Sylvia's Journal

Today is Valentine’s Day. I received three kinds of flowers. One set consisted of two pots of primroses in bright primary colors. These are, every year, the harbingers of spring that precede the robin by a couple of months; they show up in stores when we are in the deepest and dreariest part of winter. Another set was a picture of the Nasturtiums that grew so prolific in our garden last summer, happily reseeding themselves every year. The picture was taken, blown up, photoshopped, matted and framed by the artist himself (Axel). Nasturtiums make me happy because they come with memories of childhood summers and sucking the nectar from the flower.

The third set was the most remarkable and unexpected: they appeared on my screen as tiny little flowers that grew, then disappeared and then re-grew over and over again in the chat space of my Skype window. With them was a message from Dr. Ali from Baghdad who was on a team I worked with in Jordan a few years ago. With all the drawbacks of how technology complicates our lives and fills up all our time, this is the magic that technology brings us as well. If it had not been for technology, I would never have met Dr. Ali and even if I had, we would probably have lost contact by now. He is doing well, leading well, producing results for the Ministry of Health, and his family is safe. This is no small achievement in Baghdad.

Work continues unrelentingly. Nevertheless we found time yesterday to go out for lunch with a few colleagues who were all close to our three colleagues who died three years ago in the plane crash in Afghanistan. Some people in this group are no longer at MSH and so, once again, this was a joyous reunion even though the occasion was somber and tearful.

MSH has entered a season of much bidding activity and many of us feel like jugglers, holding multiple balls in the air and doing our best not to drop any. Sometimes we do and these drops create stresses in the system and even acute personal pain at times. It is a fact of organizational life that cannot be ignored and that needs our full and ever so precious attention. On those days I am acutely aware of the complexity of human organization. It is one thing to look at this, dispassionately, as an outside observer, as I do when I am out on the road. But it is another thing altogether when I am intimately linked to the people and systems that make up the organization. At times like that I try to observe myself at work and discover, not for the first time, how difficult it is apply what we teach. It is probably a good thing to experience such organizational hiccups from time to time. I think it keeps us honest and humble.