Sylvia's Journal

I have discovered the document shredder that hides under my desk in the office that has been given to me. I love feeding the shredder. I am like a little child with a new toy. I am sure the shredder is meant for highly sensitive papers that are not allowed to fall into the hands of the reactionary forces in Afghanistan, in case the office ever gets attacked. But I have no sensitive information and yet I am shredding at least one container full each day with drafts of programs or facilitator notes that no one claimed, or the printer instructions that come out when I press the wrong buttons. There is something primitive in my reaction to seeing and hearing a perfectly fine piece of paper shredded to pieces.

The day is over now. Mirwais and I just had another fine dinner, leaving enough to feed a family of four. It goes into the leftover category now and joins the leftovers from yesterday and the day before. After a few days the cook takes the leftover someplace, to make room for new leftovers in the fridge. The chocolate cake from a few days ago is still there and today I found an open container of (long-lasting) cream that added greatly to the cake experience. Sometimes we have cake (or pie) for breakfast, as a breakfast desert.

Today was an intense and long day. In the morning the provincial teams started their practice sessions under the very critical eye of their peers. Compared to last week this group is noisy, loud and very opinionated. It is because many have been trained in the materials, so they know. As a result it is a tough crowd to practice on. Although all is done in Dari, I can nevertheless see the dynamics and can give some hints on how to deal with challenging participants. The default way is control. I teach them martial arts techniques, as in going with the energy that is coming your way by turning. If only people knew how effective it is, they wouldn’t have to fight so hard.

My counterpart showed up in the middle of the morning out of a sense of responsibility for the workshop. The tragedy that befell his family is much worse than I had understood. His in-laws and cousins, heading home in the dark and in the rain from a funeral hit, at full speed, an unlit truck stopped in the middle of the road. They slid under it and 5 members of the family died instantly, 7 were alive but comatose. With our accident so fresh in my memory, the story hit me more than I had expected. One of the women, coming out of her coma this morning, asked where her husband was when nothing could have saved him. In my case the dice were thrown the right way; Axel lived, her husband died; and worse, two of her children as well. The hospital is not of the same standards as the Umass Trauma hospital that has everything that is needed to treat trauma patients. The hospital here lacked oxygen for example. This is why we are doing the work we are doing, we said, and with those words we sent him home, to be where he is most needed.

In the afternoon three of us headed for the ministry to align the senior leadership team with the leadership efforts of the provinces. We had prepared well for this important four hour meeting. The first thing I noticed when I walked into the office and conference room of the deputy minister was Sita’s framed illustration of his speech at the conference two years ago. From then on everything could only go right, I thought. And it sort of did, even though we were told we had only one hour instead of the four we had expected. As a result it became a very informal conversation around the table and around the results that we showed for the leadership development activities that had taken places in the provinces. It was exactly the kind of conversation I like to have. It was a very open and frank discussion about the stresses and frustrations at the top of the health hierarchy; about all the stuff that comes up through the ranks that cannot be handed over to anyone else; about signatory procedures that are seen as not negotiable; but also about the possibilities for changing what does not work by addressing these challenges as a team. In the short time (we end up getting more than an hour as people don’t want to leave) we can only scratch the surface but I can see the team is hungry for more of this sort conversation which they rarely have.