Sylvia's Journal

I started the first day of the New Year flying over Essex county, trying the new GPS. A snowstorm is coming our way but I was ahead of it. It was a glorious day, blue sky, everything covered in snow and unlimited views of Boston to the South and the New Hampshire mountains to the north.

At temperatures below freezing, it took a gas heater and Arne’s magic touch to get our plane started, after we scraped off a layer of ice from the wings. Flying with ice on your wings is not a good idea, as it alters the air flow around the wing and therefore affects lift.

My first night of the year was rather short. We celebrated the ending of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 with our dearest friends at Mary Scofield’s house in Beverly Farms, sitting around a huge fire and eating wonderful foods. The invitation said that we could wear whatever we wanted. I was tempted at first to go in my jammies but instead we decided to dress up; Axel in his rich old man outfit and I as his #1 girlfriend, the kind that ‘drapes’ around their man-du-jour, in a black glitter dress and somewhat matching jacket. Can you tell who’s the rich guy and who’s the temporary girl in this picture?

At 7PM I called my family in Holland where it was already 2008. I managed to get only one of my four siblings on the line. My little nephew sounded giddy from the excitement, the evening of cardgames and probably a little bit too much of champagne.

Yesterday was one of the few remaining workdays before I take off for Ghana on Friday. This is going to be one of those assignments where my ability to tolerate ambiguity and having several dangling loose ends will come in handy. There is a large cast of known and unknown people involved in it and contracts that are not yet signed. At least we were able to secure lodging for ourselves, through the helpful intervention of the US Agency of International Development staff in Accra. This is a good start. We also have our tickets and all the approvals we need on this side of the Atlantic. My young colleague Cabul Mehta will be my travelling partner. He will come along to help tie many of those dangling loose ends. I am very grateful for that.

Axel helped me clean up my office which had been serving as guestroom, internet admin room and Christmas/Sinterklaas wrapping station. I am anxious to get the bed out, and back upstairs where it belongs, and install the desk that we were given by Brenda and Don from the ASE in Cambridge. It will serve as a secondary desk, a horizontal surface to put the primary desk’s overflow on. And in times of domestic inspiration it will also serve as a place to put the sewing machine. The leftovers from Sita’s sewing project have already produced one baby quilt and there is plenty for more. Sita has claimed one (‘I bought the stuff’), even though there is no baby in sight. We all agree that it is better, at this time, to have a quilt and no baby than to have a baby and no quilt.

Sita and Jim took off for Western Massachusetts to ring in the New Year with their old friends out there. Tessa and Steve, and returning guest Roy headed out to Boston and returned long after we had gone to sleep. I am always happy when I look out of window in the morning and see all the cars that should be there parked in front of the house, without any new dents. I think they had a designated driver. We are pleased with such responsible behavior, especially on this first night when alcohol flows freely everywhere.