Sylvia's Journal

Such a productive day yesterday! I whittled the to-do box down to the size of one screen and closed my computer with the inbox empty. I was able to do much of the writing I was asked to do because I was unencumbered by meetings that have a tendency to stop and start the creative juices. They also have a tendency to add more tasks.

After today I will have only a few more weeks in the office before the year is over. Between now and then I will travel to Afghanistan, back home for Thanksgiving and then back again to Bangladesh where I have not been for over 14 years. Many of the baby girls that were born when I was there last are having babies of their own now, if they survived childhood and early motherhood, a big ‘if.’ Girls born here in the US or in Holland some fourteen years ago are still girls now. That’s the big difference between here and there, and one big reason for doing what I do.

On my way home from work, I listened to an interview with Mr. Popeil, the inventor and king of infomercials. He was asked what he would look for to decide whether Obama had done a good job on his half hour prime time infomercial last night. Mr. Popeil would have flashed a telephone number and the logos of Visa and Mastercard on the screen throughout the speech and then counted the phone calls that followed. Obama’s business is a little different from kitchen knives of course, so I guess we’ll have to wait till Tuesday. I am still a little disappointed I will be sitting in a plane and won’t be able to watch the states turn from red to blue, if all goes according to plan, at home or with friends.

I was home early enough to have a quick meal and a beer before heading out to yoga class. I am sure that this was not the proper preparation for yoga but sometimes one has to make concessions to one’s desires.

We had four people in our class and got a serious workout even though the teacher is very gentle with us. I still can’t do any poses that require pressure on my right hand and wrist because of the carpal tunnel incision. It is fully healed, but still tender. This is a handicap that rules out down dog. Instead, leaning on my lower arms, I did down dolphin, according to the teacher. I also can’t move my ankle in certain directions so I get to do the variations for injured people and use blocks a lot. But it feels great and I am enjoying the one and a half hour of twisting, stretching and turning. I especially like the 10 minutes of dead man pose at the end.

All limbered up, Peggy and I rushed to her house to catch the remaining 20 minutes of Obama’s infomercial, final appeal or closing argument. It was a clever communication piece, but then, I did not need to be sold. I wondered how it played out with the undecided; after all that was the target audience.

This morning I called my colleague Steve in Kabul, mostly to test my new phone line (it worked) but also to ask if he craves anything from the US that I can bring (nothing). He told me that they added another task to my scope of work: facilitating a retreat with the director for all health services in the country with his top reports to figure out how to tackle this nearly impossible task. This is exactly what I like to do and even though my day had not yet started, this announcement already made my day. I have for years been tasked with sorting out how to approach senior leadership in ministries and health organizations and have not made much headway, mostly because this group is so very inaccessible. Getting this opportunity thrown into my lap is an unexpected bonus.

I drove home from work last night heading into a big rainstorm that had as its portal an enormous and sharply contoured rainbow. Outside the arc of the primary rainbow was a secondary, equally large but its colors washed out. I took the picture during a slow ride over the Tobin Bridge.

The sky was threatening and colorful with yellows, grays, blues and purples alternating in between hurrying clouds. It was a far cry from yesterday’s blue and windless skies; not a day for flying.

It was also a full workday with meetings and other events back to back, leaving little time to organize myself, let alone get anything done. What I did get done was getting my trip to Kabul organized. I will depart on Election Day and will be relying on the Northwest pilot to tell me, and everyone else on the plane, who our next president is going to be. I know they announce the outcomes of big sporting events, and assume that elections play in that league as well. I would have liked to be in the US all day and had some fantasy of driving people to the polls in New Hampshire and then, hopefully, celebrate at night. Instead I get to see the reactions in Amsterdam.

I arrived home only minutes after Tessa and Steve who left Boston later but don’t have to deal with the Tobin bridge or the roads that lead to it and so they go much faster. Everyone but Axel was hungry. He had been too engrossed in choosing the right color palette for his next school project that he forgot all about dinner. I skimmed parts of Steve’s chips and salsa and Tessa’s noodles and finished some leftovers that did not need to be cooked and then finished everything off with stale leftovers of Steve’s birthday cake. I chastised myself for hours afterwards to have shown so little self restraint; mostly because the stale cake left a terrible taste in my mouth. I should know better.

I have been surrounded during the last week by sick people and suspect it is finally my turn. I had planned to take a hot bath, a hot toddy and crawl into bed at about 7 PM but Axel needed a ride to get the car back from the repair garage in Essex. It is the new (210000 mile) Subaru (as opposed to the old- 240000 mile Subaru) that is sick; or rather its gas tank is defective which we knew because of the gas fumes. The repairs will cost just about the low estimate of its blue book value and we agonized what to do. In the end we decided not to do anything right now until we know what other expenses are lining up for the end of the year: new fireplace, the new chimney, end-of-year contributions and possibly Tessa’s college tuition, if nothing else. Even an old second hand car is just not in the stars right now.

We arrived at the repair shop and found the car with its flashers on. Somehow the alarm got triggered by the mechanics and after much trial and error the fuse was finally taken out to stop the flashing. We did not even know the car had an alarm and were happy to stop the false one. Unfortunately the cost estimate showed that the gas fumes were not a false alarm, though not an emergency either. We were advised to not fill up the gas tank for now. This is problematic because the gas gauge does not work and filling it up after 200 or so miles is the way by which we calculate how much is left.

The temperature is dipping closer and closer to freezing. In fact, while I was in Charleston, Manchester had its first frost and we lost all our basil plants, the Thai, the purple-leaf and the regular ones. It is always a shock when our least cold-resistant plants go, this irreversible moment when the arrival of winter becomes real. There are always regrets about not having done something to postpone the loss of our most summery plants or holding on to them forever by having processed the leaves into jars or freezer bags. Nevertheless, since that frost, the days have been warm and sunny, and the plants that survived the first frost are thriving, especially the chard which we used last night in a subcontinent dish with the last of the home grown potatoes.

Axel and I took our leave from now 28-year old Sita and Jim after a long and leisurely breakfast at which everyone pretended not having work to do. We were able to drag this out till noon and then we left. We drove eastwards along the pike below a bright blue sky and me periodically looking up wishing I was flying back. The hills on both sides of the road are still spectacular in their patchworked fall colors; I cannot get enough of looking at them and pointing out ‘look, look!’ and wanting to store the sights forever in my mind.

For most of the ride back we listened to Henry David Thoreau describing his walk along Cape Cod’s coast to Provincetown. When we started out he was in Wellfleet and when we arrived home he had only made it to North Truro, where Alison lives. He has much to tell us, stories and historical facts mixed together with his own impressions during the walk and his encounters with weathered locals. We learned something about clams and oysters and that the landscape of 160 years ago is quite different from what it is now. There is something nostalgic about his reporting. It gives me much the same feeling as the realization that the brilliant fall foliage will soon be entirely gone leaving only bare branches.

We risked staying over amidst the cat hair which Axel may later regret but for now it is wonderful to wake up in Sita’s office/guest room. It is painted bright yellow (cadmium yellow). Every room is painted a different bright color but ours is my favorite. It is even more spectacular with the sun rays reflecting the yellow on yellow.

Yesterday Axel picked me up at Logan where I landed exactly on time after a perfect score departure from Charleston (SC) first and Charlotte (NC) later. Some of my colleagues did not have such good luck. At least two missed their plane because of some screw up with the hotel that had something to do with time changes and clocks automatically resetting themselves and Congress changing the date last year. Someone tried to explain it but it was early Sunday morning and I had to leave to catch my plane. On a fluke I had relied on my cell phone’s alarm and so I did not miss my flight.

We drove out west from Logan along the turnpike, which is gorgeous this time of the year with its orange, brown, yellow and green trees on both sides; brilliant fall colors under bright blue skies. It was a perfect day for flying. I would have, but no one in our family is ready for us going up together yet.

We arrived before Sita did with the ingredients for the enormous meal she prepared. We were all enlisted in cutting vegetables and when all was done we had several dishes to choose from: a spicy poulet basquaise, ratatouiile, and minestrone soup. The birthday cake was a zucchini chocolate affair that tasted much better than the name suggests.

Sita had given herself an iPhone and demonstrated how she can play harmonia, guitar and piano on it. Why we call the thing a phone is beyond me. We gave her a breadmaking machine and now know what to expect for Christmas. if someone supplies the meat we will have a nice family sandwich with Sita’s bread and my mustard in our stockings.

After dinner Jim’s family left and we played games, first Rummykub (which I like a lot) and then Monopoly (which I never liked). I grew up calling it mo-no-PO-lie with the emphasis on the third syllable. The game (and the word) come with instant memories of arguments that got sharper as the game progressed and the stakes went up. My youngest brother always won as the rest of us overextended financially, just like real banks do nowadays.

I played along for a couple of hours while Sita amassed great riches by buying everything she could and exacting money from the rest of us. At 11:00 PM, stuck in prison, I gave up, handed my properties back to the bank and divided my money over the remaining players with most of it going to my husband since I have a weak spot for him. I fell asleep against the background noise of arguments and learned in the morning that Sita went broke after all.

Sometime in the next 10 days I will be flying to the east rather than to the south; Tanzania is off, Afghanistan is on. The course in Arusha was cancelled because of ‘exceedingly low enrollment figures’ according to our academic partner. I am not surprised, as the course was never really marketed. I am also annoyed because the process of getting to this point has been exasperating at every twist and turn, and has sucked up much time and money, including a preparatory trip to Arusha last March that seemed successful at the time but turned out not to. Was I fooling myself? Are we?

But before leaving the continent, I am off today to Charleston in South Carolina for my last fall OBTS Board meeting. Next June I will be going off the Board. My three year term went fast, a little too fast. I am finally getting the hang of my job as chair of the nominations and elections committee and am preparing for my last elections early 2009. It has been a privilege to be associated with a remarkable group of people with whom I share a passion for teaching.

My last visit to South Carolina was 35 years ago, in 1973. I have no recollection of my passage through that state, in a greyhound bus, from Miami to Washington DC, on less than 5 dollar a day. I traveled with Peter. This was before he became my husband in 1975 and my ex husband in 1979. We must have passed through Charleston but I don’t remember. It was in another life. This time I will be jetting into Charleston on Wisconsin Air; a four hour trip with a stop in La Guardia. I will meet up with my 18 fellow Board members who are flying in from everywhere, including New Zealand.

At work yesterday I was kept in suspense about my changed travel schedule until the end of the day. By then I had a long list of people who needed to be alerted because they are either associated with the planned trip or are alternate destinations. In my line of work everything is carefully planned and scheduled because of the approvals we need from our government in Washington (we are after all spending tax dollars) – as if we have any control over what actually happens. Often things falls through; so I have learned to have alternatives lined up in back of a plan. The substitution of Afghanistan for Tanzania happened quickly; now the details.

We ended the workday on a high note with a party to acknowledge Tim who had worn three hats since June, applied for one of them and did not get it. Everyone brought food or drinks. I bought him a steak and beer with an appropriate name which I already have forgotten, Quiet Times, or something like that; it seemed appropriate for not getting a high stress job. We all believe that somewhere in the rejection is a blessing, and that it will reveal itself in due time. People gave heartfelt testimonials and we all felt good about being part of our team. Tim is back to one hat, and may discover he has his life back as well.

I rushed home to get to my yoga class in Hamilton. Once again Peggy and I had a semi-private class. I was a bit more careful with some of the poses, wanting to avoid the painful aftermath from last week’s class. I have now accepted that I am still somewhat handicapped; my ankle cannot do what it used to do and my carpal tunnel is still tender. Still, it felt good, especially the dead man’s pose at the end, which made me look forward to going home and to bed. Back home I found Axel off to his branding class, Steve still sick with flu-like symptoms, and Tessa at work behind her computer. I made myself hot chocolate for dinner and checked all my friends and family on Facebook before turning in.

I should have enough mustard by now to take care of all the people who, in various ways, have taken care of me over the year. It is a four-step process that takes me usually most of the fall: buying the supplies, soaking the mustard seeds in a secret concoction for flavor and to soften them, the cooking, and canning, and finally the labeling and wrapping. I am done with the first three steps.

I have to start early with this yearly ritual because I usually travel a lot between September and December. This fall is no different although I don’t know exactly where I will be travelling to. I also don’t know yet how I will be able to fit the travel around two major holidays (Thanksgiving and Eid el Adha) and two doctors’ appointments that took me months to make and that I would hate to cancel.

Today I am supposed to hear (as I was last week and the week before that) whether I leave a week from now for Tanzania or not. This decision is based on the number of registrations for our planned course. Our partner in Arusha keeps telling us they don’t know. It’s hard to plan without data. If the trip falls through my itinerary shifts to Afghanistan; and somewhere, before Christmas, is another short trip tucked in to BRAC in Bangladesh. The set up for that was made in May at a breakfast with its founder, during a conference in Washington. I did not think it had come to fruition, but it had; I just didn’t know it until yesterday.

After work, armed with a real map and pretty good driving instructions, I drove without mistakes this time, to Malden to see my colleague Amy-Simone who just had her second baby, Ali (with the emphasis on the second syllable). I told her that in Holland Ali is a girl’s name. That was just what she wanted to hear. Ali is the father’s choice, not hers. Dad is from Mauritania and figures his two sons will grow up as American boys, so to balance things out they should at least be named like Mauritanian boys back home, Mohamed and Ali. Taken together they do carry an association with fighting (or boxing rather).

Ali never opened his eyes during my short visit. He was off duty. I admired his perfection and beauty. He made the most wonderful grimaces while I held him; random firing of facial muscles, I imagined; proof that synaptic connections were made and delicate motor nerves responding. Ali has a complex task ahead, the wiring of his brain. Maybe even twice as complex because of having to deal with two cultures and two languages from the get go. I kissed him good luck and then his mom; I learned from experience that having one child is a hobby, but two is a job.