Monday Madness, Control Towers and Volcanic Fiascos!

"It seems strangely appropriate for a geologist's travel to be completely screwed up by a volcanic eruption..."

I have been crazy busy this Monday morning. I had two teams to send out to 2 sites, organise additional hardware kit to complete 1 site, get/confirm pricing, coordinate with my chief techie and 1 particularly demanding client, send a status update to another client for whom I am sourcing a huge IT kit order from the United States, do some last minute specs hunting online, attend to an LEC technician and so on....

This was all done 9 am onwards to 2 pm sitting at my desk - my control tower - without a single moment's break. I love this kind of busy-ness! Monday has just flown by and everything is in order. I guess I love working under pressure. All I need is electricity to be on and regular shipments of tea to my desk.

I am most pleased with the performance of my staff. They are really on top of their stuff and all I really need to do is to provide them with support in terms of tools, transport/lunch, back up, double check the market prices, etc. I am also very proud of the trainees who are enthusiastic about learning and pitching in. It's a wonderful feeling. The business model is working.

Lastly, it's fascinating how the volcanic eruption in little old Iceland is creating logistical nightmares for everyone. Important dignitaries could not attend the state funeral of the Polish Prezzie and his wife. More locally here in Liberia, people trying to come back from holiday could not get back (I guess yay for them) and those trying to go on holiday could not go (nay for them). The same shipment of IT kit from the US is delayed for the time because it was coming through Brussels.

It reminded me of something I read in a pop-economics-for-everyone paperback: a butterfly flapping its wings in the rainforests of Brazil will cause a tsunami in East Asia. Or as one of my good friends who is also a geologist told me: "It seems strangely appropriate for a geologist's travel to be completely screwed up by a volcanic eruption..."

There's a very insightful blog on BBC on how social networking sites have allowed people to pool in resources and find alternative solutions to air travel (#get me home: social media and stranded travellers). Facebook and Twitter have basically allowed faster inter connections between people in such a disaster. Moreover, people are happy about relying on each other rather than companies or the state! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/04/getmehome_social_media_and_str.html)

What else? I had a great weekend. A whirlwind trip to Gbarnga, meeting a Chinese cycling whizz, networking networking over the weekend, ludo marathon on Sunday and catching 'Cable Guy' last night on TV.

It's HOT as hell and when is the rainy season going to commence?

Small Small As They Say

I was at Mama Susu's with Haresh this evening after a hectic road trip from Bong County which had fried my brains and, a Chinese dude walks in. I was watching him out of the corner of my eye, seemingly a new comer to town, looking for some gruel. He seemed to be a bit cash short and, Mama Susu offered him a meal on the house. I even said to my friend that that's exactly what happened to Wesley, he met some helpless looking Chinese dudes, offered them food, help and his friendship and look at how they repaid him.

After we both wolfed down our half chickens - we had not eaten in about 24 hours - I looked over at him, quietly waiting for his food. I had a surge of emotions going through me like each time I see a Chinese bloke on the Street. I knew I can't harbour these kind of feelings and thoughts forever. After all, I've always been anti-US and pro-China. After all, there's a billion plus of these guys and it was only two psychotic criminals who ended up in Liberia and somehow met Wesley and did what they did to him. Freak murder as it was, it could happened anywhere and they just happened to be Chinese.

So while we were sipping our tea and getting balance in our bodies, I asked Haresh to call those fellow over and ask him to join our table. And so he did!

And whaddya know? The kid has just cycled his way through West Africa! It's his 10th friggin month! I was bowled over. We were both bowled over. We didn't even let the poor kid eat. He was probably having a decent meal after god knows how long but were interested in how friendly were they locals, how did he get this awesome idea, why did he get this awesome idea, aren't his parents worried, where does he sleep?, has he got sick, is he using Lonely Planet?? Ah, it was a good evening. We had a good chat with him and Mama Susu mothered him. It was kinda of sweet. He was so polite and 'eternally grateful' to Mama Susu for her food.

I guess Chinese people sort of became de-humanised in my head. I couldn't get over how Chinese people in Liberia had murdered him. People still come up to me who haven't met me yet or do not know I am around, telling me Wesley died for nothing and they still can't wrap their heads around how two Chinese kids murdered him brutally and in the end took off with only a laptop and a couple of other items.

Well, I am glad I ended up meeting this kid, had a great conversation about travelling and seeing the world. He was a sweet kid. I was so impressed by this journey of his. His simple answer was that even he didn't know why he wanted to see Africa so badly. But his determination was admirable and inspiring. Life is too short not to see the things we want to see, experience the things we have dreamed of.

I am extremely exhausted after that trip to Bong County. Even though I was in an air conditioned pick up and was more or less comfortable, the heat went to my head and I was kind of car sick for a while. But the meal at Mama Susu's followed by 4 cups of tea did the trick. I am going to enjoy the rest of my weekend.

By the way, as I have said before, business has been pretty good. We have been working straight now for at least 3 weekends. And we still have more jobs coming through. The team is so busy, productive and motivated. I couldn't ask for better staff. Screw all the Lebanese and Indians who discouraged me in the beginning and told me I could not trust local people.

If I had to think about myself these days and how my life has turned out to be, I sometimes get overwhelmed. I never imagined a deep love like I had with Wesley, I never imagined I would thrive so much in being in love, that I would see the world, become part of another society, go through the death of the love of my life and re-create a new life. I can see I am growing at every step and, my spirit is growing too. I never knew that people have the capacity to expand and have so much space inside them. I fully believe in myself and what I want to do. I know that I have to pursue my own path and fulfill my desires and ambitions. And life is a lot more richer when you let go and stop playing it safe.

Life goes on

So, I should probably tell you that I have started dating again. There, I've said. It's been said. It's out in the open. I am in a r-e-l-a-t-i-o-n-s-h-i-p. I'm getting on with it.

In all honesty, I've been dating/hanging out with this dude for a while but it did not really click in my head that I was in an actual relationship and we were doing the whole girl and boyfriend thing. So now, I feel like blogging about it.

Aaaand, I have a TV and everything now so normalcy is now being restored to my life. The next giant step will be to get on a plane again and not be all traumatised and blue.

The business is doing very well and I am going to give myself a break soon!

Midnight Blues

This dry season was really dry. It was hot. It was mean. It was epic. It had an agenda.

The thing is that the wonderful LEC fried the air conditioner and I have been boiling away to glory since then. I could not afford to repair it and all ,so I decided to rough it for a while. There were some evenings when I thought my face would melt. In all honesty, it is not only the fact that I have to survive only using fans but also there's no freaking ventilation in the place where I work and live. Randall Street's a bitch as far as fresh breezes go.

I step out in the balcony, it's much cooler. I step into the next room - in the same freaking apartment - it's cooler. It is like the coolness is playing dodge with me.

So all the time we are experiencing a particularly lethal dry season - also do bear in mind, I tend to exaggerate a fair bit, I really don't know how to drive, swim or tell the temperature, once in the desert heat of Iraq, my colleagues were telling me, guess what, it was FIFTY DEGREES CENTIGRADE, and I was like, nah, it was all right today - the rainy season has also decided to show it's face earlier than usual. We have had some heavy showers dumped on us already bringing with it the humidity.

The past couple of nights, it has been too stifling for me. I was hoping to sit at my desk and do my night time work when I can catch up on e-mails, crunch out my invoices and receipts, prepare my paperwork, work out how much moolah I have made and so on. I like working late at night, listening to music or watching DVDs and preparing myself for the next day.

So the past couple of nights, I just took a lot of showers, tried to climb into the frigidaire, and tossed and turned until 2 or 3 am when it started to get a bit cooler.

This evening was actually cool. I could see the dark clouds at around 6 pm. I excitedly went out for my walk, came back sweaty and hot, took my shower and just as I was ready to sit at my desk and put in some work, LEC screws me over. I went to kill some hours at Mama Susu's, ended up eating a heavy dinner I was not planning on eating, shot some breeze with Mama, and came back at around 10 pm. The power was indeed back so I now I am at my desk , listening to Sinatra, trying to do some stuff I had planned.

You know I am glad I was such a melancholic kid, writing lousy poems, keeping a Diary, listening to Sinatra and jazz. It has had served me well in my adult life. I embraced the beauty of love with the naivete and passion as I imagined in poetry and great novels. I really experienced 'madness in a flashing moment,' sang 'songs of quiet passion,' 'soared among the stars,' and had a great love story with 'the man from Paradise.' And now that tragedy has struck me and I am alone again, I can retreat within myself, the spaces inside me and learn to accommodate the loneliness again. I am no stranger to loneliness and emptiness. I can listen to Sinatra, the blues, Led Zepplin and whatever Habib Koite and other Malian singers are on about and even appreciate the ache and pain even more so.

Now that my life again has some kind of a routine again and I am not so tired and overwhelmed, I find myself restless and don't know what to do with the time at hand. I can't sleep so easily and really really miss Wesley again. I miss having a home and feeling at home with him, safe and secure. I miss our inside jokes. I miss fussing over him and him fussing over me. I miss bugging him and miss him bugging me. I miss cooking for him and eating together. I even miss shouting at Joseph and Wesley getting angry with me. I miss his analysis. I miss his jokes. I miss his infectious laughter. I miss the way he used to fall asleep listening to BBC. I miss his figure working away on his laptop. I miss the way he used to come home from work, overwhelming the place with his bags and demanding a cold drink. I miss calling him dodo. I miss my own voice calling his name.

Of tragic beauty and humour to combat the blues

I thought all this new-found grief in my life had made me thin with pining and given me smouldering, mysterious, tragic-stricken beauty. At least that's what I think when I when I see myself in the mirror. Yeah, don't ask. I think I look really sad and beautiful. But I was just looking at some recent photos of mine and damn, I have a baby face. I look like a freaking kid with my round face. So much for tragic beauty.

Read the above. I've become pretty funny, eh? Where does this humour come from? Where is the comedy in my life after all the shit that's happened to me? After the universe has just shat on me. I guess that's what they mean by comedy.

But jokes aside, seriously, I've become very funny. I'm always on fire, zing, zing with jokes, poking fun at myself and the situations I find myself in. I even found moments of humour when I was in the midst of funeral arrangements, scratching my head trying to figure out how to get my boyfriend's body released from the hospital to be able to finally put him to rest, going through one hurdle after another. I also found humour in how homeless and poor I had become, enjoying the fact that everyone was always paying for dinner for me. I found humour in the fact that the dragon lady - me - took over the company and staff which Wesley so lovingly managed with patience. I have found humour in how I am a damsel in distress and men are chasing after me.

Nope, I'm not cynical. I just see the funny side of it. Perhaps it's a mechanism my brain has come up with it to deal with what happened.

But if you really want to know, I am sad inside. I have a universe of pain inside me. It constantly hurts. I miss my Wesley so much, every single moment of every day. There's not a day which goes by when I don't curse myself and the decisions I took. I wish I could sell my soul to the devil to get him back. I wish I had died instead of him, at least his family really really loved him while I have too many issues with mine, who still hold it against me that I loved someone who wasn't from the freak cult sect we belong to (Don't ask, we come from a random sect in Islam which none of the other Muslims recognise even. It's so random, so off tangent. Religion does my head in.) I wish I could die now so I could find out where he is. I close my eyes and wish I was holding him. I wish I had loved him even more and not even bothered to share him with my friends and kept him all to myself. But how do I go on? Why do I go on?

I don't really believe it's anyone's but my pain. I have to bear this on my own and forge ahead with the decision I have taken. I am a morose type but not a suicidal type. I have always been a 'strong' person and there's just no other way I know how to be. I have just accepted what life has dealt me and, like how one mentally prepares oneself for an uncomfortable card ride or flight in economy, I have mentally adjusted myself to a life without Wesley. I am just going to carry on the business, make a shit load of money, sit tight and wait until I die. It's as simple as that. I now know he and I weren't meant to be together in this life and I have to be alone. I now know the time with the love of my life was just that long. I am pretty positive I'll never go as crazy in love again. I loved him too much, with too much passion, and all all all I ever wanted was for us to be together. I might grow fond of someone again but that love, nope.

So, I have to sit tight and just live the rest of this life with as much dignity as possible. I will reach my goals - yes - but it's for the heck of it more than anything else. I can't let anything get to me either. Everything's a joke after all.

I used to take life very seriously but also very secure in the belief, in the faith that everything would be okay as long as Wesley was by my side. I feel utterly alone now on this planet. My partner has been taken from me.

I am very sad inside despite appearances. I am also bitter too, yes, I am. What are you supposed to think about life when you are separated from your love for a year, you are hounded by your own family, living far away in a depressing cold land, growing sadder and sadder by each day but desperately trying to be brave, and then you hear the news your love was brutally murdered where you left them? Ah, you just feel defeated. Like the universe defeated you. Punished you. (And that's what your family tells you, too, that you deserve something like that to happen to you. Don't ask.)

I finally understand why comedians are some of the saddest people there are.

I sometimes feel like there is now an eternity of grief inside me. I feel like I am carrying inside me two graves, one of my friend, Kavita, and now Wesley.

But I shall carry on. For the memory of my Wesley. I shall not give up and hide or run away.

Mid-week thoughts

Dude, I have been having a good week. Lemme see, I am going to land a nice sweet order for a LOT of IT kit for that mining company. I WILL be finally starting that maintenance contract with the other big-ass mining company. So whaddya know? I'll be dealing with the mining industry.

I have just come from sorting out salaries for February so that's a good feeling. It's good to be boss, man. It's good to be able to take care of your team, being able to pay salaries.

Still collecting payments, though. It's so hard to get the money out from some jerk clients. I hope none of them reads my blog. Oh well, the good thing is that some cool clients pay me on time so it sort of balances out. And in my new life, I need very little to take care of myself. I mean, I've got some clients who actually take ME out to dinner, get me great gifts. People are always paying for me, bringing me things , I go hang out with all the Mama's (Susu, Benu, Rebecca, what have you) who just take care of me.

What else happened? Well, I ran into someone I have been meeting off and on at Mamba Point hotel the other day. It was really funny. This is someone who consulted with my organisation when I used to work with at the UN in 3 different missions. We haven't seen each other since 2 years or more but he recognised me and called my name. I couldn't even remember this fellow's name. It was pretty funny.

Oh, I got blanked by a friend the other day. It's weird, eh? After all that happened to me, some people have behaved really wonderful with me and some have behaved weirdly. I guess crises really show you who your real family and friends are.

My team is doing well and I have THREE trainees on board now. I love the vibe amongst them. They really click with each other and I can't tell you what a cool working atmosphere we have (except when I am grumpy). The trainees work as hard as the staff and are really really eager to learn, contribute and be part of a company. We just pay them transportation and they come in every day. You should see how the senior staff 'teaches' them. Afterall, I don't know IT so it's the seniors' jobs to give the trainees training. Kennedy clearly loves to teach and he delivers great note-taking lectures. I watch with fasincation as it all happens. I even watch in amusement as they started teasing one of the new trainees and, had to remind myself I must stop it at one point lest the poor kid thinks I am condoning it. I swear, it's like being a school teacher sometimes. What I am saying essentially is that I like the atmosphere I have. I am still very managerial/dragon lady but I balance it with some occasional jokes, self-depreciating jokes, the morning meetings, and not controlling the show too much.

Of course, I still lose it. LEC is doing my head in. It's making me see RED all the time. Their power outtakes are driving me up the wall. I was first handling it well by shifting my ass to Mama Susu or to Haresh's store but it's just getting on my nerves. The internet is always slow elsewhere and I just can't work. It took me ALL day today to write one invoice and send it over. Oh my freaking GOD, I HATE THE LEC.

Not only is LEC-related stress driving me up the wall, it is making me go NUTS. I had to do some research on a plastic card printer and I thought I'd ask one contact which one they're using. So I call them up and they tell me they're using an Evoli product. By the time I went on the Internet to look for this company, I couldn't remember what it was. I ended up looking up 'Mollusk' and 'Obelisk' for half hour. Don't ask.

I have decided that I want to get into being an ISP at some point. Why? Well, the greedy GSM companies are providing crap service. There are some other ISPs which are decent but they are expensive as hell. So Farzana and her amazing IT company come in as a new ISP. We come in with really competitive, I mean are-you-kidding-me?-competitive pricing and just take over the market. I mean, we blow everyone out of the water. We just grab the market. That happens in year 1. And in year 2, we get all of our money back and more. Sweet, huh? Just watch this space.

So yes, it's been a good week so far. I have a good contract coming through. A good goods order. There's continuing work coming in from our current clients. We are busy. I am now becoming famous on the Liberia expats group although they thought I was a guy which I had to correct them on. I had a great lunch at Mamba Point the other day. I had a good Wednesday night dinner with some kids at Mama Susu's. I guess I am really taking to this new life where I am saving myself (enough with saving the world). I love this sense of I'm doing something for myself and working for myself.

Here's to a good month of March.

My dearest Wesley

My dearest Wesley,

O dream of my dreams, desire of my desires, the one I loved and still love, it is Friday evening and the sun setting is spreading its usual golden light across the sky. This golden sunshine is coming through the sheer curtains that used to be in our living room and now are in my office.

The week has come to a close and you'll be happy to know we worked really hard. Your boys are performing phenomenally well. Our clients are happy with the service we are providing. Guess what? We have added a few more clients - including a big ass mining company. Cool eh? I'll take over the world for you! The business is steadily growing, we are going from strength to strength, building a pipeline of clients and projects. I've also put in expressions of interest for UNDP and for an American NGO. What's more, I'm gelling with your team. Can you imagine? I used to be such a terror to your office and now I have ended up working with them. They must be like, our luck, we have to work with the dragon lady. But no worries, I am working on my temper and have learned to chill out.

The funniest thing is that I totally understand your sense of humour now. Even Linga has picked up your mannerisms including joking around.

I think I have chilled out a little bit because I no longer work at a dysfunctional bureaucracy. I totally get how much you loved being your own boss and deciding your own fate.

I sometimes think this whole thing is surreal and you are not dead and I am not actually running YOUR company.

What else can I say on this Friday evening at 6:30 pm? I feel a sense of peace at this very moment thinking of you and all that you have left me behind. I think you left me a real opportunity and destiny. I think I can really make something of this.

My heart swells with pride for you thinking about this. I love you even more.

So my darling, please know I love you and you were the passion in life. I do not know whether I will ever see you again and which freaking form it will be. You know how you were a born-again aetheist and how much I was leaning towards it too? Well, my china, we're in a bit of a pickle. If there's no freaking thereafter, how the hell are we supposed to meet? So let me believe there's something after this life.

Love and many many kisses,

Your Faz

Sunday walk

I had one of my long, work-out walks on Sunday, the kind I used to in my old life. I used to go for 2 or 3 hour walks all the way to Congo Town and back. My friend Chipo actually got me addicted to those walks. We'd solve the world problems, stop for ice-cream and just have a lot of fun.

Among all the things that I was nervous about doing again was the walk after Wesley. When I settled in with the business, I knew I had to start my walks again. It's the main exercise that I have, the main outlet for my physical and mental stress. I was very nervous though about starting those again. I felt too 'conscious' of myself, I am after all one of the few Asian women around who actually leave the house, I used to live and work around here..The worst feeling was the idea that I had no one to come home to after my walk.

For the first few walks, I took Joseph, my trusty housekeeper, my confidant, my everything, with me. After that, I settled back into my usual walk around Mamab Point. It was kind of painful at first but I have become an expert at blocking or repressing painful feelings. I mean, there's nothing to be done about it. Every corner, every street of Monrovia has memories of Wesley and I together. And even if I do not have a memory of us together, there is memory of my past life or the time when Wesley still had not come to Liberia to join me. There are literally pining spots in Monrovia when I used to miss him when he was far away from me.

I was out on this gone Saturday at a pool party in Congo Town. So I slept in on Sunday, got up late, had something to eat, read a lot and dozed back. I got up from a nap and just had an awful sense of nostalgia. I remembered my undergrad days in London and felt such a sense of nostalgia for those gone days, they seem like eons gone. I remembered my childhood days when the family was more or less in tact and happy. I missed my parents. I missed myself.

I remembered Sundays with Wesley and how easygoing they were. I used to go on Sunday walks and he'd scold me if I came home late. I missed making breakfast for him. I missed fighting for the remote control with him. I missed fighting for his attention like a little kid. I missed out movie marathons. I had such a sense of heart ache that it became hard to breathe. I felt these pangs of loneliness and despair, for the cruelty of my fate and his. I feel homeless. Utterly. I feel cheated.

I can't believe I have to live my life without him. And if there's an afterlife, maybe I'll get to see him again.

Life suddenly felt so meaningless in that moment when I was up and thinking lonely thoughts on my balcony. Whether I work hard or not, whether I struggle or not, whether I feel positive or not, he's gone. I can cry as many tears as possible, he'll still be dead. I can become a loser and vegetate and feel sorry for myself and he'll still be dead. I can be positive, strong and not let anyone know how many times my heart breaks in a single day, and he'll still be dead. I can go and roam this earth and look for him and he'll still be dead. This entire planet of six billion souls, mountains, rivers, deserts, eco systems, roads, cities, factories, corners, moments, lifetimes...feels empty for me.

I felt such a sense of heaviness but nevertheless dragged myself out for my walk. My heart lifted only a little bit when I heard some Arabic being recited on Newport Street where a goat was being sacrificed and some sort of function was on. I walked on and made my first round via the Masonic Temple. I made my second round and as the evening grew more golden and richer, I felt a bit of calm. One of the little kids beckoned to me and actually flirted and said, 'come here' to me and that made me laugh! His boldness and playfulness made me smile. I greeted the rest of the people who live along my route and felt better. By the time I had finished, all sweaty and red, I felt light.

So, my friend, many more Sunday walks lie ahead. I will walk on.

Pricing and clients and good will for my clients

As I add clients, get more business, negotiate contracts, invoice for various jobs and so on, I have to do a lot of head scratching.

One of the things I had planned for in my 'planning session' in December was to standardise my contracts and re-negotiate fees. We are totally undercharging and need to revise our fees.

In fact, one of my new clients told me I was under the market rate which made me 'competitive.' Actually, it made me a little 'mad' but I had to keep that part to myself. I thought we are pretty much it, that no one else out there even compares! In fact, I know that we do not really have any serious competition. Apparently one company we know of goes around doing maintenance on PCs with soap and water. Don't ask.

In another conversation with a good mate of mine who was once upon a time on the board for multi-million dollar companies but is now heeding the call of development, I realised I need to
really figure out my pricing and mark up and all that wonderful stuff to do with numbers. Numbers. It's like dealing with doctors.

So while I am trying to do a good cost pricing for my services, I also got some crappy feedback from some clients. Apparently, our service is good but we're slow. Usually, I do not quite believe the client because they're A) illiterate in IT B) are completely oblivious to the obstacles they themselves create when you're trying to do a job like you can't expect us to do maintenance or check without giving us access to the freaking PC or server C) you can't do a job in 2 seconds. I have also experienced extremely annoying clients who simply do not appreciate service. I knew this anyway, had seen Wesley deal with difficult clients. It was always at the back of my head. But when I heard this new feedback, I had to sit up and take stock beyond the operating procedures in place.

It turns out it's a combination of things - clients are still difficult and we also have some snail-speed issues. I'm finding ways to make both sides happy - i.e. client and my techies. I have to find a turn out time for Call Outs and Repairs and try to stick to that.

So while I sort out that out, I guess I am getting a better idea of how pricing works for services. I'm going to stick to my current rates for Call Outs and Repairs for the time being but try to price upwards for maintenance contracts.

As expected January is becoming incredibly busy and I am thriving in the madness of it. The other night, I was up until 2 am, crunching invoices and proposals. It was fantastic. I feel so alive when I have to be coordinating and juggling 10 jobs at a day. The team is really coming together. Our trainee did his first call out and actually made money for the company. It is a good feeling.

What am I learning these days? I guess service is very challenging. I am fiercely protective of the kind of work my guys do. I really understand how tricky it can be to provide a service to a client and ensure they are satisfied. Some of our clients are easy going and clearly understand that my guys actually have to use their brains and find solutions in trouble shooting call outs for example. Others are oh so snooty and think they know it. 'Dude, if you know how to sort out the problem, why'd you call us? Did your wife not make you a paratha this morning? Don't take it out on us.' I also have to deal with my techies' frustrations. Sometimes they really complain about a client and sometimes they do not even mention it. It can get pretty random. My goal is to also be on site once in a while, flirt with the customers, tell them a few jokes and so on. It should ease things out.

I am getting acutely aware of my job and responsibility as a manager. I have to m-a-n-a-g-e all this. And guess what? I am really enjoying this.

Things are looking up, dude. Our head is finally above the water and we can see the shore.

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Have a great computing day! Hope your computers compute and your printers print.
Sincerely,
The great people at NLTC.

(Not really - we hope your PCs crash, deadly viruses freeze your LAN, your printers break down, so we may come and repair, re-install, re-format, trouble shoot and save the day.)

We strategise and plan

I thought December was going to be a slow month but it turned out to be a busy one. We added a few clients, sent a team up to Gbarnga to do some maintenance work, installed some equipment, made computers compute, commanded printers to print, and basically ruled.

During the last week of December between the long Christmas and New Year's weekends, I took a couple of days out with my team to strategise, to plan - in other words, to workshop.

My initial plan was to actually plan for the first few months of 2010 as I was busy as hell in November and December with building a pipeline of new clients and business. I knew we were going to get busy. I also wanted to brainstorm ideas on continuing to grow the business. Lastly, I wanted to give and get feedback from the team.

As the whole workshop thing rolled out over the next couple of days, it became an interesting and very dynamic exercise. For it to really work, I had to take a few steps back and take a look at the big picture. 'Who are we?' 'What is it that we are selling to our clients?' 'How do we do it?' You know, all the workshop 'blah blah blah' that makes you usually want to kill yourself (those tedious staff meetings at the UN). But this was different. I was leading the process, it was a smaller team and it actually meant something! Not some development intangibles that we are supposed to achieve by building a latrine or buying a $ 40,000 land cruiser.

We had to break down what it was we actually did, what value we brought to the clients, and where we needed to increase our volume. For instance, we broke down our key areas into maintenance, repairs and call outs and projects. We are doing okay in the first two areas but need to get some juicy project to make a juicy profit which we want to re-invest in the business. Alternatively, if we can get the volume up on the first two areas, we can also do pretty well for ourselves. Eventually, I do want to get into supply of hardware too. 'We supply, install and maintain it for you!'

It was a good exercise and I was pleased with the feedback from the guys. We even did a bit of peer review and apparently, I'm still quite the dragon lady which I need to work on. They are still a bit intimidated with me. I had to swallow my fire and smile back and say sure, I'll work on my temper, no problemo.

Apart from feeling a sense of achievement by having gone through that process with my team - it's hard work, eh? - I was so pleased with myself. It all came pretty naturally to me. I am damn organised. Even my guys said, you're so well planned! I am pleased that I can visualise, see the bigger picture and have a feel for the business. My guys are pleased that although I am not a techie, I can sell the business and bluff my way through.

The other fun bit of was throwing around vocabulary with the guys. I love teaching and seeing people absorb new words. We even have a 'word of the day' (it has to be an IT-related word) going on now which is probably more for my sake.

I can't WAIT to build the team, start creating proper departments, get into supply and build a world-class company. We'll be so freaking cool! And everyone will be jealous.

PS. Did you know there is a WAN, LAN and a PAN? Seriously, there is.
PSS. My guys are great techies. They're actually super tech nerds. The only disturbing thing is their taste in music - gospel! Akon! YiKes!!! No, no. For nerds and techies - it can only be hard rock. Maaaaybe alternative.

2010

I bid farewell to 2009 and welcomed 2010 at Robertsport. It was my first time at Robertsport and I was blown away the pristine white beach, the serenity of the ocean and not to mention the safari-style lodge. It was unreal - I could not believe that I was a mere 2 hours away from the shabby, noisy and congested delights of Monrovia.

I think I could really get into the beach culture.

[Pause]

Most people who know me would think I'm so hilariously (annoyingly, actually) inconsistent. The reason I say it is because I used to go around saying that desi's don't really do the beach. We are already tan. We run away from the sun. Blah blah.

My friends managed to get me into a swim suit and even tried to teach me how to float. And I also went in the sea at Robertsport. I guess I am really changing (and really enjoying it)! Why did the lady protest so much?

So yes, I could really get into the beach culture. Lounge around in a sarong, read books, sip amarula, doze off. Not bad at all.

There was a part of me which was delighted and thrilled to be there in the midst of such beauty with such wonderful friends. And then then there was also a separate torrent of grief and loss within me, missing Wesley, regretting he was not with me, bidding goodbye to a terrible year, in fact, glad to be over with the relentless nuclear-strength nastiness of 2009 that which obliterated almost all of my life and forced me to start a new one.

So there I was, welcoming in 2010 - a wild sea of emotions within me - against the backdrop of a seemingly serene sea and the most glorious of full moons that was aglow with magical moonshine. What a bewitching atmosphere it was. Nostalgic, melancholy, achingly beautiful, warm and promising. This is how my moments have become nowadays, they are multi -coloured, multi-faceted, and deliciously and painfully complex and intense! My God, the intensity!

Perhaps this is how life is - complex, dangerous, wonderful, unpredictable, merciless, shockingly kind and so on. And, one has to take it in one's strides as it moves you along.

The metaphor. A definition. A re-telling, re-description of something, an experience, a vision. I remember writing to myself once that all poetry is re-writing of definitions. All good poems have at least one crowning glory - one image, one concept, one thing that has been re-cast into something else. Poets transform our experiences and feelings into something else, hopefully more sublime or more terrifying. And most often, we seek nature to find our inspiration.

So if I speak of life and its complexity, what better inspiration that the ocean itself? The ocean which is vast and ever changing?

I am sure though that if I had spent the New Year's in the bush, I would be likening my experience to a tree!

I can often hear Wesley's words and voice in my head. A lot of which he had to say and share with me makes sense now. He had really thought about life, happiness, love and the bonds we share with our fellow human beings. I think he was acutely aware of how random, unfair and wonderful life was and, how people put more stock into the unseen than ourselves and our own human capacity. I think of the sweet love which we shared and how natural we were together. I used to think Wesley was different from me but I realise that he was just an older version of me. I think a lot too, am very introverted (although I am consciously trying to be less so), have a few hang ups, and am very suspicious of sacred cows. I wonder whether I shall ever find someone who can challenge me in so many ways again and is yet so easy to be with. I really wonder whether I will ever love someone so madly and deeply again. The only consolation is that when I finally die and if we exist after death, I will see him.

I openly and sincerely welcome whatever 2010 has in store for me. I do not feel alone and I am not scared of the future. I am excited about life and its wonderful and terrible mysteries.

So let us say welcome to 2010!

End of Year Thoughts

Christmas came and went. I thought it was going to be an excruciatingly painful time for me but it was not so bad. I think I had dreaded it enough already and lingered over enough memories. Moreover, as I have been socialising more than ever in my entire life, I had enough stuff lined up to keep me busy. The festive season passed by quickly attending various functions, cooking and eating. I attended a very mellow and relaxed dinner on Christmas Eve with a lot of UN folk. It was amusing to mingle with them, tell them I have gone to the 'other' side and shoot some breeze. It was also really nice to be at that party with many nationalities from the continent.

Christmas Day was a braai hosted by the South Africans and there was also a Secret Santa thing going on too. I had a good time, eating, drinking amarula and being merry - all of it tinged with moments of nostalgia and sweet memories. I ended up camping out at this beautiful house in Congo Town for that whole weekend, lazing by the pool, eating, watching TV, napping, reading books, and enjoying my time with my friends. It was like a little holiday and I'm so grateful to them for just letting me be, comforting me when I needed to be comforted and being really cool.

Speaking of Secret Santa, I got my staff to do it. I told them a week in advance what we were going to do. They were pretty excited. We got the names on slips of paper and went around trying to pick each other's Secret Santa. We kept running into the problem of people picking up their own names. I thought it was a mathematical problem and Linga says, let's number them! But of course, one person still ended up picking up his own number. A visitor who happened to walk in at that moment suggested to us geniuses that the slips of paper should not be picked up at the same time. (I hope no one reads this as we are an IT company and should be good at problem solving.) Anyway, we sorted it out and decided to put a $ 5 cap on the gift.

The visitor who happened to walk in was someone I actually met on Google Liberia expats group. She was volunteering for an NGO and I suggested to her to meet up. So this chick actually comes in to meet our company and we ended up spending the next three evenings together. We hung out, went to Mama Susu's, went to check up on my other Indian friend who had a fire in his building (so much drama, man, that can happen here), went walking, and so on. I love these chance enounters - they're sweet. Or, maybe I am just getting better at meeting and hanging out with people. I suspect it's both.

The office Secret Santa went really well and I was pleased to see how much of an effort everyone made. I had a picture of Kennedy and Patience printed out and framed for Kennedy and I myself got a very sweet 'To my Boss' card framed and signed from Onesimus who is trainee. We opened up our gifts and then, had a staff lunch of joloff rice followed by more food sent by Rebecca, my Liberian mother. I felt good doing it as Wesley used to have this office culture of eating together once a week.

So all in all, Christmas passed by without being that painful. I was distracted enough by all the socialising I did. I also cooked quite a lot - my signature dish that I contributed for the functions was my chicken pilao. It was quite a hit. Although it still stings to know Wesley is not around and I can't cook for him any more but it is still a nice feeling to cook for people and know they are enjoying the food.

What else happened? Oh I pulled a back muscle and couldn't move for a few hours. I felt like an old woman. My Indian friend had to come over and give me acupressure which was shoot-me-painful but did the trick. Not to mention some muscle relaxants too. I spent the evening, propped up on cushions, drinking tea on my lovely balcony, chatting to visitors - all that was missing was a bunch of my own grand children.

We are now up to New Year's. I won't lie - 2010 was the shittiest year of my life. I took off for London to pursue a master's degree but my boyfriend gets murdered back in Liberia and I have to rush back, abandon my masters, deal with all the shit and have his body cremated. I entered into a universe of pain and misery and grief. My whole life gets altered. I lost the love of my life, felt penniless and homeless. I felt hounded by the same dogs of despair and darkness that I was familiar with when I lost my best friend at university.

Friends and well wishers thought I was pretty strong and brave about the whole thing though. I don't know what it was but I felt compelled and driven to take over IT company's. It felt right and somehow the path seemed very clear. I am glad I took it. I feel liberated in a strange way, I feel I am really making my own decisions and will be ready to face the consequences of those decisions. At least they will be my own. I feel I can lead the life without social or other made-up fears. I feel I can hold my chin up and do what I want to do. And, I am grateful for the support along the way - you know what, I never even understood the meaning of support until now. I used to wonder what people went on and on about it but now I finally understand what support is and what it means when people say, I am on your side and will support you in whatever you do.

I still feel grief stricken as hell but the truth is that I am usually too busy now to dwell on it too long. It is literally when I am alone that it really hits me. And, I deal with the waves of grief as they hit me. The next morning, the grief of the night before seems like a distant event. It's sometimes really weird to think about it, that I feel positive and light in the morning after long hours of crying and a terrible sense of loss and loneliness.

Wesley is now like a historical, nostalgic sense of my consciousness. I still remember him physically but he is definitely in my head. His thoughts, his ideas, his jokes and sometimes it flows out of me. Everything reminds me of him. But I have learned to just make his memory and grieving for him part of my daily routine. It's hard to explain it.

People around me remark that I have lost weight. I joke and say, 'grief does that to you.' It's a full-proof method of weight loss. People get a bit flustered but I enjoy the humour of it, it would be right up there with Wesley's sense of humour. Sometimes I talk to him and joke that I have taken over your company and will now run it in my dictatorial style. I wonder what he'd say. But he'd just smile and say well done my darling.

Everyone goes on and on about his smile. He was known as such a nice guy. And I am so glad I had him.

What else? Apparently my written c's look like l's and I need to do something about it. Yeah, I was told this very seriously yesterday evening.

Good bye to my goggles

I just recently got my contact lenses and can put away wearing my ancient, scratched, weary Harry-Potter-looking glasses which I only wear at night. It's nice to not have something on my face all the time and I can wear my shades in the sun. Actually, I am wearing Wesley's sun glasses now. I wore them yesterday on the way to a meeting and felt like him. It was a pretty cool feeling.

The contact lenses had a sweet ride all the way from my trusty optician, Tanveer Optics, F-10/4 to London from my mother to my brother. They changed hands twice in London and made their way down to some chale's in Accra (as Karina would say). A friend of a friend picked up the contacts from Karina's friend's mom. They were then dropped off at a friend's mom in Accra who was coming to Monrovia to meet her daughter. My contacts have truly had a global tour. I hope they picked up some good stories along the way. Now they are snuggled on top of my eye balls helping me to see a bit more clearly!

Moving on from goggles, life goes on and I am busy running the company and building a pipeline of clients and projects for the next year. There are daily challenges, disappointments and moments of success however small they may be. I would never have imagined I would end up running Wesley's company and I would take to the role so quickly. I feel organised, determined and, quite lucid about the whole thing. I know it is a matter of time before all this hard work will bear fruit. And what kind of fruit? We are talking but about a sense of completion, continuity and excellence. I derive the greatest joy from seeing his staff demonstrate their skills, knowledge and enthusiasm.

Speaking of lucidity, a friend of mine was asking me how I deal with the blinding pain. I mulled over the nature of this pain and realised that I was never really blinded or weakened by whatever happened. All those movie cliches never happened to me: fainting, vommiting, madness, scene-making, etc. Yes, the grief hits me every night and I weep and talk to the walls but it's all very private. It's my moments alone with Wesley's memories and our beautiful romance and how much we loved each other. Perhaps I went into a robotic state of mine at one point when I had to accomplish so many tasks related to the morgue, police, paperwork, permissions, finance and funeral arrangements. Even then, if I think about from the moment I heard about what happened to now, I was quite lucid and knew what I had to do. I remember taking a shower before all my friends arrived to be with me. I even cooked for all of them the second or third night. I told this to my SOAS counsellor and she said that it was all from Wesley, knowing what to do and, how to do it. I glowed inside when I heard this analysis.

I guess in all of this ordeal, I know what I have to do, how its going to be and what I want to do. That's my lucidity.

'Lucidity' - its definitely a word I picked up from A Hundred Years Of Solitude:

"Ursula … could not conceal a vague feeling of doubt. Throughout the long history of the family the insistent repetition of names had made her draw some conclusions that seemed to be certain. While the Aurelianos were withdrawn, but with lucid minds, the Jose Arcadios were impulsive and enterprising, but they were marked with a tragic sign."

I was reading an interview of the manager of Taj Hotels on the BBC website today. His words touched me deeply and I completely understood them:

"You talk about running away from the place where the tragedy happened, about running away from grief. What do you run away from? You have to conquer your mind. I had to come back to the hotel to do it.And no, self pity was something that never crossed my mind though.There is destiny and there is free will. And we have to deal with it."

Now how often does that actually happen? Really comprehending the meaning and significance of words uttered by someone.