Yesterday the participants were doing the work of teaching and learning by facilitating sessions we assigned to them in teams of three. They continue doing this today, our last day together. We define leading as ‘enabling others to face challenges and produce results in complex conditions.’ So that is what we are doing. Midway through the workshop our work was essentially done; we created the structure, introduced the concepts, laid out the processes and the rookie LDP facilitators are now doing the work. Each team is learning from the feedback given to the preceding team and so the quality of the sessions is steadily going up. This way we are accomplishing three things at once: the participants are learning the things they need to learn, the facilitators learn to be coaches and I am freed up to pay attention to prepare next week’s double workshop and be responsive to other requests from senior project staff. But one thing I have not delegated and that is turning my iPod on and off to play the Afghan music before and after sessions. It makes everyone smile, even the serious types.
The Kabul Chief Burger had to do without our business for lunch yesterday. My co-facilitator Ali felt that a change was needed. We were served Kabuli rice, kebabs and a large bone with chunks of meet that you had to hunt for, hard work but delicious, with some unidentifiable mush of spicy greens, also delicious. A small packet of plastic utensils, sugar, salt and pepper in cellophane was offered with the meal. On closer inspection this turned out to be US army issue. It appears there is a flourishing market of American army goods outside the American base in Bagram right under the nose of our men in uniform. There is also a bush (not Bush) market in Kabul where US army products of any kind are available for sale. Our caterer must be getting his take-out utensils there. We did not need the salt/pepper and sugar packets enclosed with the utensils. I really hope someone picks through the garbage and saves the sugar, at least.
The MSH project team is determined to use every second of my time and attention. They are right, since it took a lot of resources to get me here and the end of my trip is showing on the horizon, but it means there is never a dull moment. On Sunday we start another training of trainers for 60 people in two parallel rooms with occasional sessions together. And one piece of my original scope of work that was taken out is put back in again. A proposal has been sent to the ministry to hold a senior alignment meeting to support the scale up of the leadership program in the 13 provinces. It is an all time record for me: three 4-day workshops and one 4-hour alignment meeting all in two weeks time plus strengthening the local team of lead facilitators. The only reason that this is possible is that a good chunk of the work was done in the first few days when the design was tested and finetuned. All I do now is give feedback to the lead team of facilitators and make sure the design for next week will work. My Afghan colleagues will do the heavy lifting from now on, taking my place as a coach, while I sit back and watch them. My job is, in essence, to create the containers in which the learning is most likely to happen with the least effort on anyone’s part. In this way, hopefully, we are cascading the skills sets downward and expanding the pool of LDP facilitators in Afghanistan. Some good results from improved leadership in the provinces over the last year are already in. We are very encouraged. People like to be associated with success and it seems a critical mass is building!
Sylvia's Journal 
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