The Illustrated Truth

Have you noticed that Facebook is now all about The Illustrated Truth? Whether it's cheesy how-to-live-your-life wisdom or a rallying call against capitalism or even poking fun at Facebook itself, it's all about spreading the word, in an illustrated form. And then clicking 'Like' and 'Share.'

If there's anything in common to most of The Illustrated Truth, it's a good sense of humour. 

Here's some fine examples of Happy, Don't-Hate-Anyone Wisdom:

These are examples of rather Stick-it, Bitchy, Cheeky Wisdom and Humour:

These are what I like to call Political Pictograms that talk about power issues, class issues, struggles, history, world politics, and domestic politics:

There's divinity, too, on Facebook: 

There's loads of versions of the Keep Calm going round and round:

Let's not forget the 'Awwwwww' ones:

Here's some good humour:

There's the great people quotes:

And there's also the regular political cartoons which do not really fall under The Illustrated Truth, produced for the consumption of Facebook herds, but let's include them here anyway:

Some really random ones:

Breaking the Fourth Wall: Poking fun at Facebook itself:

Evening Tea on the Terrace and Two Versions of a Mugging

Here are some pictures of sham ki chai yesterday evening. These pictures were taken by my new Nokia x2 which takes decent pictures,  I must say,  provided my hand is steady. Why am I taking pictures with my mobile phone?

It's a long story. Firstly, my Nikon Coolpix L110,  quite a decent camera,  got buggered. I left in the batteries and apparently,  the cell fuel has leaked into the camera and damaged it permanently. I did not bother getting it repaired until now but maybe I should give it a shot.

Secondly,  the reason I am using the Nokia x2 to take pictures is that my Q-Mobile phone was stolen while Haresh and I were taking our regular evening walk last week. We took the wrong turn in a bad neighbourhood. Haresh summarised it really well on his Facebook profile and I shall reproduce it below. 

He posted this status first: "Do not take a walk, after dark, with your wife, on the waterside bridge...." 

Of course,  it solicited many comments and concerned questions. In turn,  he explained the following:  

Well well... We were on our routine evening walk which starts on Randall Street,  goes throught UN drive,  passing the UL,  Byepass,  and at Broad/Johnson street we divert up Johnson Street to take Ashmun street,  all the way up to the end and then cross over to Benson street and then up the Masonic Hill and then through the Old US Embassy and Coconut plantation,  ending back at where we began. This is a 2 hour nice pleasant walk which we have been doing 3 times a week for a very long time.

That day was specially abnormal and when we reached Johnson street and Ashmun street Junction it was about 7:30 already and we were still very energetic so i came up with the "stupid" idea that we continue our walk over the Gabriel Tucker Bridge to Vai town and then cross over the new Chinese Built bridge to waterside and then on to Mamba point. On getting on to the new Chinese bridge we were accosted by 3 knive weilding hoodlums!! I dont know what came into my mind at that moment... I just went ballistic and started kicking and boxing at two of them while the 3rd one kept threatening Farzana with his knife.

"Fortunately",  my right foot got stuck in the bridge railing during the struggle,  which lasted for less than a minute,  and Farzana's telephone fell off my grip,  on the floor.... They grabbed on the phone and jumped over the bridge railing into the darkness,  leaving me bruised and scratched up and Farzana sceaming and screeching at the top of her voice...

Then a good friendly Nigeria man appeared and helped me get my foot out of the railing,  and escorted us over the bridge and helped us into a taxi. The next morning when i mentioned this incident to our staff at the office,  they all said that we were very lucky and that there have been instances where people have been found murdered under the same bridge every now and then!!

I know you are absolutely right,  it took me 3 years of living,  hearing,  reading stories of these armed robbers (and not taking any of them seriously) until now,  now that it has actually happened to me. It was definately purile on my part,  but alls well that ends well. We played a nice friendly game of Catan that evening and guess what i was rewarded for my braveness and won the game!! ;) [In response to a comment:  "I am touched that it took you what - four years ? - of being in love in Monrovia to find that out ;o)."]

My take on the incident would be slightly different and a short version of it would go something like this:

During a regular evening walk,  Haresh suggested we change our route and go through the new Chinese bridge and go up to Ashmun Street via Waterside. He actually challenged me whether I was too tired and wouldn't mind extending the walk a bit. Foolishly,  I told him,  I wasn't tired. I knew thought that it was a mistake to take this route since it was quite dark. I even told Haresh to turn around at one point and that I didn't want to die that that night. He said,  nothing would happen as long as I was with him. Lo and behold,  we got attacked by three 'rogues' and Haresh started fighting them. I was super angry that he was trying to be a hero and thought he was hurt. I didn't realise his foot was stuck and he couldn't perform a flying kick on their heads. Thankfully,  a Nigerian guy started hurtling rocks at them and they ran off with my Q-Mobile. One dodgy looking guy who I had initially seen walking behind me smoking something else from a cigarette asked us,  "WHAT are you guys doing here?" I told him,   "my man brought me here." The Nigerian man was the only guy around us who was a hero and helped us. I gratefully thanked him and he said,  "Of course, we are all visitors here and need to help each other out." 

We reached a police car which was empty and forgot about trying to report this incident. We got a taxi and reached Haresh's cousin's place. I asked for some Dettol and cotton to clean a few of Haresh's scrapes while Haresh excitedly told everyone what happened. Thankfully,  Amit and his wife told him he should not have tried to fight them in case he got accidentally hurt. We proceeded to play a game of Catan which he won since I helped him with the last few resources he needed. I'm also glad Haresh finally put the word "purile" to good use.

Here are the pictures of our beautiful rooftop garden.

This has become our favourite place to hang out after a long day at work. We have a magnificent view of central Monrovia: Ducor Hotel, the new American Embassy, the Masonic temple, Ministry of Finance, and the Newport Street Mosque. It's really nice to be right in the middle of the city.

Moreover, Randall Street has really quietened down. Around three years ago, we used to have a night club across the street which blasted music all night long, even on weekdays. Now, it's just the frogs.

The nighttime view is also quite marvelous and the city is really quite quiet, except if there's a football match going on.

Most of the plants were bought from nurseries in Sinkor and some of these have been with me for quite a long time. I water them regularly and ask a good gardener that I have befriended to come and take care of them, including spraying them with anti pesticide. I have also tried to multiply some of the plants by cutting off shoots and re-planting them. I have also succeeded in growing some herbs and flowers.

Liberia has got excellent climate for growing a garden, especially tropical plants, but they need care and constant attention just like anywhere else. Lack of water, too much water, lack of sunshine, or too much sunshine, or accidentally pouring used generator fuel into the soil can kill your plants.

I sometimes feel that potted gardening like this is trying to tame the jungle. I've seen most of my potted plants growing in the bush, wildly, freely but here in the potted plants they look quite tame. I have plants in nutella jars, coffee cans, wine bottles and even cement blocks! It seems it is about trying to bring in the jungle into one's terrace and domesticating it.

Me: "Haresh, is that your smoldering look?'
Haresh's smoldering look gives way to giggles. 

Look how we made use of an old wheelbarrow

The plant coming out of the jam jar is - according to me - an orange tree. I bought some itris Mitis Calamondin-Minature Orange Tree seeds on Amazon.com and I believe one of the seeds has sprouted. I showed it to Ben the gardener and he burst out laughing and said, "if you say so."  He said it was a common grass. I am not sure I agree with him since this has also flowered. Let's see who will prevail. 

I have been drinking a lot of coffee since last year and decided to make good use of the empty cans. 

We even have a hammock in our hanging gardens of Monrovia

The walk way and the patio was ingeniously designed by Haresh from left over wood chips and planks from our office floor. 

Nerd Nite in Monrovia

Jamal's Boulevard Café in Sinkor has started hosting Nerd Nite. There have been three Nerd Nites so far and I attended the last two. 

The latest one was held last night and the topics were 1) Urban Mass Transport in Nairobi 2) Etiquette 3) Water Harvesting. 

The first one was quite clever since most people (including me) didn't realise that that the Garimeme light rail network is fictional. The presenter had actually made up a public transport system and projected it on to Nairobi. Even though it was entirely made up, it allowed the presenter to talk about land issues and poverty. Nairobi has around 3 million people but the majority live in slums, on 5% of the land. Part of the reason for this disparity is colonial legacy: the British lived in higher elevation, the Indians imported to build the rail in another part of the city and the Kenyans in another part. The "natives" were thought to be temporary casual workers only. The presenter explained that slums are spread all over Nairobi since every wealthy area attracts workers looking for jobs. 

The presentation was quite impressive since there was so much attention to detail and we got a great short lecture on land issues in Nairobi. The Nairobi was created using GIS technology, apparently the presenter's brother helped her to do it. He also helped her to create a fictional Ministry. 

During the question and answer session we realised that this was an entirely fictional transport system which was not even in the pipeworks. I myself felt stupid since I have been to Nairobi back in 2010/2011 and there was no proposed transport system, not even a hint of it! Perhaps I was too busy eating the delicious spinach and garlic pizza and did not concentrate!

The presentation on etiquette was amusing: the presenter put together some very odd historical examples of complex rules of social engagement. 

During the question and answer, she was asked on how to appropriately deal with Liberians wanting to be one's "friend" and asking for one's number. She said, she has learned to just politely decline. 

The last presentation was the star one of the evening. Firstly, everyone was really quiet and intently listening to issues of water injustice in awe. Towards the end, the presenter was bombarded with questions and they were still asking questions as we were leaving (we had to go earlier). 

It took me a while to get into it at first: it was too "preachy" and I felt I was sitting anywhere but Liberia , being lectured on the number one cause of deaths in Liberia. The presenter had initially come to Liberia to work on another development sector but soon realised that Liberia's real problem was water-related.  She then went on to show us how heavy a bucket of water was and she pointed to the Liberian waiters to say that they probably carry this bucket every day and only get to use one per day. A volunteer then tried to carry a bucket of water on his head. I don't know - it was just a liiiiittle patronising. 

But perhaps people do need to be shocked and patronised!  Not everyone knows of the daily realities for the inhabitants of this country. Everyone knows Liberia is poor and lacks infrastructure but since most expatriates live in either gated compounds or have all the normal amenities, we have no clue about how people here go about their daily lives.

Even worse, is that people expect the poorest, uneducated to know about the conditions of the dirty water they consumer. 

Otherwise, the presentation was great and one can explain the odd tone because of pure passion. I must say that the presenter was quite worked up about the whole issue and rightly so. Liberia receives some of the highest water fall every year but the majority of Liberians need to go out of their house for their water needs, it is often a water pump that has not been dug deep enough and therefore, is not clean. Most Liberians only get to use 1 bucket or 10 litres of water per day while the rest of us use at least 50 litres directly and most indirectly through our consumption of electricity. The contrast is shameful! 

I loved her dig about international development's love of water pumps and how nothing makes them feel better than seeing a picture of a smiling little child pumping water. I can't agree with her enough. 

Most governments in the world subsidise water but if people people actually paid the real cost of water, they wouldn't waste it as much. 

The presenter has been studying water and how it could be harvested for every day use. Apparently, rain water is completely safe although she did recommend filtering it. She's done some test projects and in one community, the harvesting was able to sustain the needs of the entire community as well as the clinic, whose roof they used. 

Anything can be used to collect rain water but one needs to make sure the buckets are clean in case a bucket is used. Rusty zinc roofs are a problem and rust-proof paint would need to be applied. The presenter said that PVC roofs seemed to be the ideal ones. Needless to say, there are costs related to all this. 

There were a few Liberians in the audience (thank God!) who said they actually had been collecting  rain water since childhood. However, they always see black particles in the rain and asked what that was. The presenter said she had not encountered these particles but it was good to know.

Another issue with rain water is that it is 'soft water' and those who have tried to wash themselves with it find it hard to use soap and shampoo. 

A company has been set up by the name of African Rain to start commercially looking into harvesting rain and creating systems around it. A long term project would be to actually pipe water - just as oil is - to countries which have water shortages. A short term one is which Liberia's Government has already signed up to or rather, agreed to in principle, pending capital investment. 

The project is to cover the Buchanan highway with a roof, an aqueduct which would not only collected a ridiculous amount of water, but also protect the new highway which after three years will wash away. It seems like an ambitious project and good luck to African Rain. If it succeeds, African Rain will sell the water to the Government who in turn would sell it onwards.

I am not an engineer or hydrologist so I can't think of any constructive feedback on how feasible this project is but the presentation was interesting. 

All in all, I really loved the evening and every presenter had put in a lot of work. The restaurant was more than full and there was a great atmosphere. In between the presentations, we had funky music, too. 

I really appreciate the good work the manager of the Café, Ben Morgan, who has initiated this. It's a nice change of pace. 

Check out Nerd Nite Liberia's site: http://liberia.nerdnite.com/. 

Funny things my parents said and did

I keep remembering the funny things my parents used to say and do. 

Here are some of my favorites:

"Aboo, how do you stop over population?"

My father is a deep-down socialist since he studied and started working in the 60s.

As a Pakistani diplomat, he served in places like Algeria, Tunis and Afghanistan.

That period was characterised by the optimism of independence from colonial masters 

and the hope for self determination, progress and development. He was deeply 

concerned with development in the post-colonial context. He firmly believed that 

scientific advancement and investment in education, health and infrastructure 

was the key. Besides development, he had studied English literature in Government

College Lahore at a graduate level and would love to share his love of English 

poetry, drama and novels. And lastly, he had a fascination for physics and chemistry,

too. Being a deeply spiritual person and one of the Ahamdi faith, he was 

interested in complementing his religious beliefs with science. I guess he really 

managed to nurture our faith in a supreme rational God through intellectual 

means i.e. God has created an infinite and awesome universe and our 

advancement of scientific knowledge of this awesome universe is 

only proof of God's existence. 

What did it entail for my brother and I as ten-year olds? He artfully distilled 

Shakespeare's plays into short stories before we went to sleep. One of his 

favourites was King Lear. He also told us stories from the Quran. I remember him try 

to explain "fuzzy logic" to us. But one of my absolute favourites is him explaining the 

problems of Third World countries and what should be done about it. 

He sat us down and went through the chronic issues such as over population, 

de-forestation, and big military expenditures at the cost of health and education. 

I was trying to keep up and interrupted him to ask him how could people 

stop over population: "Aboo, but don't children come from God?" 

He looked at me quizzically and just started shaking his head, 

disappointed that his child was such an idiot! It didn't cross his 

mind that he had jumped to population control without even going through

 the birds and the bees talk. 

"We're getting a guest from Pakistan?"

It's three kids in our family and my brother and I are exactly a year apart. 

Our baby sister came about a decade later when we were in 

post-revolution Romania. 

So how did our parents break it to us? 

My mother was too embarrassed to tell us directly, so our father 

sat us down and gave us the news:

"A guest is coming to stay with us!"

"We're getting a guest from Pakistan? Who? Who?"

My father realised that we would never get it so he actually told us that 

we were getting a little brother or sister. We were so happy to hear it! 

Our father also got pretty excited and nicknamed the baby "New - It." 

The "It" was because we didn't know whether it was a 

boy or girl. 

My mother was in the next room the whole time, too embarrassed 

to tell us she was expecting a baby.

We called my little sister "New-It" until she was born. 

"She looks like a monkey!"

So, when our baby sister was finally born, she had a lot of hair on her forehead, 

of all places! My brother took a look at her and pronounced that she looked 

like a monkey. My father said, "YOU look like a monkey!"

"YOU'RE ugly!"

My father loved talking about old movies and one of his favorites is "Bhavani Junction." 

It's set in Lahore during the British Raj. Lahore is the city where my father studied and

 he's always romanticised it. He loved this movie and especially how beautiful the

 leading lady, Ava Gardener, was. I think he even showed us the movie, which we 

really did not undersand, and was extolling Ava Gardner's beauty. 

My brother quipped: "but she's ugly!" My father immediately said, "YOU're ugly!" 

My father took things too personally. 

"WHY is she so small?"

After my little baby sister was born, my friends came after school one day to take 

a look at her. I was in grade 5. One of them took a look at her and remarked, 

"she's small!" My mother picked up the phone to call her doctor and demanded, 

"WHY is she so small?"

My parents hired free labour to baby sit their new baby and went to a concert

Michael Jackson came to Bucharest, Romania for a concert in the early 1990s. 

It was part of his world tour. This coincided with my little's sister's arrival. We had 

been listening to Michael's Jackson new album and going crazy over every song. 

It was the only cassette that played in the car and on my player in my room. But 

guess who went to his concert? My entire class and my parents. My brother and 

I were asked to sit home and baby sit our baby sister. 

I have still never forgiven them for this. 

Cabbages and Queens

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."


After an inter-office brawl, I banged the door and skipped and hopped to one of my favourite restaurants in town. I found myself at Mama Susu's on Gurley Street and decided to treat myself to a scrumptious 3 PM lunch. 

I hugged her and asked her about her health. Her rheumatism is worse than ever and she even mentioned a ruptured blood vessel near her eye but what is really disturbing her these days is the state of affairs in Syria. A pro-government proud citizen of her country, Mama Susu seems to be increasingly affected by the violence and the West's talk of intervention. 

I told her she needs to take a break and really think about retiring back in her village in Syria, surrounded by her family. She says she can't wait for the day but since her business has started to thrive again after so many hiccups - including illness and a couple of civil wars - she wants to be sure she can leave it in safe hands. 

We sat down to chat and I admired a moving digital Chinese landscape which she had recently purchased and kept hynotising me. 

I ate the special of the day: pasta and fried sambousik. The pasta sauce so delicious that I ate a whole bowl and a half. In fact, Mama Susu also ate along side me and we passed a nice hour chatting and enjoying our food. 

I convinced Mama Susu to come out for a walk with me back to the office which she had not visited since we had moved in. She agreed and we walked arm in arm up to Randall Street and she kept observing the little odd changes since she had not been out for a walk in a while. Anyone living and working in Liberia will notice the massive construction of new buildings and renovation of old ones going on in the capital - a healthy sign of change.

She said she wanted to make a quick detour to Benson Street to see if she could get some vegetables. She was looking for tomatoes and cabbages in particular. We reached the sellers adjacent and opposite Monoprix Supermarket and, there was definitely a dearth of the produce. We did see some cabbages at one woman's vegetable stand and Mama Susu bought almost all the produce she had. She bought them for 100 LD a pound while normally it goes for 75 LD. Most of these vegetables come from Guinea by road but because of various constraints are not readily available. We couldn't find any tomatoes. 

We took the produce to Monoprix where Mama Susu bought some more goods she needed for her stock and asked the Supermarket to have them delivered to her restaurant. 

While she was shopping, it really re-inforced the problems faced by businesses here. Imagine, vegetables are imported into this most fertile and naturally blessed country! Some produce is grown here but it certainly doesn't meet demand and also is affected by high costs of transportation on really bad roads.  

We then strolled over to our office but not before she stopped at Stop & Shop on Randall Street where she luckily found more cabbage and stocked up again.

My favourite bit of the walk was us eating almond Magnum ice cream bars while strolling down Randall Street, arm in arm. 

Mama Susu loved our office, especially our wooden floor. I served her a coffee from my Nespresso machine which she had with a couple of cigarettes. She remarked that our office was surprisingly very quiet and peaceful. 

She was still in an energetic mood so I also took her to show her our apartment and rooftop garden. She said she was proud that we had made such a homely place. 

That was my day, utterly relaxing and stress free. If you ever have a quarrel with your business partner, just go to Mama Susu's for lunch and take her out for a stroll. You'll be doing yourself a big favour!

Why was Facebook REALLY invented?

I've finally discovered why Facebook was actually invented: babies and children. Let me explain. It seems  like 99% of my Newsfeed is announcements of pregnancies, pictures of sonograms of fetuses, new born babies and toddlers. These family moments of people reproducing are plastered all over Facebook. Every second posting is about someone 'goo gaa'-ing their children and then all their friends 'liking' it. And between you and me, half these babies and kids aren't even really cute. Yes, all children are beautiful but some are really only beautiful to their own parents.

This is another reason I am really tired of Facebook. I have decided I will only 'like' and 'share' items of political, cultural and social importance. Everything else I refuse! No more 'random' likes!

If I ever post pictures of any kids I may ever have, please shoot me.

Let Facebook be a meaningful form to share ideas!