Sylvia's Journal

A little box mounted on wall of my bathroom periodically puffs out small clouds of a sweet smelling chemical that neutralizes the natural smells in the bathroom. I try to imagine the hotel room designers sitting around a table listening to salespeople from companies that cater to hotels. It must have been a very good pitch because not only all the guest rooms but also the conference rooms have these puff machines. Sometimes I forget about it and the little squeak that accompanies the puff startles me. It sounds as if someone is letting out a deep sigh in the bathroom.

We had some more visits today to potential partners and vetted our emergent design with various stakeholders in order to make sure that there are no last minute surprises that require an entire overhaul. So far it is holding up under review; even better, we got some advice and ideas that improved it.

We met with the management institute but aren’t sure yet whether we can engage in a contractual relationship as per our and their governments’ regulations. This caught us by surprise and we are not sure how this will resolve itself. We also met with the chief of the Global Fund Secretariat and the chief of the Clinton Foundation, each showing us a different facet of the vast and complex development landscape.

We returned to the hotel exhausted yet there was more work to be done. Liz is facilitating a virtual strategic planning course and reviewing the homework of five teams. I had less work to do and was glad that I was not in any virtual event; it makes for very long work days.

For dinner we went to the Old Milk House restaurant, located on the 10th floor of an apartment building that has seen better days. It was a little creepy downstairs and the elevator even more so. But we made it up and down safely and ate a delicious Ethiopian fasting meal (no meat and no dairy) in between. It was served by a very solicitous young waiter who must have been disappointed about our mousy appetite as we did not even finish our single order. At the end of the meal a woman dressed in the traditional white dress served me my umpteenth cup of coffee of the day. She carried the coffee paraphernalia on a tray with a brazier with sweet smelling charcoal; a more traditional version of my squeaky puff machine.