Sylvia's Journal

My major accomplishment yesterday was the removal of about 250 emails from my in-box. One could argue that, from a systems perspective, this is no accomplishment at all because many were simply transferred to other people in in-boxes, and thus only ‘shifted the burden.’ My other, minor, accomplishment was that Liz and I have stuck so far to our ‘next steps’ timeline for Ethiopia and pushed things along as planned (which is fast and against some odds).

Where I made no progress is on the travel calendar front. My counterparts do not, or cannot, plan this far ahead for reasons I do not know– two weeks for Ghana, five weeks for Afghanistan (or Ethiopia but no longer Zambia). I am all set to go to Ghana but the most critical person for the success of this trip has not responded to either plan A, plan B (or plan C which says ‘cancel.’). I know he has an iPhone but I know little about the strength of signals wherever he is. Signals from Afghanistan have been equally absent. One of the things I have learned over the years is to never make assumptions about reasons why I am not getting any responses and so I wait, with (e)ticket in hand and passport somewhere between Washington and Boston. There are still two weeks between now and my next scheduled departure.

I never left my house yesterday and spent too long sitting in front of computers, despite the granddog’s attempts to get me out. Today I will get out. Not just out but also up. My flying buddy Bill has planned a practice run north into NH, then west and then back to Beverly. The practice concerns landings, four of them, with full stops and maybe one go around, in Skyhaven, Concord, Jaffrey and our home base Beverly. Our timing appears to be perfect as the sky is blue and the temperature springlike.