of the tropical humid weather I am used to. I am supposed to be getting dressed to get out of the house but I am liking sitting in my pajamas with my mac listening to music, downloading podcasts, stealing internet and drinking coffee.

I finished reading A Passage to India. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I am in India. I just had wanted to read the book for a really long time and after finishing it I remembered that I had already read but good thing to re read it since obviously I could not recall a single thing about it. Why do people love it? I think I tend to read for the story first and I forgot to read for the prose and the observations. I don't think I am going to bother to re read it for a while again. Someday I will be mature enough to get into the prose and observations with a lot more patience. I like when while reading I feel the need to stop and re read a sentence because it is so beautiful or an observation that is just offered up as fluid thought. And on that note, I am reading a book of essays by Mukul Kesavan which I am enjoying sooooooo much. Called The Ugly Indian Male....something like that. Hilarious parts of it. Longer pieces and smaller pieces and little vignettes of thought nicely presented. Recommended even though I have only read a handful. Also just started The Omnivore's Dilemma which is another one I have been meaning to read for about two years and found it in a bookstore here and bought it. Intro so far and the question being answered is, What shall we have for dinner tonight?

Bombay is food conscious by the way. Menus and stuff with talk about sandwiches where the bread has no egg yolks in it and brown rice as a healthier substitute etc. Very Atkins the whole thing but not just about carbohydrates. There is a marathon that is coming up soon as well and magazines are all about getting your body marathon fit (at least the cover says that and though my curiosity was great, I still could not bring myself to open up the Indian version of Cosmo or Seventeen or whatever it was. John Abraham, the hottie, is going to be running it. Sachin Tendulkar ran it last year but can't this year but is the third highest in terms of brining in money and sponsorship. I have been gathering bits of information I know and am presenting it as if I know something about this all. It might be just enough for me to get away with pretending like I know something about where I am. I don't. Don't let me fool you, I can be very convincing.

In Bombay post Bhutto

2007-12-28T10:58:00.000-05:00

So, I am out of SL for a little bit and came to India for the 'holidays'. Nice to be back after precisely two years and I went to Delhi first and you know what? I need to write about Bhutto first before I go any further. It seems disrespectful that someone whose power you lived under and was the only woman leader to give birth in office and the first woman leader of a modern Muslim state (and no, I am not going to talk about what exactly a modern Muslim state is given what Pakistan is today), but anyhow, I should say something.

I found out two hours after the fact even though I am in a neighboring country which seems to be in a state of shock and people are glued to the TV wherever you go, which is interesting. Just a few hours ago I had sent a text message to a friend of a friend and describe myself as not quite Pakistani, not quite Indian and reluctantly American. I said that last bit to be cute since I am anything but a reluctant American...I very much love being American...however, given the above description, what am I supposed to feel right now? I feel shock but then again, so do tons of people. It is shocking. An assassination is a shocking thing....an absolutely horrible thing. I was told by my friend Ishita who I was with in Delhi and I went over to the DNA (daily news and analysis) office where my friend works and people were kind of walking around stunned but working since this was a newsroom and this was news and it had to be printed and a stories and information needed to get out.

The photos are from today's DNA...I was there when they were putting together the two page spread by the way. Not all the photos since I am stealing internet and don't want to chance losing the connection again.

We didn't vote for her when we lived there and I have written about elections in Pakistan before and I would have been disappointed had she won the election in Jan. I say this from a completely uninformed POV since my Pakistani politics are only informed by my parents and my father only just stopped voting Republican. It's not even like any great realization has come to me that I know nothing about Pakistani politics....I already knew that about myself and was not sufficiently bothered to amend it. My Pakistani politics are still informed by my visits to NJ here my parents sit and watch GEO and ARY satellite tv and when they talk during a program or at the newscaster or to me as a willing but silent audience, I pick up bits and pieces.

People are going to sk me about this when I go back to SL the same way they asked me about Mohsin Hamid's book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist or when The Namesake came out as a movie and since I am South Asian I should have not only seen it but have some sort of a definitive opinion on it.

I don't. The only opinion I have is that assassinating someone is an awful thing to do and it is a high price to pay for power. But again, I think people in power know that.

Pakistan is still burning and as my mom said last night when I spoke to her, when people are happy, they burn stuff, when people are mad, they burn stuff.

I feel so far removed from the whole thing even though it is LIVE around me all the time.

I am not quite Pakistani, not quite Indian (though in the neighborhood RIGHT NOW where my mom was born) and very much American...

Plants

2007-12-13T03:12:00.000-05:00

So one very sweet project we do is a plant distribution for al the households that we work with. Mango, coconut, cashew, orange among the varieties we give out depending on the village, climate and market. I love it. Last week we did this in Thirokovil, a place I love working in. Tamil area and historically underdeveloped and pretty conflict affected as well as tsunami affected. Some photos from that distribution. I as particularily excited that I as able to get the man with the curly hair in blue and the lady in the red sari in one shot since every time I see them, I just think they are two of the most beautiful people I have ever seen. The lady in the sari is one of my favorite people since the first time we went to this village at a huge community meeting (of which there are photos on my blog...it as called my first PRA or something, I think), I asked people to sing a song and no one would and all of a sudden, she broke out into song and it as just gorgeous and we have a bond since then. This last time she gave me a big kiss just as we were leaving. Isn't she gorgeous?

I love the photo of the girl in the lap of her...grand dad, I am guessing. And yes, that is one of the plants we give out and I gave my normal speech of, we hope for our livelihood project to take root and blossom throughout the years in much the same manner in which these plants will in your homes....cheesy but what else are you supposed to say? And you know what? I do hope our projects blossom and grow like the plants.

On a time crunch but man, I love work. Must write about the group grants we are doing and how they kick ass.

The Hungry Tide

2007-12-10T11:52:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading Amitav Ghosh's book, The Hungry Tide. That was painful. It was ok. He basically lost me completely on page 282 when he wrote:

"'Marxism and poetry?' Piya said drily raising her eyebrows. 'It seems like an odd combination.'
'It was, ' Kanai agreed. 'But those contradictions were typical of his generation....'"

How can one DRILY make that comment? Only an idiot would make that comment. Not someone who is a zoologist researching dolphins in the Sundarbans with some suave know it all who is trying to seduce her while she is falling for the local fisherman who she cannot communicate with unless it is through their mutual love of the water and the creatures within except for the one paradox that tears them oceans apart....he sees the creatures as food, she as a heritage to preserve. Spoiler alert. Don't read the above if you don't want to know what happens in the book. Don't read this line either: Her fisherman lover but not consummated love dies in a cyclone where is just him and Piya and we already knew that since his dead mother told him in a dream two nights ago. He died saving her...sort of. They were knotted to a tree in his wife's sari. At least they didn't get eaten by a tiger which with the amount the damn tigers were mentioned, I would have thought that is how they would have met their end, but I think the tiger was a poor metaphor for some forest demon who makes an entry somewhere in the middle in some folk tale and I guess the tigers are supposed to just be the metaphors for bad news approaching...you lock eyes with them and you have just locked eyes with death!

The whole thing was pretentious. I just suffered through the book. Learned some interesting facts but perhaps Amitav should have stuck to being the anthropologist he is.

Notes on Notes on a Scandal and other movies

2007-12-08T12:31:00.001-05:00

I have been wanting to watch this film forever and finally tonight, I got around to doing so. Loved it.

I should just post the blog that way. Loved it, end of story. But no, this is Zehra and she does not know how to be succinct. I get flack about that all the time since I am incapable of writing a short email and everyone wants to bang their heads against a keyboard when an email from me is sitting and watching them in their inboxes.

So, my notes, in brief:

I love Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett but then again, I always have.

Why do people immediately assume that someones problem is linked to them. Mostly, it is not, atleast not in my life. Specifically, I am thinking about the scene where the husband, another great actor whose name I do not know, is yelling at Cate Blanchett and is asking why and keeps saying things about himself and she yells back, I DON'T KNOW WHY I DID IT, which to me is a perfectly reasonable answer and I was getting frustrated that he felt like the whole thing had something to do with him. Sometimes, (most times), it doesn't. Things people do have to do with themselves. Why does another person feel like they MUST insert themselves in anothers pain, thoughts, feelings, life etc? I understand that sharing (it's caring) in a relationship is something that is supposed to happen and I am cool with that, but really, there is a limit and there is no way you can share EVERYTHING with just one person and sometimes, things are just for you. I als get it that actions have consequences etc but still, sometimes you don't have answers and even if you do, they have to do with things going on with you and may not be connected to the person you are with. That whole scene made me feel suffocated and I was glad I was not in a relationship since suffocation like that makes me want to walk out the door (which I do...bad z). So, a good scene.

Judy Dench smoked a lot and that made me nervous about my smoking. I do not want to end up like her. She freaked me out.

Good pacing, smart, funny etc. Watch it if like me you have been living under a rock and have not done so yet.

Since we are talking movies, let me just say, saw Kiss Kiss Bang Bang last night, and for the life of me, I do not get what the hype was about. Everyone kept saying to me, watch it watch it, it's fab! And I didn't think it was. At all. It was fine but smarmy like Adaptation which I could appreciate for its slickness but really, I didn't like Adaptation either and preferred the earlier movie the pair did, Being John Malkovitch....which I did totally love.

Saw The Constant Gardener as well and I loved it. Thought it was gorgeous and thought other things too which will make me sound like I am fetishizing Africa which as an aid worker I need to shy away from doing...like when I saw The Last King of Scotland or Blood Diamonds and I wanted to get on the first planes to both Uganda and Sierra Leone, but I wanted to do that in school as well when I would read about the poverty reduction strategy papers or the like of either country...

It is movie weekend for me in Ampara. Too many movies I have been wanting to watch and just have not and this is my chance to get it all in.

I had my good cry with Blackie when I came home. Both of us are feeling better. She has lost her Spark and I am guessing she will spring back to her jungle monkey self again soon enough. Me too.

Pakistan

2007-12-08T03:34:00.000-05:00

Pakistan was recently having issues which I think I failed to mention or write about since I like to live in lala land when it comes to thinking or writing about Pakistan and on that note, a brilliant comedy sketch video courtesy of youtube and my sister who sent it to me from an amazing show that used to be on tv back when Pakistan was a VERY cool, hip happening place with lots of culture, cutting edge thought and intelligence. The show was called Fifty Fifty and it was basically like Saturday Night Live or Little Britian with little sketches etc with a cast of comedians. This clip is called Disco Chor, meaning Disco Thief and this is probably circa 1975..

Enjoy.

An Ode to Spark

2007-12-07T22:22:00.000-05:00

So, today Spark died. This is my second dog to die in Ampara. He got hit by a car this morning at some point and when I came outside to go to the office, I was on the phone and Mr Bandara, our guard, all he said to me was that Spark was injured and I thought perhaps he would just be lame or something since that I can deal with, and I was looking from afar and could see Blackie hovering near him and licking him and all of a sudden, I thought, something is really not right and I hung up the phone and ran over and there he was, my sweet Spark, dead. He got hit by a car. It does happen a lot in this country but I thought they had learned by now. I knew I was not freaking out for no reason that every time we come home, and it is almost a game now, but both Blackie and Spark try to get under the wheels and I squeal at whomever is driving to be careful since I was convinced we were going to run them over ourselves. I called up my boss and started bawling. Mick is on vacation and not around and my boss saw them last with me and he lets me bawl on him so I did. And his whole family texted, which is sweet.

I loved Spark and am happy that I got to spend some time with him. I am now worried about Blackie and hope that she will be ok with her brother gone. I think her legs were shaking earlier when she was trying to revive him. I am a little afraid to go back home right now since I think it will make me just too sad. I think I need to be strong for Blackie. What an awful weekend. Some photos from last Saturday, Thanksgiving, of Spark that I took. They aren't great but it is what I have.

WTF?

2007-12-04T05:21:00.000-05:00

Seriously, what the hell does this mean?

Who is a hoodwinked man and how is one brought in front of him?

Arrested Tamils would be brought before 'hoodwinked' man-SUDAROLI
Hundreds of North and East Tamils taken into custody following the search operation during the last few days in Colombo and suburb will be brought before hoodwinked man. They will be released when they are proved to be innocent. This message was conveyed to Tamil politicians, it is reliably understood.

I think Sudaroli is a newspaper....I get a newspaper summary from two different sources and I am guessing this is translated but really, normally I can read these translations or realiably understand.

The press cuts/news summaries I get are depressing by the way. It is getting worse and worse and crackdowns and killings, abductions and speculation is all rife.

On a funnier note, yesterday when in a disaster management workshop with our staff we talked about floods and the resulting soil erection.

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone

2007-12-02T11:11:00.000-05:00

I am a thanksgiving fiend, as most people who know and love me are aware of. This year it was again unlesehed away from home on unsuspecting individuals who for some reason are befriending me. It was fun, even though it was about 10 days late. I messed up the date....I always thought it was the last Thursday in Nov, but no, it is the 3rd Thursday. Rule when abroad is the first Saturday after Thanksgiving is when I will celebrate since I am not going to work hungover on a Friday...no fun. Doing it on a Saturday makes way more sense. Must remeber to get the date right next time...

Anyhow, big turkey (of which I have no photos..I know, I can't believe it either...one minute it there was and the next, it got all carved up...and we nearly finished the 14 lbs bird too...impressive for 14 people!), stuffing (two kinds, one with dried fruit, which I refused to eat and another normal one), two kinds of mash (one with block olives which was tooooooo good), gravy (which was going to be German style and then was not but very good), fresh bread (no joke, as in fresh, kneaded in front of me by Jo...her dough babies, which we are the next day, all fresh as well), pecan pie (yep, you guessed it, fresh and home made, again by Jo), and brownies (divine Jo brownies), martinis, the proper kind (yep, Jo strike again), tiger prawns in some sort of a yum sauce, nice fresh veggies and....and that might be it. I think. It was filling and stuffing and totally deliscious and I loved it. There are photos but strange random ones. I was the only American this year. That has never happened before. Usually there is atleast one more American with me. But I think I held down the fort pretty ok...Everyone had to go around and say what they were thankful for and it is always interesting to see what people will say (and how many will take it seriously)....I was thankful for what I am thankful for every year: A good group of people with whom I can share a holiday that is important to me, and my loved ones, family and friends are all good well alive thriving and that is really all I can ask for.

I am becoming soppy since I almost got all choked up when I was saying it and I hope no one noticed.

It was pretty amazing that once again this year, I got away with putting together a party while having to do ZERO work. This year I had serious rock stars who literally did everything.

I had an adventure with my oven in the morning. I turned it on and all of a sudden it smelled like cooked dead roasted rat meat. You do NOT want that smell in your kitchen, house, nostrils ever. Fucking nasty. I called in the trusty Anoj to fix it (after I called in trusty Leela since one of the mice was sort of stunned on my kitchen floor with third degree burns) and they eventually found the problem and advised I not use the recent grave of the three dead mice as my cooking equipment. I had to go and borrow an oven. Which ICRC was so wonderful to provide us with. I love how Red Cross that reaction is by the way-whatever you need, you first call ICRC...be it visiting prisoners in detention, tracing family members, transporting dead bodies or needing an oven in a hurry....always to the rescue those guys. In the end, it was ok and the meal (and more) got cooked.

Photos of the day soon with more stories...

The Gulabi Gang

2007-11-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

I love this story in the beeb. Gulabi means pink and these women in India dress up in pink saris and go and beat up people they think are causing injustice and need to be beat.

What a lovely idea. This is what I should be doing. Learning how to use a lathi and beating the shit out of people who are out of line. Beating is the last option and they do talk first to the parties involved but as eyperience in this area will show, talking is not really helping things along so a good beating, one they are used to getting from men themselves for years, from women dressed in pink saris, goes a long long way.

Is Bollywood making this film soon, or what?

Bombs and Bad Spelling

2007-11-28T23:54:00.000-05:00

So, I noticed, when I go back and read my blog (which of course, is all the time), that I misspell stuff all the time. I should have a spell checker on here and sometimes it works, sometimes it does not and I should be looking at the screen when I type and sometimes I do and sometimes I do not. Apologies for the bad spelling and words that on occasion do not make sense.

My sister called just a little while ago. My brother in law woke her up since he heard on the news about a bombing at a shopping place in Colombo and since that is all I do when I am there and since I was there last they checked, he got very worried. I am back in Ampara and the first bomb went off as we were leaving Colombo this morning and then we heard about the second one. Go read about it on BBC. There was four of us in the car, the driver, me, Mick and our project engineer. We all got texts about it from different people, we said, where is that place? Oh, right, near Apollo Hospital and then I went back to sleep and everyone else went back to doing whatever it is people in back seats of cars do.... The second text message some 9 hours later prompted the same sort of reaction (prompted is a strange word since I feel like we are more non reaction than reaction right now) and I asked Mick if he got the text, he said yes and then we watched an episode of the West Wing. An episode, I am shocked to report that I had not seen before and even more lovely, a Thanksgiving one! So timely, as thanksgiving is just about to arrive in Ampara (Saturday).

I guess it's not good what is going on. I guess I just expected it. I have YET to read the text of Prabhakaran's speech or hear any commentary on it (our TV is dead and last night when I had TV, it was all about Anapolis and Gaza...which is looking pretty bad), but a synopsis that was given to me by staff was, peace not possible, dear international community help us get our freedom and support our cause. By killing thamilselvan, you killed peace and the 2002 agreement lands that were given to us have now been taken back and you are all giving the GoSL free weapons and we want some too. Thank you.

That sounds like a plausible jist of a fifteen minute speech to me. Is anyone really surprised?

My non reaction to everything is strange since I can feel something in the air but not quite sure what it is yet and I think I am just showing uncharacteristic restraint from leaping to conclusions and barracading my staff and hunkering down with a two week supply of dried goods. I also just got back after being away from five days and things in Ampara town feel a little fake to me, you know? Last Singhalese outpost in the area so it is just fortified and I really just got to the office, worked and then came home and the biggest crisis I was dealing with is staff from my old job freaking out since their contracts are over end of the year and this is going to become a reality in a big way here as NGOs start to leave since tsunami money is over and I don't know what else to say to them other than, I am going to go too and will need a job. We all got to prevail and keep our chins up and I will see what I can do. That has superseded any bombs in the other parts of the country for the moment for me, though I suspect, not for long...I need to actually get out and see what it is feeling like. What does it look like driving down the coast, what is the vibe in the villages in which I am working and what do people look like right now....what are their priorities, what is the food situation in their houses, how jumpy or not are they etc....they of course, always have a better feel about stuff than anyone else, living as it were, in the midst of things. I think I wrote about this sense before....or just having a mental list of things which we look at without realizing it when assessing a situation. I use it for poverty levels among other things when driving through or to a place and you can see stuff...like for instance, how clean are school uniforms, is the child wearing shoes, how many school accessories (just a backpack, or a lunch box or flask etc), ribbons in hair, how many shops on the side of the road, how well stocked, how well lit, how populated etc etc etc....there are lots of little indicators that you just get through osmosis in a way.

So, I need to go out and get a feel and then either panic or stay non reactionary. Non reactionary but alert, I think is the way to go. I just got back from a security training course...I am so ready. As will everyone around me, like it or not.

Bad Zee

2007-11-27T06:45:00.000-05:00

I make all these promises to write and then I do not. Bad bad Zee. Anyhow, here I am again, and writing and perhaps even going so far as to post photos...it all depends. The adventures in trying to get my mac all good to go are not progressing so well. In Colombo for a few days and trying to get the Microsoft office suite on my machine and they want 350 USD, which they are not going to get. I also finally held the iPhone in my hands. I have been wanting this piece of technology in my hands soooooo badly for sooooooo long and I think that is all I really wanted. To hold it in my hands. It is too big. And they are charging 1000 USD for it here only since it is not really out and only if you are super cool and deprate to prove you are cool will you buy it in Asia. I am not that desparate and I didn't like holding it all that much, truth be told. The coolest thing was that you can make things bigger and smaller with your fingers. I liked that bit. My fingers are too big to type anything on the machine however.

Never buy first generation Apple products. I shall wait.

So, I hae been in Colombo and got to see two awesome friends who I have not in a long time (two years) and that was amazing and we went around everywhere and saw everything (in two days) and had an all around rockiing time. Too many stories in that one but the main point is that I got to hang out with two people I love and it was good to be able to catch up and see them again.

Mew birthday plans are afoot. Stay tuned in this space for more information. I am liking it more and more....

A team photo that we took recently for your viewing pleasure. All our movements have been suspended for two days since today, in just about a few minutes, the LTTE leader, Prabakharan, is going to make his annual Heroes Day Address and it is always interesting to see what he will say. It is supposed to be about the LTTE laying out their plans for the year etc etc and lots has been going on and it is anybodies guess what he will say. They do the element of suprise well. Needless to say, in preparation, intimidation and general sense of fostering fear in the public, Colombo has been checkpoint heaven where you get stopped pretty much every two minutes or so and you had better have your passport or even better, someone white in the car with you. Though even that does not work in every situation anymore....

OK, I think it is time to go home. I have either been bitten to death by sand flies or I have chicken gunya. If i feel flu like tomorrow, I am in big trouble. I think it is a combination of sand flie and then mosquitoes in this Colombo office. Colombo is so seriously nasty that way...everyone gets dengue or chicken gunya...which is a lovely name for an illness, I think.

And no photo this time either...sorry!

The joys of dial up on a mac

2007-11-22T10:40:00.000-05:00

I kitted out my mac in a big way....well, it feels like a big way to me and this will be a repetition from my early Ampara days, (round one), where I would try and upload photos on the home line and repeatedly fail but unfailingly try...and so we try again. It is interesting to type on two different keyboards, by the way. I have a swiss keyboard for work and a normal American one for play. Though I want this play one to become a real all the time one, but we will see.

Nice evening. We did the budgets on a projector, which was just too cool. We had to cut money. Old hands at dev work know what that mean, but for me, a child of the tsunami heydays, this a new concept....we don't have buckets of funding? We can't throw money at people? What? Who? Are you joking? I love it. I have always been a little freaked out (ok, very freaked out) by the amount and the ways in which money was being handed out after the tsunami and I like that restraint is now being shown and projects thought out about more carefully.

This blog has been in draft mode for a while, since I thought I lost it (the joys of a mac on dialup), so I shall post now and expand on the topic above, which I like and on which I had written in great length only for it to all get lost....or so I thought. Atleast I got the above two paras...