Sylvia's Journal

Every time one glitch is ironed out another pops up for this trip to Bangladesh and Cambodia – it is going to require a tour de force or miracle to get the passport with the Bangla visa to me before I leave on Friday. Right now it is at the embassy in DC and apparently today is a holiday and they are closed. My departure, tomorrow night, thus becomes an act of faith that everything will work out in the end. According to a Nigerian saying ‘everything will work out in the end. If things haven’t worked out yet it means you haven’t come to the end yet.’ The end will be when I stand at the immigration counter at the airport in Bangladesh and a uniformed man tells me I can or cannot step into the country. In the latter scenario Emirates will have to take me back to Dubai and I can finally see the camel races or the shopping mall with the ski slope. But I will miss the event for which I travelled to Bangladesh. That would be very unfortunate.

I worked from home yesterday because of the ice, sleet and rain. The winter weather advisory was stated strongly enough to keep me (but not Tessa and Steve) from driving to work. In the end it wasn’t as bad but I was happy to skip one commute on slippery roads. It seems I have another chance at slippery roads (an ice rink I am told), today. But since it is my last day of work I have to drive in.

All through the day I ‘attended’ meetings by phone that I should have attended in person. I walked around the house with the phone clipped to my belt and my headgear in place. It’s a more productive way of attending meetings because you can multitask without anyone knowing. During my last such meeting of the day I prepared a great lasagna.

Last night Axel was elected to chair a town committee he has been a member of, after something of a quiet palace revolution that built up to this event over a couple of weeks. I saw many of my theories and beliefs about leadership acted out up close, and it was fascinating to watch from the sidelines. This new leadership role is one that suits Axel like a glove and even before he was elected he was already busy mobilizing and aligning the dormant energies in our town around issues of preservation of the town’s cultural, architectural and natural patrimony.