Sylvia's Journal

Yesterday I met with the person to whom I will serve as a coach; in the coaching literature this is sometimes called a coachee. I was awed by the complexity of her job and her openness to me, a total stranger from far away. She freely discussed her challenges and dilemmas. I had asked if I could shadow her as this would give me a better picture of the world she inhabits and see what she is up against. She suggested I travel with her to a meeting several hours inland from Dar es Salaam. I will spend two days and two nights there so that, as she suggested, we will have some quiet time to get acquainted and simply talk. I jumped at the opportunity.

My sudden departure from this palatial hotel means I have to put away the menu of Spa treatments that has been tempting me ever since I arrived. I had been considering the Kilimanjaro Retreat (145 minutes) that includes a Floral Footbath, a Tanzanian Coffee Scrub, a Thai Herbal Steam Bath and a Spice Massage; or, more extravagant, the 3-hour Body Symphony that includes a variety of floral baths, foot scrubs, aromatherapy, Thai herbal facial and whatnot. On the lower end was the Executive Awaken, a one hour combination of foot, back and head massage. I simply could not make up my mind over the weekend. And so I blew it because now I am checking out. By the time I come back to Dar es Salaam it will be Thursday and time to present myself at the airport for the trip home.

Later in the morning I met my colleagues at the MSH/Tanzania office which is entirely made of glass walls. It is the ultimate transparent office. You cannot pick your nose, play solitaire or cruise the Internet on your computer without anyone noticing. But because many people were traveling I could have done any of that if I had wanted to.

In the afternoon I met the team of faculty at the Muhimbili School of Nursing who are participating in our virtual leadership program that Morsi is facilitating at the moment. All but one of the team members were able to meet with me, including the Dean. We had a most wonderful chat sitting around a table and talked about the challenges of teaching nurses about management and leadership as well as the challenge of being a virtual student on top of the usual faculty workload, double now because it is exam time. It was nice to get to know this team in a different way from reading their postings online.

Back at the hotel I started packing while my IT colleagues from Boston tried to fix my email problems long distance, using GoToMeeting (which allows them to take over my screen) and Skype. After about one hour we thought they had successfully diagnosed and fixed my problem. This morning when I woke my computer up, the problem was back.