Sylvia's Journal

Yesterday was a full day, starting with my appearance at the office and making the rounds to say hello to all and distribute gifts (mostly Dutch cookies and chocolate). I paid my guesthouse bill and arranged for my return ticket to Dubai on the 20th.

I met briefly with my colleagues, two of them new, who are under some pressure to roll out the leadership program and produce the results that are warranted by the investments made. A little later we left for the ministry of health for what was called an alignment/consensus building meeting. The latter appears to be a popular name for a meeting and I wonder whether that is a literal translation or an imported term.

We convened at the institute for public health with the chiefs or delegates of various NGOs, mostly local. The Institute is the government structure that is assimilating and incorporating our the leadership program in its portfolio of training courses. This will ensure its sustainability.

Most of the training room was taken up by one gigantic boardroom type table of dark shiny wood with soft executive chairs from China around it that showed the familiar wear and tear of Chinese goods. The decorations were quite fantastic and consisted of elaborate draperies (a local specialty it appears; this included drapes over the projection screen. Along its center line, the table – Chinese also no doubt – had one long indentation that was filled with a colorful plastic flower arrangement.

The deliberations were mostly held in Dari and so I concentrated on watching; asking for periodic translations when I had an inkling that the meeting needed more focus. Focus will be the magic word for the next two weeks I think. We listened to two graduates from the program who showcased their transformation armed with line and bar charts. They had come out on top of a competition for best performer and their reward was a trip to Kabul (from Herat and Bamiyan) and a wallchart featuring Afghan teams in one corner. Applause.

The intent of the meeting was to get the NGOs more involved in rolling out the leadership program. Whether we succeeded remains to be seen but we think we planted some seeds and we expect several inquiries to explore things further. Questions will, no doubt, concern financial support and some of that can probably be provided as long as it shows up in a plan – another assignment for this week. The project is thinking about the post project period and needs to make sure its current technical and process contributions will be taken over by local actors after it closes its books.

In the afternoon I had my briefing with the Security Chief which I have described in one of my posts in March of this year. It was more or less the same – a three-way conversation with me not knowing whether to look at the Dari-speaking Chief or his interpreter. It is hard to concentrate when you speak with the person who is not addressing you. My eyes would sometimes drift to the TV that was on, in back of them. At one point I hoped I was seeing some coded information that informed our chief about action but it turned out to be a commercial. Later at dinner I learned from my colleagues that I had missed some action; an “armed’ UN truck was stolen from the airport – empty. People thought it was funny – apparently they don’t mind seeing the UN put in their place. There are rivalries among helpers here, as one could expect, and between helpers and locals. International emergency assistance is big business, and if it is not status and recognition, than it is money that catches people’s fancy.

Back home we found new platters of food waiting for us in the oven, in addition to the other 8 dishes already prepared over the last week and not yet finished, combining into a veritable buffet dinner. Steve likes the very old dishes; I picked something a little fresher, essentially what I had yesterday and Maureen had yet another combination. The deserts are also piling up: carrot cake, honey-nut bananas, yoghurt and the chocolate I brought along.

After dinner Jon gave me an elaborate briefing on BRAC’s school of public health. It is a relatively new program that Jon midwived with a few other committed souls. It is a fascinating story, yet another one, of BRAC establishing its own of anything that it needs to have in order to conduct its essential development work – so why not go into tertiary education. I have a better sense now of the characters I will meet.

Bedtime is not entirely a voluntary thing – I stay up until the generator is shut off, a little after midnight and I am woken up when it is turned on again and all the lights and noise wake me up at about 5:30 AM.