tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219606682024-03-13T12:05:27.416-04:00Here's the thing...Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.comBlogger290125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-62425231856495456482020-02-10T13:58:00.000-05:002020-02-29T16:17:38.929-05:00A week in Beirut? Don't mind if I do.Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-92040581253434872202020-01-20T13:33:00.000-05:002020-02-29T14:04:31.162-05:00This is Marrakech
I had no preconceived ideas about Morocco
except that there
would be sun.
It’s not that I wasn’t curious, or had gotten lazy, rather that the time before
this holiday – like most every period before a holiday - required an intense, almost manic, attention to work
to make space for time off from it.
Sun was promised. That is all that mattered.
Google, the omnipotent god of our Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-59923392952303670402020-01-08T16:21:00.004-05:002020-02-29T15:55:21.968-05:00What I Learned Running a Small Business in 2019
At the end of 2019, I spent some
time thinking about our company. Partly because it was the end of the year and
reflection always seems the right thing to do around 31 December but also
because in 2019, the management assumed control of the company.
In some ways there is no difference
being the CEO of someone else’s company and being the CEO of your own company.
However, in some ways it’s Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-56003031711031378812020-01-03T06:37:00.004-05:002020-01-03T06:38:15.930-05:00The mind is a tyrant: The body its slave
Perhaps you have a healthier relationship between your mind
and body than I do. Perhaps as a child you were taught to listen to what your
body was telling you about the rest, food, drink and activity it needed. I was
in yoga the other day when the instructor told us to spread our toes. ‘Spread my
toes?’ my mind thought. And in that moment I realised that I’ve got no idea how
to spread my toesKelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-49532504948298945022019-12-30T06:24:00.002-05:002019-12-30T06:24:54.212-05:00January Vegetarian Meals
Starting January 2020 off right with a few days of vegetarian meals before a jaunt to Morocco for the real thing. Trying to make use of the slow cooker where possible to pre-cook / make life easy and delicious.
1. Ful medames, muhammara dip, falafal & pita
2. Slow cooker mushroom sauce & pasta
3. Spicy dal, naan, coleslaw
4. Vegetarian chilli & potatoes
5. Sesame rice with terriyakiKelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-64680080150314559572019-12-30T05:27:00.001-05:002019-12-30T05:27:43.572-05:00Weeds - by John Walker
I was given this book for Christmas due to my ongoing battle with weeds on the allotment. Very enlightening and an easy read. Apparently nature abhors bare soil as much as it does a vacuum and hence: weeds. I have a much better understanding of the role of weeds, or, unwanted plants in both soil preservation and nutrition as well an idea of the most common weeds, if they're annual or perennialKelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-69682571172745559072019-12-23T10:09:00.000-05:002019-12-23T10:53:31.381-05:00The resurrection...
This blog has been quietly resurrected. Let's see if anyone notices.
Sure, it's been dead for seven years and I'm not even sure if anyone has blogs anymore but I miss it so why not give it another go.
Let's see, what have you missed in the last 7 year?
- Moved to Uganda
- Started an online magazine called IN Kampala
- Shut-down an online magazine
- Moved to Pakistan
- Got married
- Did a Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-86581434080758378142013-02-25T10:26:00.001-05:002019-12-23T10:11:26.112-05:00Latest Project...Chasing Misery
Here's the latest from the Hoppe Studios... Chasing Misery
Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-71697723404013548332012-12-23T07:05:00.000-05:002019-12-23T07:26:25.304-05:0010 hours in Dubai...
I have to take back everything that I've said about Dubai. For those of you who hadn't heard of my dislike for the place the feelings went a little something like this: "There are two things in this world that drain my will to live faster than anything else. Those are: 1) airports, 2) shopping malls." Dubai is, essentially, nothing more than a combination of those two and, therefore, one of my Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0Dubai - United Arab Emirates25.2048493 55.27078280000000624.2844238 53.9798893 26.1252748 56.561676300000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-48366993245358862672012-12-22T16:50:00.000-05:002019-12-23T07:26:00.165-05:00The forgotten art of walking...
After sitting in my little tukul almost all day on Saturday I had enough. I needed to get out and so I went for a walk. And once I started walking I was overcome by the strangest urge to just keep on walking. I mean, just keep going. Now, I’m the person who coined the phrase, ‘if God had intended us to walk he wouldn’t have given us cars’ so I’m not normally a fan of ‘footing’, as they call it Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-74084134308370499032011-06-27T13:39:00.003-04:002019-12-22T13:30:15.246-05:00Careening...
"Careening," I thought putting the New Yorker down on my lap. That is the word for what we are doing right now - in this taxi - through the hills above Nairobi. Careening. Under the heavy grey sky, over these pot-holed roads, between the jungle threatening to come over the garden walls.
It struck me as funny - or funny enough to stop reading a magazine - that the word just came to me like Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com5Nairobi, Kenya-1.2920659 36.821946199999957-1.5460584000000002 36.499222699999955 -1.0380734 37.144669699999959tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-22733221540712216852011-04-26T00:26:00.003-04:002019-12-22T13:28:45.616-05:00About 100 people died an hour up the road…
It’s a strange thought, isn’t it. I’ve thought about it for the past few mornings when I took the road the opposite direction into town. It’s a flat and dusty road – fairly good by South Sudan standards and, if you take it in the opposite direction, it passes through some oil outposts, dry flat bush occupied by a mud tukul here and there, and the army’s checkpoints. You make a left at one Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com2Bentiu, South Sudan9.231487 29.8005027000000389.106107 29.639141200000036 9.356867 29.96186420000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-67602621657618786362011-03-14T06:02:00.003-04:002019-12-22T13:31:32.404-05:00Critters with ulteriowr motives...
I like to think of myself as a fairly 'tough' person. I'm not afraid of snakes, scorpions, spiders, or other animals in general. I like to think that if you leave nature alone it tends to leave you alone. But then I came to Unity state and am living at the UNMIS team site. Within the chain link and barbed wire fence there is a strange ecosystem of animals and insects that seems to have gone Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com5Bentiu, South Sudan9.231487 29.8005027000000389.106107 29.639141200000036 9.356867 29.96186420000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-88209054440415952092011-02-27T09:05:00.001-05:002019-12-22T13:36:29.903-05:00Acts of generosity…
I think that if I pretend that I haven’t ignored this blog for an exceptionally long time and just start writing again that no one will notice…
Today I was struck by several acts of generosity that were conveyed to me for no apparent reason by people who stood nothing to gain by giving them. Let me back up…
I am in Bentiu, Unity State – a state that was ravaged by war, dominated by oil, andKelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0Bentiu, South Sudan9.231487 29.8005027000000389.106107 29.639141200000036 9.356867 29.96186420000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-36669347313527093992010-11-12T01:26:00.002-05:002019-12-22T13:37:52.341-05:00Disbursement vs. Expenditure
There’s a fund in Southern Sudan which is something everyone calls a ‘pooled fund’ and that means that instead of donors giving their money to whatever they want they put it into a big fund that is run by the government and the UN. The problem with this particular pooled fund is that it’s been badly managed and manipulated by the powers that be and so has actually delivered practically nothing. Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com4Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-89655224693263158102010-06-12T11:58:00.003-04:002019-12-22T13:38:23.677-05:00Once upon a time...
I was reminded this week that I used to be an interesting person, to whom interesting things happened, and I used to write about those things in this very blog. This week, however, when I received an email from a former avid blog reader reminding me that I have an interesting and 'adventurous' life I decided to look back over the past week and figure out why I don't blog as regularly anymore. Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com4Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-39132030961457379932010-03-26T07:14:00.002-04:002019-12-22T13:40:10.521-05:00Funny story...unless you were part of it...
I would like to apologise to all those who might be reading this and are aware of this purely fictional incident and may not find it as amusing as I do. Any resemblance to characters living or dead is coincidental...although all of them lived, for the record.
Once upon a time I got a phone call from an NGO who had people involved in a security incident in which there were reports of heavy Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com5Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-38656175381202725512010-03-19T02:20:00.002-04:002019-12-22T13:40:52.339-05:00Things I will never remember...
My brain is too small to chock it full of the miscellany that flies at me everyday. Hence, I would like to make a list of all the things that I refuse to remember:
1. When the rainy season begins and ends in Sudan.
2. People's names if I've met them only once or twice. Or, anyone who has a contract shorter than six months. Or anyone I find immemorable.
3. Anyone's birthday.
4. Any phone number.Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com1Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-23449923985919641532010-01-26T05:45:00.004-05:002019-12-22T13:43:43.929-05:00Terror...
Over the course of my life I have seen any number of looks of terror.
The incidences usually begin the same way, as they did this morning. People just standing around some place - including bystanders such as myself - an unmarked vehicle with no license plates pulls up and men jump out.
They are usually armed...no, I take that back...they are always armed. Menacing, threatening men. They Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com1Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-5006513624758087722010-01-25T00:48:00.000-05:002019-12-22T13:45:06.905-05:00A quote for your Monday morning...
“There’s a truth that’s deeper than experience.
It’s beyond what we can see, or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception.
We’re helpless, usually, in the fact of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay.
It doesn’t always help Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-55685520271018774962010-01-07T09:19:00.000-05:002019-12-22T13:47:50.300-05:00Travel Zen
I like to think that there is a special state of mind into which frequent travelers often descend. You will know these people by their irksome calm when they, in the same awful travel predicament as you, watch calmly as you lose your temper. Their bags might be missing, their flight delayed, or cancelled, the airline clerk being a heinous twat and yet they stand next to you with that placid lookKelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com3Nairobi, Kenya-1.2920659 36.821946199999957-1.5460584000000002 36.499222699999955 -1.0380734 37.144669699999959tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-43223097851268591482009-12-23T07:02:00.000-05:002019-12-23T07:27:14.881-05:00Stupid BBC World Service...
<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0Aweil, South Sudan8.7670867 27.3998368999999688.7357007 27.359496399999969 8.7984727 27.440177399999968tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-84542255425883082382009-12-22T13:42:00.000-05:002019-12-23T07:27:38.308-05:00Maybe...
The amount of time I spend in meetings discussing issues of grave import that are forgotten a month later is obscene. I mean, really.
Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-81604098921754123712009-12-04T03:31:00.003-05:002019-12-22T13:48:48.940-05:00How to get to work...
I now have a 'commute' in order to get from my house to the office each morning. It has become more complicated recently so I thought I would detail it in case you are ever trying to find my house:
1) Let the guard open the gate.
2) Wait for guard to remove puppy from beneath tires and keep him from running out open gate. (dumb dog)
3) Proceed with caution to avoid hitting other vehicles and/Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com5Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21960668.post-14197368674301114622009-11-26T03:43:00.002-05:002019-12-22T13:50:48.923-05:00Why Sudan Matters...
blatantly pilfered from John Ashworth...
Why Sudan Matters Jon TeminSudan team leader,
U.S. Institute of PeacePosted: November 24, 2009 06:04 PM
Foreign policy realists sometimes ask how much seemingly marginal states such as Sudan really matter. The answer is that Sudan matters for many reasons, none more important than the millions dead and displaced due to decades of unnecessary internal Kelseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03405774088337551649noreply@blogger.com0Juba, South Sudan4.859363 31.5712499999999644.7327905 31.409888499999962 4.9859355 31.732611499999965