Sylvia's Journal

There was rhythm yesterday in our conference room. And one rhythm set of another and another. Before we knew it we had a chain reaction.

It is delightful to work in a context that is not big on protocol. We shove a table to the front of the room. It had some nice Kente cloth (not the real thing, a print) pulled over it which set it apart from the participant tables that were covered in a sort of fancy bed sheet with blue lacy corners. The other thing that set it apart was of course the plastic flower arrangement, a staple in any hotel that is worth its salt. If you have plastic flowers on your table, then you know you are important.  I have seen people enter a workshop room and scan it for the plastic flowers. It is like a beacon that guides people to their proper place.

The regional director, the doc from the central level and I sat in back of the ‘head’ table and each said their words of encouragement and support and then we set to work.

I rarely ventured out from my seat in the far left corner where I watched and occasionally took notes for the feedback session that we had at the end of the day. This is truly a very experienced and accomplished group of facilitators; a sharp contrast to government officials I have worked with in other parts of the world who have a habit of telling people what to do. They tell first and ask later, if they ask at all. Rhythm is usually lacking.

By lunch people remarked, in a surprised sort of way, that there had not been any powerpoints or people lecturing them. As the day wore on the surprise increased; people participated; people were not dozing off; people were full of energy. It always amazes me that after 25 years of exposure to American or British or German or what not experts who do training of trainers, having what I would call a normal engaging inquiry into people’s realities coupled with an orientation towards some simple frameworks is so extraordinary that people notice. What has everyone been doing all these years?

It is of course all in the structure of the design. Interestingly Axel wa also thinking about structure which he mentioned in an email just when I was thinking about structure. Structures can be constructive and destructive. This applies to any structure in our lives of course. If you design it well, the action will follow in predictable ways getting exactly where you want to go. If you design it badly, the structure will constantly pull you off track and you spent all your energy amaking course adjustments. You may never make it to your destination.

Late in the day the facfee beast reared its ugly head. I have come to expect it and it was nice to have Cabul with me to deal with it. Facfee stands for facilitator fee. The entrenched belief is that money motivates and without it there will not be movement. It is so entrenched, all over Africa, that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Until a year ago I had never heard of this facfee thing. It is a payment in cash to people to do what is considered ‘in addition’ to their regular work. It is an escape hatch from contracting which can never be done with public sector employees as per USAID regulations.  Before when we used to do the facilitation ourselves, it wasn’t an issue because the government officials we worked with were participants not facilitators. They received the per diem which, in some countries, can be a nice salary complement, especially if you go to many workshops and they last long. With the trend towards short workshops (one or two days), this is not longer so interesting. And with the trend towards local facilitation, this becomes an issue. With private sector or NGO people we contract, either directly with them, as independent consultants or through their organizations. Of course this time all of this is a bit shaky as we organized the event over the holidays and, not knowing the cast of characters, we arrived without anny contrtacts in place. We did not want to establish contracts with people or organizations we did not know. Cabul has to iron this out in the next few days before we head home so that we can have the proper contactual arrangements with everyone. As for the government employees, there is a broken record, stuck in the groove that says ‘not allowed.’ We’ll see where that takes us..