Sylvia's Journal

I stayed up last night until we had a new president and were finally done with number 43. It was a bit past my bedtime, being half a day ahead of DC, but I wanted to see every minute of this ceremony that seemed like a dream, early on in the primaries, and now had come true. The most poignant scene from the ceremony was seeing Malia take a picture of her dad during his speech. I imagined her 60 years from now speaking to that picture – not the official one, but the one taken up close from where she was sitting.

The whole ceremony was quite fitting with the theme of our day over here that had just ended. The center piece of our alignment meeting had been the creation of a shared vision. I had asked people to imagine something in their mind’s eye that did not exist now that they wanted to create in the future, even if it seemed like a dream. The power of vision was that all forces and energies would align around this image to work towards its realization. What better illustration than our new president.

Leonard told us in our circle up, after everyone was gone, that yesterday’s event had exceeded his expectations. It did not exceed mine but that is mostly because I did not know what to expect, being new to this culture. All through the previous week people had told me how difficult it was to get the Excellencies to talk on an even footing with less exalted people, to get people excited, to speak out, etc. But they did and although we lost a few people, everyone remained engaged throughout the day.

We did not see as much of the High Excellencies as I had hoped (but again, more than people expected). Three Secretaries of State – something like a deputy minister – had been invited and all three came; all of them women. Two opened the event, one left right after the opening ceremony, the other participated in the creation of a shared vision, and the third showed up a little before the end of the day to formally close it. Naomi and I flanked the Excellencies both at the opening and the closing and were therefore, at least briefly and by association Minor Excellencies. We liked the title – it rolled nicely off the tongue.

Despite assurances that everyone at this high level would speak English, the meeting required simultaneous translation. The gentleman who had come to verify terminology with us the day before was in charge of this all by himself and performed heroically, having no one to take turns with. He even apologized for taking a bathroom break.

Facilitating a highly interactive set of exercises with headphone on and microphone in the hand was rather challenging, aside from the difficulty to get people out of their polite shells and speaking up out of (the hierarchical pecking) order. It took awhile to break the ice with everyone looking at me for all answers to all questions, including those that I asked to them, I was after all madam professor. The experience was reminiscent of my facilitation forays into China and Japan.

The meeting was held in the fancy Phnom Penh hotel which conveniently had a spa. Naomi is a good travelling companion because she has a deep interest in spas and massages of any kind. By noontime she had already scoped out the place and brought me the massage menu, dangling an end-of-the-day massage in front of me like a carrot.

Our choices ran from a 12 dollar one hour Thai massage to a 2 hours and 15 minutes Body Enhancement for 42 dollars. We chose the 90-minute and 32-dollar aromatherapy massage. Feeling all good (“leaves you glowing inside”) we checked out the hotel’s many restaurants, and Naomi graciously settled on Japanese because I wanted sashimi and sake and she found something that was acceptable to a vegetarian non drinker. We took a tuk tuk back to our more mundane hotel (sans massage) through deserted streets. At 8:30 most Cambodian are home and many already asleep.

Today we are travelling to Kampong Chams Province. The Cham people are an ethnic group in Southeast Asia who can be found in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia with a fascinating history that includes much migration from India to Tibet and then south into their current location, with small enclaves still in Tibet and China. Their history has been traced back to about 200 AD. Cham form the core of the Muslim communities in both Cambodia and Vietnam.

Once more I have no idea what to expect. Our hotel in the province costs 10 dollars a night so I don’t think I will be connected to the internet. There is an ADRA office that does have a connection but it may mean that my daily postings will be delayed a bit.

On Thursday the local team will be doing what I did yesterday as it will all be in Khmer and there is no more translation. I watched them yesterday in the small groups and noticed how they were already taking a leadership role. Later this afternoon, on location, they want to practice on each other and their colleagues. And then they will have to be ready. That they will be is part of my vision.