Angela Merkel

It really isn't Angela Merkel's best time: she is seen as a loan shark belittling Greece in the name of the Euro, she is awkwardly comforting a Palestinian refugee who will soon get deported and, then she has apparently made a politically incorrect statement about marriage. Is it her or is it media showing female politicians in a certain way?

Cake and a pink umbrella

Last night I decided to give baking a try. I don't think I've ever baked cakes or cupcakes before  so it was quite exciting. I knew I wanted to make a chocolate cake so I googled some recipes and decided to go for seriously rich chocolate cake on BBC Good Food. 

After work I went to Stop and Shop, a hop and skip from our apartment, to look for the ingredients. I didn't find 70% chocolate nor did I find caster or  Muscovado sugar (is it made from an avocado with a mustache?). I found regular dark chocolate and brown sugar. I had some 70% cocoa chocolate at home which I had bought in Asheville which I was going to use together with the one from Stop and Shop. 

And, on the way back, I met a girl whom I met through Wesley years ago who keeps coming to me to say hello. She was selling umbrellas and, gifted a little pink umbrella to Kavita. Kavita was overjoyed. 

I first prepared all the ingredients and, followed the receipt step by step. I must say I really enjoyed the process. It's fascinating that eggs, flour, sugar and chocolate can work magic. And, there are infinite possibilities and variations on this combination of eggs, flour and sugar. Whoever stumbled on this? 

I think it also helped that after watching so many cooking programmes, I kind of had a sense what the various steps were going to feel like. I have seen so many fluffy egg whites folded into chocolate by TV maestros that I felt confident. 

The most difficult part was scaling those stiff peaks! My right arm was exhausted whipping those egg whites into stiff peaks. You know every industry has its own technical jargon and cooking is also fraught with its own language: sauté, al dente, fry until medium brown, pre heat, poach, blanche, and so on. Stiff peaks is a bit like a metaphor because you are trying to transform a bubbly, airy liquid like egg white into a thick substance, which would have ridges like stiff peaks. Quite clever and imaginative. 

Are animals also right and left handed or equally dexterous with their limbs? 

As I whipped up the double cream or 'creme fraiche' into a light froth, I realised my blender is as old as my life in Liberia. It has served me well but it's started to get cracks and often sprays liquid all over the kitchen counter top. I need to retire it. 

I should get a food processor too. 

The house smelled so good and I am glad to report the cake turned out well. While it baked, I made some murghi for dinner. 

Haresh went to the German Embassy movie night, representing NATC. I knew it was not feasible to take Kavita along so I settled in for a night of baking, cooking and playing with Kavita. I must say it is nice to spend the whole day with Kavita. She had her fill of Max and Ruby, Dora, Ben and Holly's Kingdom, Bubble Guppies and Mister Maker while I was in the kitchen. We enjoyed our dinner and soon Haresh came home. We read some books and after haresh fell asleep we watched half of "Zathura" on TV. I've seen it a few times but it was fascinating to see Kavita's expressions! 

Excuse my photography skills but I couldn't get a great photo of the cake when it was done. I wanted one of those food close ups but alas! This last photo will have to do. 

As I said I went for the seriously rich chocolate cake recipe. And, it was. Always go for recipes that start with seriously. I mean, if you are not going to be serious about it, why bother?

An ordinary Saturday

My first weekend off the job at  Mercy Corps, I decided to have a very fun and packed couple of days. We were hosting a movie night in the evening. 

I decided to first go for an afternoon walk with Kavita to get some exercise. I was initially going to do the full route from Randall Street to UN Drive and onwards to the Masonic Temple but when I saw some children in a 'yard' on UN drive, very close to the second house I lived in in Liberia, I thought about getting some new friends for Kavita.

Kavita, green apple and a green mossy wall

The 'yard' was actually below street level so, we climbed down the stairs to get to the children. I had to kind lug down the stroller, step by step, bump bump. Luckily, we always have a ball in the basket under the stroller and in no time, we had some friends. I asked them to show Kavita how to play foot ball. 

At first Kavita was quite shy but soon got jealous when her precious red ball was being expertly maneuvered by the boys. 

After the game, I went back to the apartment on Randall Street so I could prepare for the movie night. 

Before heading for the kitchen, I checked out my gardener's latest work on my roof top garden. He's not only kept my garden in tip top shape but also used all the empty yoghurt boxes to plant flowers and plants. 

Having finally conquered the oven, I wanted to make something that needed to be popped into the contraption. Since we had done so well with the lasagna, we decided to give it another go and also added eggplant parmesan to the menu (we used this recipe Aubergine, tomato & Parmesan bake (Melanzane alla Parmigiana)). 

The eggplants Bendu bought from Benson Street were ginormous (would you believe that I spelled this and didn't have it underlined in red i.e. it is an actual word). 

For dessert we had mangoes with mint and a Cointreau. We found this wonderful and simple recipe here: Marvellous mangoes. 

As you can imagine, we were quite proud of ourselves for the dinner we prepared. 

The cherry on the top was of course the film itself. I had watched Ship of Theseus the night before. I guess I was in a rather pensive mood, the last day of my work at Mercy Corps and was a little blue. What is it about good byes one might ask? The film had really rocked me, inspired me. 

It was on the list of films that I sent around to our group of friends to peruse through. The idea was to select a film that night. 

(By the way, this is the list of films: 

i) To Sir With Love (1967, Sidney Poitier)

ii) The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman)

iii) Get Hard (Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart,  2015)

iv) No Country For Old Men (Tommy Lee Jones Javier Bardem Josh Brolin Woody Harrelson, 2007) 

v) Birdman (Michael Keaton Zach Galifianakis Edward Norton Andrea Riseborough Amy Ryan Emma Stone Naomi Watts, 2014) 

vi) Bored to Death (TV Series, a couple of episodes)

vii) Ship of Theseus (2013, Aida El-Kashef, Neeraj Kabi and Sohum Shah)

viii) Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011, Hrithik Roshan,  Abhay Deol, and Farhan Akhtar) 

ix) Purple Rose of Cairo (Mia Farrow Jeff Daniels, 1985)  

x) All About Eve (Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, 1950))

As the group looked through the movies, I casually recommended Ship of Theseus and said it was a life changing movie. The group was close to choosing No Country for Old Men or Darjeeling Limited but quickly took my advice! 

I loved the film so much I was happy to see it a second time and, relished it even more. I feel like describing the experience of watching it and, am searching for metaphors. It felt I was watching stories of rebirth, characters grappling with and finding meaning of their lives. 

Movie buffs like me watch so many commercial films that forget to know how to watch art films which have such a different, measured pace than mainstream movies. 

The experience of watching Ship of Theseus was seeing time slow down and seeing moments depicted in vivid reality. One could almost feel one was there. One of my favourite scenes, in terms of appreciating the director's and cameraman's technique and artistry, was the one where the blind girl, after her sight-restoring surgery, becomes overwhelmed with the noise, traffic and commotion while trying to take photographs. Originally, she used to follow sounds to take photographs but ironically now the darting objects would not allow her to focus. Her sight did not serve her at all where once she enjoyed following sound to take photographs. Her sense of helplessness was conveyed in that scene where she stood on a busy intersection. 

Another favourite but haunting scene is where the monk's disease ravaged body is shown closely at night as he gets up to clean himself after having accidentally wet his bed. 

I'm really glad that we watched an art film as a group rather than opting for something which would have been easier to see and comprehend. 

Meaning, the fundamental raison d'être of all our journeys, discoveries, and angst, is still so elusive and subjective as the film showed. Is meaning the human condition itself or our reality in relation to the human condition?

Isn't it also interesting to think that a philosophical conundrum was explored using the film medium?

Writing versus blogging

I spent quite a bit of time recently looking for blogs to add to the reading list on my blog. It seems the blogosphere is full of whimsical, superfluous space. Bloggers are filling it up with clever one-liners and the most stylised photographs. 

My potato greens seems so dull, drab in comparison. There are not enough pictures of mason jars in it. 

Still, I was drawn enough to these virtual, made up drawing rooms to stare at pretty nothing space. Should I make my blog also pretty and whimsical?

For the longest time I've been obsessed - in fact, am still determined - about becoming a writer. I've been collecting anecdotes, narratives, stories and observations in my head for some, hoping to unleash my work of genius sometime soon. 

Until then, I need to figure out how to incorporate more mason jars in my blog. 

In other news, one of my Greek QMW mates decided to drop me an e-mail to lecture me about not being so sympathetic either towards the Leftist Greek government nor the average irresponsible Greek. I do not want to get into the details of her politics but it did amuse me that she only writes once in a blue moon - usually it is a fantastically long update about her life, full of witty long rants, much like herself - and only decided to write because she'd randomly logged into Facebook to see my status about haughty EU leaders. 

After a disturbingly horrible dining experience at our favourite Mamba Point Hotel last Friday, we have decided to never step into a restaurant again. So, we decided to google some desi recipes a few nights ago and went off to Exclusive Supermarket on Center Street to buy ingredients. We found everything including Dawat Basmati rice. It had Amitabh Bachan's photograph on it. 

While shopping, I saw an Ahamdi family also browsing the aisles. The father had the typical topi on his head and the mother was wearing a burqa. The children were a cranky boy who clung to his father and a chubby girl dressed in a kappa print shalwar kameez who kept staring at me. Somehow, they seemed so out of place here, far removed from Pakistan. I kind of admired them for coming so far from home to be part of the Ahamdi mission here but given how poorly average Ahamdis are faring in Pakistan, they might as well be in Liberia. They also reminded me of American missionary families we knew of while studying at the American Baptist school in Dakar. 

Start drinking wine while you cook. It gets you in the mood for….

Haresh made delicious saibhaji (The receipe he used is here), which I've had at my sister in law's in Dubai, and I made karela keema (The recipe I used is here). We followed the recipes to the letter and were extremely impressed at how well the dishes turned out. 

I was fascinated with the karela. I have never made it and, was recently inspired to try to make it after eating a delicious karela at a Pakistani couple's house who live on Bushrod Island a few months ago. 

It is really an ugly vegetable with the strangest skin and texture. I imagine NASA had the same feeling discovering Mars with all its crooks and crannies. And, it's really bitter. But it's worth cooking and enjoying. 

On a roll, tonight we decided to finally use the oven and made ourselves the perfect lasagna. We found the recipe here. We were giggling at how well it turned out and enjoyed plate after plate with red wine.

What a way to end the week!

A friend comes to town

A friend of ours who used to work in Liberia as the head of an NGO engaged in various studies and now working at the World Bank was back in town recently to follow up on one of the studies she had initiated a few years ago. 

She came over to our apartment for dinner and it was needless to say nice to host her. As I grow older, I realise the value of friendships. Friends come in all sizes, shapes and shades. Whenever you do manage to share a moment with a friend, you feel all the more richer for it. 

It is nice to have your friendships bear fruit. 

One study she is overseeing is studying sex amongst young girls: when does a young girl start having sex and why, are they supported by their parents, who pays their school fees and so on. 

The other study also looks at household expenditure and attitudes to sending their kids to school. 

I am mixing up the focus of the studies most likely and how many there are but roughly from what I remember from our chat, this is what I remember. She explained that one of the reasons such a study is being conducted is to challenge typical perceptions of folks in poor countries. 

So, people think that young girls are having random sex all the time. And, parents are not interested in sending their kids to school. 

Our friend explained that so far the study challenges all these perceptions. 

I wonder if this is the reason the main work of the entire do gooder industry - the one made up of the UN and NGOs - is either holding workshops or putting up giant advertisements telling folks what to do. 

Samarkand

The domain name of my blog is potato greens, a Liberian dish, and the name of the blog is We travel not for trafficking alone.  One of these days, I'm going to share a recipe for my take on potato greens but meanwhile would like to share the poem from which the name of the blog is derived:

THE GOLDEN JOURNEY TO SAMARKAND

PROLOGUE 

We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,
We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why, -
What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest,
Where nevermore the rose of sunset pales,
And winds and shadows fall towards the West:
And there the world's first huge white-bearded kings
In dim glades sleeping, murmur in their sleep,
And closer round their breasts the ivy clings,
Cutting its pathway slow and red and deep. 

THE GOLDEN JOURNEY TO SAMARKAND 

EPILOGUE

At the Gate of the Sun, Bagdad, in olden time

THE MERCHANTS :
Away, for we are ready to a man!
Our camels sniff the evening and are glad.
Lead on, O Master of the Caravan:
Lead on the Merchant-Princes of Bagdad. 

THE CHIEF DRAPER :
Have we not Indian carpets dark as wine,
Turbans and sashes, gowns and bows and veils,
And broideries of intricate design,
And printed hangings in enormous bales? 

THE CHIEF GROCER :
We have rose-candy, we have spikenard,
Mastic and terebinth and oil and spice,
And such sweet jams meticulously jarred
As God's own Prophet eats in Paradise. 

THE PRINCIPAL JEWS :
And we have manuscripts in peacock styles
By Ali of Damascus; we have swords
Engraved with storks and apes and crocodiles,
And heavy beaten necklaces, for Lords.

THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN : But you are nothing but a lot of Jews. 

THE PRINCIPAL JEWS :
Sir, even dogs have daylight, and we pay. 

THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN :
But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes,
You dirty-bearded, blocking up the way?

THE PILGRIMS :
We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow,
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lives a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave,
Who make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

THE CHIEF MERCHANT :
We gnaw the nail of hurry. Master, away! 

ONE OF THE WOMEN :
O turn your eyes to where your children stand.
Is not Bagdad the beautiful? O stay! 

THE MERCHANTS in chorus :
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. 

AN OLD MAN :
Have you not girls and garlands in your homes,
Eunuchs and Syrian boys at your command?
Seek not excess: God hateth him who roams! 

THE MERCHANTS :
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

A PILGRIM WITH A BEAUTIFUL VOICE :
Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells
When shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
And softly through the silence beat the bells
Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.

A MERCHANT : 
We travel not for trafficking alone:
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand. 

THE MASTER OF THE CARAVAN :
Open the gate, O watchman of the night! 

THE WATCHMAN :
Ho, travellers, I open. For what land
Leave you the dim-moon city of delight?

THE MERCHANTS with a shout
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

The Caravan passes through the gate 

THE WATCHMAN consoling the women
What would ye, ladies? It was ever thus.
Men are unwise and curiously planned. 

A WOMAN :
They have their dreams, and do not think of us. 

VOICES OF THE CARAVAN : in the distance, singing
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

I first came to learn this poem in my days at UNJLC, Islamabad in 2002.

My supervisor, a wonderful Keith Chapman, shared it with me. It was part of a colleague's e-mail signature and I was struck by the beautiful imagery.  Keith and I had a wonderful relationship. He was a good mentor! He loved Ella Fitzgerald and I would stream London's Jazz FM and we would enjoy the music in our room.

Once, another UNJLC colleague came in barging and told us to keep it down and Keith was infuriated with this colleague's brusque manner. In fact, it was strange to see this outburst because the music was not that loud.  In fact, Keith asked me to turn it up.

My favourite stanza from this poem is:

We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

I think this stanza captures the mystery of life and desire, the journey to explore the world and ourselves, the restlessness that we feel but also the sense of nostalgia we have for time passed and all we left behind. 

Good evening and good luck!

Last week at Mercy Corps

I would not have imagined I would become so teary during my last week at Mercy Corps. As my last day at work approaches, I am overcome with so many competing and often contradictory feelings. 

I am first of all surprised that I would feel like staying in this NGO world despite all my frustrations and issues with the aid industry which I had for a long time and, also during this recent stint with Mercy Corps. But I am came to appreciate my job as a job and, for what I managed to learn because of it. 

I have also been grappling with irritable feelings because after all the work I put in, after my very conscious efforts to fit back into this world and, leveraging myself for a second round of funding, I found myself without a position on second phase of the programme. The reasons are obvious and practical - my department was over staffed and, had too many expatriate staffing - but it stings. 

But I've kept the most professional face and demeanor. Ask anyone!

The most difficult and enjoyable aspect of my last couple of weeks at Mercy Corps has been having nothing to do. 

We're between programmes so not much is going on at the moment. 

I mostly enjoyed myself with this free time, cleaned up my desk, cleaned up my desk top, spent some time with my colleagues, planned my social calendar, started looking for jobs, lined up coffee meets, thought of some things to closely follow up at NATC, surfed the net, and did some day dreaming. As it is in this day age, one can get so distracted online, lost in our laptops, in our social media, news sites, favourite secret sites and, the stream of information and photos. 

After a while, though, it gets quite demotivating and boring to have such an unstructured day. I felt quite sad especially today, mulling over my departure and thinking about this very interesting and significant chapter of my life. For the past few years, I have been very consciously writing my life's narrative in my head, justifying all my decisions, and holding myself up to certain principles. The decision to re-enter the development world was such a U-turn, which surprised me, and, was later constructed carefully in my head, blog, notes and then rehearsed lines to friends and colleagues. And, now all I can think about today is the good bye I've been saying to Mercy Corps this week. 

Good byes and farewells really are, for a lack of better word, bittersweet. 

I've started to miss the sense of camaraderie, sense of home and familiarity that took some time to come together. 

As I said in the farewell luncheon organised by my team, I have even started to miss the annoying things like Mercy Corps running out of water, vehicle mix ups, and dirty bathrooms. 

Farewell Mercy Corps, I miss you already. 

Whispers and rumours

It's a human-eat-dog world

About two weeks ago, one of my colleagues at Mercy Corps told me that he'd heard ebola was back. He'd heard from someone at JFK. 

True enough in a week or so, the story broke of a teenage boy who died of ebola in Margibi County. Two more confirmed cases were identified and 100 contacts were also established. 

How was this possible? Liberia was declared ebola free! Did the boy visit Guinea or Sierra Leone? Or did a visitor from Sierra Leone or Guinea bring ebola with him or her? Do we still have undetected pockets of ebola?

As we all discussed the story in the office, another colleague of mine said he'd heard that the family had eaten dog meat and, that is how they contracted the virus. 

This was confirmed again by media. See "Liberia investigating animal link after Ebola re-emerges."

The possibility that dogs could also transmit ebola was suggested last year after a Spanish nurse went home sick with ebola and her dog was euthanised. See "Dogs Can Get Ebola, Study Suggests."

Good will rejected 

A friend from the Lebanese business community told us that the Lebanese community went to the government offering to pool resources to build a hospital. The President told them to stay away from the health sector. 

UNMIL's utility bills

Apparently UNMIL's monthly rent for its headquarters - the Pan African Plaza - is USD 3 million. The Pan African Plaza is supposedly owned by Qaddafi's family.

Although UNMIL is currently downsizing and preparing to leave Liberia next year, they are spending money left and right on red carpets, gym equipment and machine parts. 

Driving to work

Rainy Saturday

Lovely rainy day. Kavita and I took a walk down Randall Street to meet my friend Bendu, who is fasting and dodging rain in her little tea shop. The zinc roof is leaking and her "shop" is generally flooded during the rainy season. She is the one who makes the sweets I take for gifts when I travel abroad.

More rainbows

The Internet is alive with the colours of the rainbow. 

So many logos and profile pictures were rendered in rainbow colours. I didn't see any UN logo follow suit.