Sylvia's Journal

I am writing from Schiphol very early morning. At this time, somewhere above the Atlantic approaching Europe, Sita is flying to the World Economic Forum in Davos. “She’s all kitted out with long undies, a silk ski mask, the over sized boots, 220 volt travel iron and everything she has to wear that fits in the category of dressing for success in Switzerland with galactic elites – all in durable basic black,” writes Axel who put her on the plane last night.

I had a good night sleep, falling into an exhausted sleep immediately after take off and waking up half an hour before landing. I am now waiting until it is a decent time to call Sietske so I can finally show her my scars.

Yesterday was supposed to have been a day of rest and relaxation but instead it turned into a full work day. We started off with a debriefing at USAID where we had the full attention of the Mission Director, his deputy, the HPN officer and a few others. We showed the video of the leadership program in Aswan which remains a moving story no matter I often I see it. We had a lively conversation about what is different about our program. With so many of these programs under our belt, I can be quite confident that important shifts will occur as a result. We brought the ADRA staff along to introduce them as the new leaders of the facilitator team.

From there we went to ADRA where we assembled the staff who had contributed to our successful launch. The night before we had printed certificates of appreciation for everyone, from the drivers to the country director. In a brief ceremony we thanked them for taking us in as if we were family and looking after us in ways that touched our souls. We exchanged presents and left with some great Ghanaian music.

From there we threw ourselves into traffic that had doubled in size since the previous week. The frenzy for the Africa Cup Football tournament is heating up. It was very apparent that the ships from China had arrived with all possible kinds of stuff that would add to the patriotism and nationalism that sport events of this magnitude tend to bring out. I imagined the factories in China running non stop for the last month to produce the thousands of flags, hats, badges, balls, umbrellas and whatnot that were now being hawked on the streets by colorfully bedecked young men and women. The pace was clearly picking up. We saw little of that last week and I suppose this was because the ships had not arrived yet.

It took us an hour to get to GIMPA, the Ghanaian Institute of Public Administration, a Harvard B-School wannabe for West Africa. Brian, on faculty at the School of Governance and Leadership, was one our facilitators and wildly enthusiastic about the program. The intent of visit was to meet the GIMPA leadership and talk about ways to work together on our collective mission to improve management and leadership in the public sector in Ghana. We met the Rector who gave us an autographed book about leadership and nation building and offered us lunch. After that Brian gave us a tour of the campus and the newly built executive conference center where we might have stayed if we had not found a hotel room. We were glad we had not stayed there even though it was beautiful; the trip back to Accra (only 16 km) took about one and a half hours. We were able to use that time productively, I by typing in the workshop evaluations and Cabul by catching up on some sleep.

Back at the hotel we sat down for our last big beer and talked about the two weeks, what went well, what did not and gave each other feedback. Susan Wright swung by to say goodbye and then Cabul and I had our final dinner together, a curry that he had raved about (and he knows about curries as one would expect from a Mehta).

At the airport I found a madhouse. Large buses were standing by to take all the top African football (soccer) teams that were flying in to their hotels; hawkers were everywhere and anybody who wanted to be away from the place before all hell breaks loose (Sunday) scrambled to get out. In the lounge I found some 24 men dressed in dazzling white and bright yellow boubous watching a game on TV and relaxing. I was trying to imagine who they were and why they were all dressed the same. I asked the attendant who told me it was the Mali national soccer team. They were magnificent. They were on their way to Kumasi, further north, where their pool was playing. As they filed out of the lounge I wished them ‘bonne chance.’ I was too shy to take a picture of them but took a stealth picture of the lounge earlier. If you look carefully you can see the vibrant yellow. If they play as well as they look they will surely win, although the Ghanaian team (the Black Stars) is of course the favorite.