Dahee with elaichi after Facebook Protect locked me out permanently..

 

Dahee with elaichi 

The dahee is thick, and light. Almost like ice-cream.  The recipe is to take some old dahee - yoghurt- and put in the bowl with thickish milk. I leave in the sun. On rainy days, the dahee becomes thin. 

So I make a set to eat a lil bit each day as a kind of  'sugar free' dessert with banana. I went to market yesterday so there is pawpaw and passion fruit. I leave in the fridge for a bit for everything to cool nicely. Put some whole  elaichi - cardamom- and cinnamon. 

There is a mindfulness in the assembly because I want to take a picture to write this blog because I have not written anything for awhile.  Position the bowl in different places to get the light and to see if the dahee could show as the scoops. Passion fruit is smelling nice. 

Eat it slowly.. when teeth crunch on the elaichi seeds there is a nice burst of flavour. 

Sweetness without shugah.  

I would have posted the picture on Facebook but..

 Facebook Protect-ing itself from me 

The emails started coming in February. I thought they were phishing messages.

"Your account has the potential to reach a lot more people than an average Facebook user. Hackers are often motivated to attack accounts that have a lot of followers, run important Pages, or hold some community significance.
 
To help defend against these targeted attacks, we require Facebook Protect for your account. "

 

I checked though. Facebook was serious.  Their algorithms think I can reach a lot more people than average. I mean.. really? me? And so I try to turn on the Facebook Protect but the confirmation codes and so on are not sent to the phone, nor does Facebook do anything with the Google Authenticator codes. I check settings and so but all seems well.

Facebook then locks me out.. sending me the email notifications and so when people tag me.

I had created my own metaverse, filtering out madness and filtering in the posts from people who had nice things to share like recipes and so on. I found out about many events and so on, got some products and services. And scrolled through when I was bored or needed distraction to read things or listen to things I would not normally do.  And connect to people with similar interests like our Book Club and so, share my blog posts and things like that. And celebrate that I don't stalk the loved ones who don't talk to me even though my heart jump now and then when their posts are re-shared by mutual friends and I know that the loved ones are arite.

Facebook though thinks that a lot of people are interested in the dahee and elaichi and fruits.

And interested in these blog posts and so which I used to share .

Are you still writing, blogging?

 "Vidyaratha", the woman says, "I aint see no articles from you in a long time". I am in a hurry. I don't recognise the woman standing on the roadside waiting for the minibus, I cross the road and laugh and say 'take care'. I should have asked her what did she used to read but my head too was in another space.

She asked at the time I was working on the draft of our article Memorandum to the Ministry of Education about their racial and sexist hair policy. I was not going to put my name then to the article, thinking that a man's name was not needed but the woman asked.. I don't know if she saw it.

But it is true, the writing has eased down. It is difficult to string words and sentences together easily. An important email is taking a long time to write, too long. 

Writing is about observation and I wonder if in my detachment from the world, from the protection from the war and the climate change and so, if I am shutting out things which I would have written about.. 

like the women in the minibus telling the driver that he needs a conductor and that he should not be driving after working a night shift..

 or the other bus driver telling me that  yeah.. Russia coming to Guyana next with Venezuela.. 

or the woman in the market telling about the man who lived in the stall next to her 'me neighba dead, dem seh is me man, but is nah dah, he is a good neigbah.. "; 

or of the conversations with the psychologist that Guyana is still the suicide capital of the world but that the data is being hidden underneath the oil and gas...

or of buying more tomatoes than I need because it cheap, and  putting extra into the salata aswad with chow rai bhajee and eating with toasted wholewheat butterflap bought from the young women in the market who said 'is only $240 for the bag of four" before the flour price has raised because of Putin..

So maybe instead of scrolling when I am bored or distracted, I will have to engage brain and fingers and write about things which are distracting..