Sylvia's Journal

I am drinking endless cups of green tea and eating copious amounts of dried mulberries in the evening, Jon’s farewell gift to me. Dried mulberries are called toot in Dari. He gave me a shopping bag full of toot. This only represented a fraction of what he is taking home to South Africa. That’s what happens when, as a foreigner, you express a desire. As soon as people knew he wanted toot they brought him kilos and kilos of the stuff. I filled a large bowl on the dining room table, emptying only half of the bag. They are a bit like pistachio nuts in that, once you start, it is hard to stop eating them. The tea replaces beer and wine – as we have none here. Green tea most resembles white wine, albeit only in color.

Yesterday we started the three day workshop within half an hour of the established starting time – this was a tremendous improvement over the last time we all met in March. Everyone seemed eager and most were seated at the appointed time except for a few stragglers from the central ministry of health. Some teams had come from very far away. The only missing team was the closest one, from Kabul province.

I was disappointed that the female trainers did not show up. When it comes to women we still have the same 5 women in the workshop we had 6 months ago, less than 10% of the participants – no progress there. On the other hand, the first day of the workshop was orderly chaotic and produced exactly the outcomes we had hoped: much sharing with and learning from each other so that everyone knows what everyone is doing: all this in a room that was entirely filled with large bulky chairs and required much pushing and shoving to get around.

I heard some wonderful stories about the leadership program, how it was being rolled out and how it has changed people’s behavior in clinics and offices. All teams had brought the statistics to prove that these behavior changes actually made a difference for patients. A few people could hardly contain themselves, gushing over with enthusiasm about how they themselves have been affected and how that has spilled over onto others. I am missing a lot of stories and even more nuance because all is done in Dari and I only occasionally ask for translation. The most touching comment was from a colleague in Kandahar, a Taliban-dominated and rather insecure area, who uses our internet site (LeaderNet) to follow virtual events we offer. He prints the material posted on the site and distributes it among his counterparts to make them think about changing one thing or another, or introducing something new. A constant big grin on his face compensates for anything that is not going as planned.

The central team bravely sat in a fishbowl and reviewed their work in front of all their underlings, exposing, with grace, both their clean and dirty laundry; not very Afghan someone commented. The participants listened intently and then pointed out that the central folks were not a coherent team, which was true, and then everyone laughed and the chief took his marching orders from this.

In the afternoon Ali and I presented the idea of Open Space and watched the incredulity on people’s faces change into excitement. Once they understood the idea they put together a good program for themselves for the next day. It includes workshops on priority setting and root cause analysis tools, how to expand and sustain the leadership program, how to inspire people and work through breakdowns and how to make a good plan.

I find myself engaged in a type of improvisation that is fun rather than stressful. There is a saying I learned from a Brazilian that goes like this: In the end, everything works out. If it hasn’t worked out yet, that’s because you haven’t gotten to the end. I am optimistic that at the end of today we can once again say that we accomplished what we set out to get: confidence up in conducting and expanding the leadership program, further into the provinces and its health facilitaties.

I spent some more time in the morning with Jon, downloading as much as I could from his vast store of public health knowledge. Coupled with his deep concern for those people who are always left out of the equation, he is teaching me much about questioning policies and not taking anything for granted or at face value. I still have a lot to learn about the subject but lodging with three public health physicians for a week helps.

A few hours after I said goodbye to Jon he walked back into the office because his flight was cancelled and someone had forgotten to tell him. That also meant he missed his onward flight to Cape Town. He took it all in stride and we got to have him for another evening of stories. The cook had made fresh meals and either thrown away some of the old meals or consolidated them into ‘mixed platters.’ The spaghetti is still there but no one but Steve touches it anymore and it has become a bit of a joke. The new meal was good and the apple-walnut-cream desert even better. It looked like it had come straight out of my 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook (“Romantic Dinners for Two”) that I bought in Beirut in 1978 when I wanted to show my culinary skills to my new American man.