Sylvia's Journal

It is too bad that it takes someone else’s suffering to distract you from your own. I returned home yesterday from work about noontime with a severe allergy attack that produced tenderness on my face and such pressure on my eyeballs that I could barely look into the light. Not (yet) a sinus infection said the doctor, but definitely sinus congestion. I went to bed and slept.

When I woke up this morning I felt even worse. While making tea I was wondering what there was to write about yesterday since all I could think of was my congested head and how lousy I felt. How boring that would be.

And then the telephone rang from our neighbor Ted asking, with an edge of panic in his voice, for Axel and strength. Our other neighbor Charlie, 80+, had fallen in the bathroom and wedged himself against the door so Ted could not help him. There was no need for strength since Charlie was out of reach. It’s the one time in my life that I have called 911 and I hope never to have to do it again.

Two cruisers and one ambulance soon filled our driveway and a bunch of vigorous young men jumped out with a variety of large bags. After berating me for not having a sign with the house number out at the far end of the drive way they disappeared into the house filling up the tiny hallways and stairs with their bulk.

No one could get at Charlie – but we could talk with him – he did not have a stroke, something we feared at first. The most agile of the men got onto the roof, talking into the walkie-talkie strapped to his shoulder that they had an ‘access’ problem. And then he proceeded to dash in the windows, producing a shower of fine glass slivers to fall down on everything below. As landlord, standing below, I did register that a few more tasks had now been added to our to-do list, in addition to our elusive fireplace project.

After a good hour of maneuvering Charlie emerged, pale and bewildered and was strapped to a chair that took him down the stairs. Outside he was transferred to a gurney that took him into the ambulance, and off to the hospital, under weak protests.

Tessa and Chicha slept through the entire episode. Chicha would have gone bonkers with all those dark clad and buzz-cut young men rushing around. Not to speak of all the glass splinters. “Good we cleaned the dog poop from the lawn,” said Axel, as they wheeled Charlie away. Not entirely. In the consternation I did step into one that had been overlooked. Lucikly the gurney stayed clear of them and entered the hospital poopfree.

The anti malaria pills I am taking leave a terrible metallic taste in my mouth. I thought at first that the taste came from the whipped cream I have been eating in the evening after I discovered that it is really good with the amaretto chocolate (in powder form) that Axel brought back from Costa Rica. But then I realized it is of course the malarone. [or ‘macaroni’ as my spell checkers suggests]. One more day and I should be out of malaria danger. I am glad I don’t have to keep taking the pills for months on end, which I did when I travelled to West Africa a lot.

So far not a word from Ghana so I am remaining in that space of suspense – will they, will they not accept my proposal? When you communicate per email with high level officials in Africa (who have nearly all yahoo mailboxes) it is hard to gauge whether they got your mail or the mailbox is full. I once asked a senior official in Senegal why they use private mailboxes as official email addresses and the response was that they can’t rely on the government regularly paying its bills to an internet provider. There is no indignation or any sense that this is unacceptable and they don’t seem to think of themselves as part of this disembodied ‘government thing.’

In the meantime I am sucked up at work in our annual ritual of work planning. I participate because I have to but I have little energy or enthusiasm for it as the activities I am associated with in the plan don’t usually match what I end up doing. The plan does provide an illusion of control over our agenda and some coherence to the activities of a cast of thousands. It also tells our accountants how much it would cost if we did what we say we would. And, most importantly, we have to provide our client (the US government) with this plan; part of a chain of requirements that goes all the way up to the higher echelons in the US government. It’s our ‘government thing.’

But since I am not an accountant, and many of my assignments come out of the blue anyways, for me the work planning benefit is not obvious. In fact, sometimes the few things that were planned long in advance end up being postponed or cancelled altogether. I have never in my career at MSH consulted the plan to answer the question, “what should I be doing next?’

Right now ‘next’ is a trip to Kabul, in a few weeks – potentially closely followed by a trip to Ethiopia, but that will reveal itself later.