Tuesday 21 December 2010

2010 - Some of the finest moments


13 January - Alice's surprise birthday party




31 January - South East Liberia Road Trip Adventures
This kid has such a regal and graceful air about her - it's an unforgettable
pose. 





1 February - South East Liberia Road Trip Adventures
The open road, the motorcycle kicking up dust, and the brown and green
of this photograph - I love it. 





17 February - Girls Nite!





7 March - with ANTHONY BOURDAIN!!!!!!






7 March - My autographed Kitchen Confidential
"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.

Oh, I'll accomodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine." 






4 April - One of my greatest pleasures in life - defeating staff in Ludo!







19 April  - Staff party






1 May - My yellow and mellow balcony







31 May - on site






2 June - Slimy catfish of Gbarnga
Catfish blues 


WELL I WISH, I WAS A CATFISH 
SWIMIN' IN THE, THE DEEP BLUE SEA
I HAVE ALL YOU PRETTY WOMEN
FISHIN' AFTER ME
SHOWIN' UP AFTER ME
OH WELL 







3  June - Grand Gedeh County
That's me leaning on a giant tree






19 June - Playing Scrabble with Aboo in Islamabad
Spending some good times with Aboo after 2 years! Too
bad I defeated him twice in a row!




20 June - Meeting my best friend since she got married! 







21 June - Don't we look alike?







22 June - With the Karachiites!!!!!!







26 June - How can we forget Purple Haze? 






27 June - goofing off with the cousins







1 July - With my grandmother






5 July - A breezy picnic in the park with my Aunt and cousin
in Islamabad






6 July - With Aboo up in the Margalla Hills






6 July - With my best friend




18 July - the one and only Mama Susu





10 August - Make a scary face, make a scary face





10 August - With Liz





13 August - My birthday!





13 September - The cool couple - Nigel and Liz





21 September - Candy city!!!!!
My friend sends me all this candy from Chicago!




26  September - The first sighting of Fresh Frozen Food





30 September - This is what you call power napping!




5 October - Robertsport
Haresh:I'm in a boat - Weeeeeeee!
Chris: Looks on amusedly





5 October - Robertsport
Farzana: I'm in a boat! A slightly more demure
Weeeee-I-can't-swim!




29 October - Halloween at the Darzi's

Monday 20 December 2010

Christmas at the office

We are doing Secret Santa in the office like we did last year. I am impressed by the enthusiasm of all the staff. All the presents are nicely wrapped, cards are snuggled in the fake Christmas tree branches and it all looks so nice.  


Check out all the loot under the office Christmas Tree! 



And check out the peppermint candy sitting on my desk giving my desk a nice Christmassy feeling. You're welcome to come visit and have some candy. 


Friday 17 December 2010

My favourite tea moments of 2010

Totota, Bong County January 2010 - first day of the Southeast Liberia
Road Adventures
Buchanan, Grand Bassa 
Earl Grey tea at the apartment/office
Almond syrup cake - the best cake in the world - and tea with Aboo in Islamabad
Easily my favourite tea moment of 2010
Who doesn't love a little Snoopy with their tea? 
What an elegant tea at the elegant Mamba Point Hotel 
Cappuccino - a cousin of tea - with Catcher in the Rye!

Sunday 5 December 2010

The Heist 4

In the space-time continuum of one week, our electricity was stolen no less than FOUR TIMES. It was like a cheap c-class heist movie with three crap sequels. 

Last weekend about 11 PM our electricity got disconnected. It's a routine thing here in Liberia and "normally" they restore the power in 10-15 mins unless its a major outage or problem. The whole night went by and light did not come back.

We called up the LEC (Liberia Electricity Corp) in the morning and they said they will send their crew to check out the problem as its not a general one and only affecting my apartment. I live in a first floor apartment with a terrace on top.

The LEC guys came and checked the meter and discovered no problems!! I got curious and decided to check the terrace to see if everything was okay up there. (The electricity cable that feeds the house runs on the floor of the terrace).

To our collective shock and horror, we discovered that the whole cable has been removed/stolen and that was the cause of the light being disconnected. We immediately got an electrician to redo the connection. We got a new cable (About 100 feet long) and the electricity came back on.

Now the unbelievable shocking, horrific and disgusting part:

Again the next night the same robbers visited us. Again they stole the cable. Again we were out of electricity!! The next morning we went up to the terrace to check and not surprisingly the cable was indeed missing!! We felt like a bunch of abused fools.

So we decided that we need to do something better this time around.

We got another roll of 100 feet cable ($100.00) and got some plastic pipes to run the cable inside it and then asked a masoner to cement the pipes to the floor. We were confident that would be a fool-proof solution. Nope, we were wrong. 

The robbers came back again and cooly removed the cable from the pipes and left the pipes cemented to the floor and for the third time we were without electricity!!

We got smarter. Got another roll of cable and decided that this time around we would cut open the pipes at equal distances and put cement on the cable and pipes so that even if the rogues want to draw out the cable it will be stuck and they will fail.

Wrong again!

They came back at 5 in the morning. The light got disconnected.   It was clear it was them: heavy, scraping sounds from the terrace. They took their sweet time. But there was no way to go up there and try to catch them. Anything can go wrong and $ 100.00 worth of cable is not worth it. These 'rogues' are druggies and at the end of day, they are probably only going to get $ 10.00 for this stolen cable and clearly they need their daily fix. 

The next day we confirmed that the cable had indeed been stolen. The guys had the tools to dig out the cement and remove the cable out of the pipes and take it away. 

The latest solution has been to chisel the terrace floor about 2 inches deep and then to get the electrician to lay another cable inside the trench and then cover it up with rich mix of cement and concrete. 



They did try to steal the cable again because one night the TV started flickering really badly. The next morning it was evident the the rogues/druggies had tried to steal the cable again but were not lucky. It was too much effort. They did steal some of the neighbour's shit up there though. 

What a frustrating WEEK! Randall Street is a bitch. Apparently, it was always like this - even before the war. 

The good thing is that the landlord is building a wall around the building and hopefully, it'll protect us from these guys. Hope springs eternal! 

Monday 22 November 2010

The Love of Chicken Brought Us Here

Because fried chicken and liberty go together



There's a new KFC-style fried chicken fast food restaurant in town - right here on Randall Street. Nope, this is not a pulling-your-leg-Starbucks-is-across-the-farmer's-Co-Op stunt. It's bright and shiny and it's called Monroe Chicken. You can check out the pics below.

Perhaps the most interesting bit about it is its tag line: "The Love of Chicken Brought Us Here." That is FUNNY. It's not just silly funny, it's clever funny. 

I have been working on my new company logo and branding for the past couple of months so I find it wildly original. It's a hilarious play on Liberia's motto. 


And I shouldn't think it should ruffle any national feathers - no pun intended. Monroe Chicken is respectful of Liberia's fabricated and bizarre identity and history.  Everything about  the place is steeped in it - the motto, the colours, the red and white stripes, the lonestar, and the picture of Monroe. Gosh, it almost looks American.

So you get a bit of ironic history and some tasty fried chicken. What else do you need? And like I said before, the place is new and shiny.


And LORD KNOWS, we need new and shiny things here in shabby Monrovia. What's more, this is good for business - more business is good for business.








Monday 15 November 2010

Earl Grey seals the deal

The cabinet piece in my office is actually my former china cabinet. Now it is full of files instead of dinner plates and platters. It still works. 

You will notice though that I still have a bar in it - in fact, if you notice, it houses drinks as well as my stash of Earl Grey tea which friends so generously bring me each they are in the UK.





I look forward to signing really big deals, like million-dollar ones, in my very nice and cozy office. And we could seal them over a good solid drink. 

Well I did make a nice deal the other day that sort of came unexpectedly. That one was sealed over Earl Grey and Digestive biscuits though. 


So yes, there's those kind of deals, too. Earl Grey ones