Sylvia's Journal

Despite the presence of electricity I was off to a slow start on Wednesday morning, the start of our first leadership workshop. Slow as in ex-cru-ci-a-ting-ly slow internet connection, not able to post my daily blog (Axel did from faraway Manchester) and participants trickling in to the workshop at the pace of snails. I am slow myself in adapting to the slowness of everything but I am getting there. I am adjusting to the non-responsiveness of the surly hotel staff and the absence of the most rudimentary standards for a hotel. I am resigning to the reality of a life without internet access. Maybe this is simply a downshifting of gears for my new life in Kabul.

A third member of the Centre for African Leadership Development (CALD) joined us last night. The only one we are missing is Abigael but she has a three-month old baby and cannot be away overnight. We expect her to play her part in the Oromia Region leadership program that was postponed and will hopefully happen later this month.

Ethiopia has now entered July, the beginning of the new fiscal year. People are available again. Pierre-Marie found government officials celebrating this transition in his hotel with a party. They were expending the last monies of the year before theses were returned to the treasury.

I have installed myself in the back of the large conference room, not planning to play much of a role other then counsel and feedback. I am finding myself less involved than I was in previous launches of our program. Partially because I am moving out of this business and partially because I have learned to trust that things will work out in the end, even if not entirely going to my (high) standards. The facilitators are learning a new dance – I gave them the steps and now they have to find their own rhythm.

The early exercises are very quiet; people appear subdued, even zombie-like. According to my new colleagues, who are all half Amhara, this is part of the ethnic character. The expectations exercise is usually full of platitudes, like I want to learn about leadership, but this one is different. In their very quiet way, the participants are telling us they expect to see results of their acquired leadership skills in the reduction of waiting times, the better use of resources, more people referred for counseling and tested so they can be treated. I have never heard this before and am pleasantly surprised.

At the copious break we are served dry cookies, cold (dry) French fries, (dry) cake, (dry) buns, (dry-looking) kebabs, (dry) donuts, and more (dry stuff). I go for the wet things and ask for tea. I sit with one gentleman from the regional level and one from the woreda (district) level. Both are very excited about their participation in this program, even though nothing in their faces shows it. Exactly after 15 minutes everyone gets up and walks back to the conference room. I guess this is how they show their excitement.

Over lunch everyone watches the Michael Jackson memorial show, the same we had to watch over dinner last night. Although he never came to Ethiopia Michael Jackson was a big star here as well; a real star in the sense of a celestial body, ungraspable, mysterious, bright and shiny, from an alien and faraway world. I am told Ethiopians feel indebted to Michael because he alerted the world to Ethiopia’s plight during a massive famine sometime in the 80s or 90s. And so they are mourning his passing with the rest of the world.

I am posting this during a brief internet window that opened hours before everything will be turned off again. This is an advance for tomorrow.

Before I went to bed last night I plugged in all my electronic equipment so they could start charging as soon as the electricity came on. At 4:30 AM everything sprung to light, literally. The cellphone, computer, ipod and Kindle began to fill up their empty battery bellies with juice – like little piglets sucking from their mother’s teats.

Yesterday morning we worked for about an hour dividing the sessions between the local facilitators and then decided it was time to play before 3 hard days of work. There are not that many tourist attractions here but the Blue Nile Falls is one we were told not to miss. Since the rains usually start in the afternoon we decided to go in the morning.

We squeezed the 6 of us in the rented SUV, just barely doable for the 45 minutes ride each way over an unpaved washboard-like road. I was thoroughly shaken by the time we came back to town. I was also exhausted from the hike up and down valleys, over the 400 year old Portuguese bridge and along a mountain path that led us to the plateau from where the water tumbled.

Electricity, when it is there, comes from a hydro-electric dam that catches the power of the Blue Nile. The engineers have created an alternative route through which they lead the water to and through the hydro dam. This reduces the enormous natural falls to a narrow trickle, still impressive but clearly no comparison to the real thing.

Apparently, the flow is routed back to its natural course every 24 hours or so which makes the falls quite spectacular. Our double bad luck was that the water was routed through the hydro station so we did not get to see the river falling down naturally while also not benefitting from the generated electricity that day.

My colleagues told me that the Ethiopian government blames the WorldBank for its power problems and the WorldBank blames the government for unacceptable equipment and designs and thus withholds funds. I am not sure this is the real story but whatever is happening, no one seems to take responsibility for the fact that half the time businesses like hotels, restaurants, copy shops and internet cafes have no power. Since it is not anyone’s fault, everyone has learned to live with this state of affairs. It makes you want to take certain people by their shoulders and shake them. What are they thinking? (or, what am I thinking?)

Along our hike we met a dozen small kids, all speaking perfect tourist English, selling their wares (decorated gourds and woven shawls) with the perseverance of encyclopedia salesmen. On the way up to the falls we promised ‘later.’ When we came back they reminded us of our promise and eventually accused us of being untrustworthy. We were indeed, shame on us, but what do I do with a decorated gourd and yet another shawl?

Because of the power outage there was no water in my room when I returned to the hotel. My request for a bucket of water was met with incredulity. Why? I finally convinced one eager young man to get me the bucket if only to please me. The absence of water and electricity every other day is considered entirely normal in this hotel. I am still counting the days: three more, of which two with electricity and water and one without.

Today we start our workshop in the conference room of the dirty hotel (but with generator). Life is full of surprises.