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.