Sylvia's Journal

I am back in Abidjan, goods delivered. All the angry faces have vanished and their owners become enthusiastic. We are credible now (something that has to be established, over and over again, which gets to be trying at times, hence the grey hairs). We are happy that we were able to show that (a) we know our stuff (‘animateurs maitrisent bien le sujet’), and (b) there was something to learn. Whether one day this becomes ‘there is always something to learn, no matter what’ remains to be seen. Patterns of thinking are hard to change.

The words spoken at the closing of the workshop came from the heart, as opposed to those spoken at the beginning when everything was still new and stiff. We were warmly invited to pay a visit to one of the people who had appeared rather cool and aloof at first; something shifted. It was also a reminder that first impressions can be entirely off the mark.

I handed out my usual leadership kits to remind them during their next meetings of what leadership and management means: a magnifying glass to scan and focus, a large button that says five time ‘Pourquoi,’ to remind them that fixing symptoms is a waste of resources; an eraser to erase all the mistakes of the past, and a mechanical pencil to ‘keep their points sharp.’

With that we packed our bags and headed back to Abidjan, a short ride, where we did our compte rendu with the acting chief of the MSH office. Now we are back at the hotel where we started, only one week ago. It is amazing how the psychological landscape around us has changed.

I tried to connect with the Boston office but something else has shifted also: we were not able to connect, after trying multiple ways: Skype, landline, cell phone. Nothing worked. This morning, I am also cut off from the internet. I had gotten used to a perfect and dependable connection to the outside world but am reminded again that I am in a place where such luxuries are not to be taken for granted.

I was put at the 9th floor of the hotel but requested a lower floor. It is not the height that bothers me but what to do in case of fire. May be it is a leftover fear from my childhood fire experience or having seen the movie Inferno. At any case, I have no illusion that one can survive a fire at the 9th floor. Now I am on the 4th and right above the swimming pool. I calculated that I could jump if needed.

I am on the other side of the building now, looking out over the inland part of Abidjan and the waters around it. At about 5 PM the sky started to turn dark with the frantic movement of a million fruit bats. I remembered this from Niger, sitting at the terrace of the Grand Hotel and watching the bats fly out over the Niger River. It is a breath taking nightly ritual that has gone on, probably undisturbed, for millennia. It does make one wonder why the city is not buried under tons of bat guano or whether this has already made its way into the lungs of people.

This morning at 6 AM th sky was still filled with bats but one by one they returned to their trees where they hang upside down, waiting to take to the sky again tonight. At 7 a few stragglers, adolescents probably, are still fluttering outside my window, and then, 30 minutes later there are none to be seen.