Sylvia's Journal

Yesterday was the first of our two days of being grounded at the guesthouse. It’s kind of nice; no alarm clock, no hurried breakfast. Instead we have a long drawn out meal; MP, and myself in our jammies, Hans and Steve already dressed. It is like Sunday back home. No hurry, nowhere to go. We all do have work to do and we are all procrastinating – we spin out our breakfast as long as we can.

Swine flu is the first topic we tackle. MP’s eyes light up – as an infectious diseases specialist this is what she’s here for in this world: to combat microscopic enemies and keep them away from us fragile humans. She is a fount of knowledge, using words I don’t understand. Steve and she speak a kind of coded language. I interrupt them all the time for explanations. What’s a secondary infection? What do the letters H and N stand for? How bad are things in Mexico? (Bad). What does that mean for the rest of the world? How to handle a swine flu emergency in Afghanistan where the population is prone to pneumococcal infections? What to do about our staff? Hans and I are the non medics and we listen with awe while Steve and MP talk about things we know nothing about.

MP treats us to a blow by blow account (as well as a video later in the day) of the sexual deviance of her two small lovebirds Una and Diego. The female doesn’t want anything to do with male and so he humps a towel on the towel rack instead. The female lays (unfertilized) eggs by the dozen which is also not right in addition to not being good for her health. After observing MP with her two lovebirds for awhile the vet concluded that the female wants MP in her nest, not the more species-appropriate Diego.

After this topic we talk about something lighter, religion, for the remainder of the breakfast. Eventually we start to feel guilty about not working. MP procrastinates a little longer by doing the dishes, as our household help is not coming today, doing everyone a favor. I procrastinate a little longer by surfing, facebooking, twittering and checking mails until I can no longer postpone serious thinking about the design of the next event that starts on Wednesday morning, an intervention with another general directorate team.

Lunch is an equally drawn out affair and we tackle the countless leftover dishes in the two refrigerators. After lunch we all work some more until it is the cocktail hour. We follow the swine flu story and watch the WHO press conference on BBC. More questions, more answers leading to more questions.

It occurs to me that the team building with the senior leadership team might be most useful if it is done around the task of preparing for the swine flu epidemic that is likely to touch every part of the world where there is an airport (rather than swine) and will eventually arrive at Kabul International airport as carry on. The fact that MP was in Mexico only a month ago is a case in point; luckily she’s not feverish or coughing and we are grateful for that.

The teambuilding events with the general directorates provide a rare opportunity to have the top movers and shakers together in one room. They can work as a team to develop strategies, see interdependencies and assign accountabilities for how to deal with the flu when it hits here, and then each department head can push marching orders down the chain of command. Collectively they have authority over significant parts of the health system and can order it to do this or that. Having the time (2 days) to think it through is an unusual luxury. I make the proposal per email to the key decision makers and await a reaction.

I use the rest of the afternoon for writing assignments and my annual performance self assessment. The latter I do reluctantly, and with a cranky edge as my supervisor Alison describes it. She returns it with some comments and suggests that I sit on it for awhile until I am in a more positive mood about my headquarters. Good idea!

After a dinner where MP and I finish the wine and the four of us try to finish a few more of the leftover dishes, we watch an Oscar Wilde movie, a chick flick (A Good Woman) that we women understand better than the men. After that everyone wants something with more action and select Raiders of the Lost Ark, the movie with the snake pit that I don’t ever need to see again; I retire across the grassy courtyard to my lonely quarters in guesthouse zero, postponing my bedtime until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

I dreamt that I was up against organizational rules and being choked by an unsympathetic bureaucracy in a deeply disempowering way, leaving me feeling utterly demotivated and ready to quit. The rules were silly, cooked up by someone who had no idea what they were talking about, yet enforced as if the future of the company depended on their rigid implementation. My noncompliance became a disciplinary issue and eventually a fight. But I did find some kindred spirits, ready to fight back.

I know exactly what the dream was all about. It was a continuation of a talk that Maria Pia and I had last night about travel – a topic that is, for us frequent travelers, a source of endless stories; nice stories, horror stories and causes of great grief. I Iearned that other travelers have come here on tickets that can be upgraded or changed in ways my deeply discounted ticket cannot. The tickets were more expensive, sometimes more than three times as expensive – and sometimes they are issued directly in business class. How that is possible appears to depend more on people and their attitudes than on company policy.

The conversation turned my disappointment about not being able to route myself back through Beirut, to be there with Sita (since I am practically flying over her head), into anger. I think if someone had offered me a job right then and there I would have taken it. It is the inequities that bother me – if everyone is told to fly on the cheapest ticket, I would be at peace with it. But I learn that this is not the case.

Enough of this self pity. Yesterday was an exhausting but satisfying day. We did manage to have a significant number of people from the policy and planning general directorate in the room. Of course we women were outnumbered by a factor of four – but this is to be expected; especially in a directorate that has a lot of powerful departments that each handle enormous amounts of money (grants, construction, finance, etc.)

Despite the usual assurances that the event could be facilitated in English (people at this level are expected to speak English with ease), we quickly fell into Dari when I noticed that the conversations were more spirited in Dari than in English. This meant that my colleague was facilitating and I watched over our emergent and fluid design from the sidelines, sometimes whispering suggestions in his ear about what to do next. I prefer to ‘dance’ with the participants directly instead of being a choreographer, but until I master the language, that is the role I have to play.

The design was derived from a medical model: diagnostics to see how the circulatory and other organizational systems were functioning. Although we had hoped to get to at least a shared vision, the diagnostic took the entire morning. It was the first time ever they were sitting together like that and talking about their work, their accountabilities, their collaboration and their mandates.

My colleague did his job as facilitator as well as an insider (= Afghan) can do (this means he cannot question and push back in ways I can do, as a naive outsider). He asked the two young female doctor/trainers to contribute bits and pieces here and there that warmed my heart. When the third female, a recently hired female doctor who will advise the chief, and who is used to run an entire organization, was asked to take flipcharts home to type them up I intervened and pushed the task back to the chief, for his assistant to do. I don’t think he was happy. We have had one other female advisor placed with a government department and she was quickly turned into a secretary. If she doesn’t watch out, the same fate awaits her.

Despite assurances that the team was willing to work through lunch, once lunch was served the work was done. We tried to resuscitate the lethargic body after lunch but soon realized it was in vain, the energy gone and life intruding again. To our great delight the group had found the exercise useful enough that they wanted another session before I leave. That was better feedback than any verbal comments on the session.

This is a group of people (men) that is pulled in all directions and super busy. That we found a slot of 3 hours that (most) everyone can attend is a miracle. The only regret was that several of the department heads were absent, having sent their deputies or other underlings instead. I hope we created enough of a buzz that they’ll show up next time.

Suddenly I was pulled out by my colleague who practically dragged me to a large hall, rushing over so we could be present at a graduation ceremony. What I learned along the way is that a group of 250 public health students had gathered in the large auditorium of the ministry to receive their diplomas. What I had not realized (and no one told me) is that they had wanted us to be there at the ceremony and speak and that they had dragged out the ceremony, waiting for us for a long time – while I was eating my lunch, oblivious that around the corner these 250+ people were waiting. As we entered the auditorium I asked Ali whether I was expected to do anything (like a speech) – hoping I was not. But when I was whisked to the front stage and given a microphone, I knew.

I wondered what it was like to be a celebrity and always having to give such impromptu speeches and concluded that the worst part was speaking to people I had no relationship with; a few would be OK but 250?

Since they had learned about leadership and management I was presented as the guru from the US and had to improvise a speech befitting a guru. Once again, I wished I could have thrown in some Dari, but I am not there yet. Besides, I am discovering over and over that when I pronounce the words, thinking I say them exactly like an Afghan, they don’t understand and look at me blankly until I show them the words – then they say, ‘oh, you mean…?’ (saying what I think is exactly what I said); so better not getting into such an awkward situation.

And now a full two days of staying home.