Sylvia's Journal

After having been more or less pain free for a few days I was fairly crippled again yesterday. It was humid and overcast and I find myself always in more pain on such days. Luckily I had only one meeting in the morning. I met up with my co-facilitator William. We sketched out the design for our training of trainers (TOT) workshop next week and William told me about the progress of the teams that we started training in May. It was wonderful to hear about some of the transformations he’d seen and heard about as he traveled to some far flung areas to coach the teams in between workshops.

He, and others who’d been involved in the coaching, told me there are now a few more confident people working in a few more hospitals in Kenya. William had plenty of examples of how that confidence manifests itself at work. These stories are immensely satisfying to hear and make up for all the hard work that went into the design and execution of the program. Of course some teams did not do so well. We talk a lot about team leadership, but when it is missing it is usually because no one is willing to step up to the plate. No matter what we call it, leadership always starts with indviduals who are willing to take some risks.

After William left my shoulders and foot were so painful that I decided to go back to the hotel and take a hot bath. This helped. I also tried to nap but just as I was about to fall asleep Housekeeping knocked on the door, or my cellphone rang, so I gave up.

I left early for my physical therapy session, not wanting to show up late for my appointment, the last one of the day, due to traffic. I arrived just in time. It was an experience that was much different from what I am used to in Manchester. The physical therapist, Karen, is from Danmark, born in Malaysia, studied in the UK, has a home in France and settled down in Kenya for the last 30 or so years. I brought the notes from Julia, my physical therapist in the US, as a reference. Karen glanced at them and then got right to work. While my shoulders and neck were being limbered up with heat pads she worked on my foot the way I imagine Betty works on Axel’s arm: no nonsense and none of that wishy-washy gentle stuff. It was very hard work and quite painful at times, which satisfied my inner Calvinist (pain and suffering is good). After about half an hour she switched to my neck and shoulders. She does not have any of that insurance business here about not being able to treat two different body parts on the same day. Patients pay cash for an hour’s worth of physical therapy: about 45 dollars. Despite the pain and hard work I felt good enough at the end that I made two more appointments with her.

Next to the physical therapy practice is the restaurant where I had lunch earlier. I had an early sandwich dinner and then went home to finish some work and take care of business with MSH Cambridge where my colleagues were still in the early hours of their workday. And then I could not fall asleep for hours. It felt as if something hard and painful was brewing deep down and I prepared for a night full of revealing dreams. Instead I tossed and turned until the early morning hours and woke up without any memory of dreams. A bit disappointing.