Sylvia's Journal

After a last breakfast together with the future president of Cameroon I had the most fabulous massage by Pabo, the same woman who did the stone massage last week. She took all the knots out of my upper back and shoulders and kneaded large amounts of palm oil into my skin which made a sucking sound. We white folks are dry-skinned people and get extra oil with our massage.

Eneye and Sirgut picked me up at the spa for a traditional lunch and coffee ceremony which wasn’t as ceremonial as it usually is because of the rain. To me it was a dreary day but to them it was a feast of water. They can never get enough of it.

Over this last injeera meal (for me at least) they talked about the Business Process Re-engineering that they as employees of a government training institution helped to advance in Ethiopia. Although they both believe it is a good organizational intervention, it has gone off the rails here and there because the alignment of people and technology has not been considered; instead the implementers have benchmarked the west and followed its examples without giving much thought to the different level of development of Ethiopian society.

The government has initiated a laudable effort to be more stringent about driver’s licenses. A testing process has been introduced at the same time that old licenses were declared invalid. Everyone has to be tested on a simulator. The problem is Ethiopia has no simulators, not even practice ones for the people who have to implement the new policy. These machines are too expensive for the country.

The other neglected element is that these same people who cannot practice on a simulator are also losing their ability to bribe people (for about 70 dollars a license), so they are not very cooperative; others have been laid off making place for machines that aren’t there, reinforcing the popular understanding of BPR as a downsizing measure, which it became in the USA. The upshot of all of this is that Eneye needs to be chauffeured by her brothers while waiting at least another month if not more for her new license; so much for streamlining processes.

Back at the hotel I stuffed everything back into my two suitcases for the next part of the trip while watching Obama speak to the Ghanaian parliament. He continues to inspire me in the way he directly says the things that need to be said in Africa (you’d think he is Dutch). The assembled crowd in the large parliament hall represented both the diversity of Ghana and the two worlds that co-exist side by side: modern and ancestral. Traditional leaders with one naked shoulder and Kente cloth wrapped around their torso sat side by side with suited gentlemen and dignitaries from the Muslim north in their starched boubous.

I wondered who the big-bellied men and women in the audience were thinking of when Obama talked about leaders who are out to enrich themselves. I suspect there were a few of those in the room. Still, everyone clapped enthusiastically when Obama pronounced himself in favor of good governance.

I had my last macchiato at the airport and now have to wean myself, cold turkey, from these small cups of foam-topped coffee that taste like melted coffee ice cream; I am on my way to Nescafe territory.

Emirates airways is one of my favorite airlines, partially because they often upgrade me for no reason at all (I have not special status as frequent flyer). And so they did again which made the 4 hour trip to Dubai a breeze. In Dubai all the forces of the universe pushed me in record time ouf of the airport, into the sauna like climate of this desert-by-the-sea emirate, towards the hotel where I reunited with my honey, after an absence of two and a half weeks. These reunions usually happen at home, so this one is extra special. It is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives.