Sylvia's Journal

More dreams, sweet ones, about a trip (not surprising) but not the kind of trip I take in real life. There was something about listening to a bird and wanting a young girl to save the song in her auditory memory. I wanted her to be able to listen through my head and hear what I heard. There was also a big house with many places to sleep and a photo of the Harry Potter variety, in which people move. I showed, to women in light blue burqas, a picture of women in light blue burqas, singing and laughing. It was contagious and we all broke out in song and laughter. I recognize some elements of the dream but not all. It was a nice dream and it made me start the day full of energy and hope for a good outcome. One of these good outcomes would be the class I will teach today at Harvard’s School of Public Health on the invitation of my former colleague Marc. I love to teach and I am looking forward to it. I will be trying out some materials that we have developed for measuring the results of our leadership interventions. Some of our younger staff are coming along to the class (young girls listening to what I hear in my head?).

We received an excited email from Morsi and Joan from Egypt about the continuing ripples of their leadership interventions that started 6 years ago. Later I heard from my friend Margaret Benefiel that the Egypt story is featured in her second book that will come out later this year. Margaret and here husband Ken came for dinner, which they do periodically when Margaret is on her writing retreat in Gloucester and Ken comes for a sort of conjugal visit. They always bring a bag full of great Thai food. We ate outside by the cove, for the first time since we started hibernating last fall. It was a glorious evening, marred only by the first mosquito and a few no-see-ums that pestered us towards the end of the meal. Their dog Rufus got to lick the plates afterwards.

Another highlight was Prateek’s visit to MSH. Prateek was one of our students in the first leadership course we did with Boston University in 2006. He is part of an extraordinary group of mostly young people, who we have stayed in touch with and whose public health careers are starting to take off. Meghann, who I saw in Kabul, is part of that group and so is Tae who I will see next week in Addis, and Chaltone who I saw in Tanzania. We sat around the table and ate pizza while we listened to Prateek’s stories about getting public health interventions launched in Cambodia. I see how he is leading, despite his young age and short career. It is exciting to follow his journey and that of the others.

In the background are two virtual events that I facilitate as part of a team. Both are coming to an end today. Participants are starting to comment on the impact of the experience on them. That too is gratifying and makes it worth all the time and headaches that have gone into designing and executing the events. Later today I will prepare a big virtual celebration, which I found out years ago, you can actually do, as if you were all together in a fancy ballroom in a hotel. Your imagination just has to work a little harder, but it can be done.