Sylvia's Journal

The New York Times published a series of articles with a focus on women. The articles were sent to me also by email by various friends and colleagues and posted on facebook.

The conclusion was so obvious and earth shattering (no, wrong metaphor) – namely that when poor women are given the chance to lift themselves up, they tend to lift everyone else up around them, including their abusive husbands. When people say that ‘a tide lifts all boats’ I now realize that this is not about economic progress but about the influence of the moon (feminine) and its tides (feminine).

 I was particularly struck by research findings about crops produced by men and women, not sure where it was, India may be. When the men’s crops did well (and these crops were things not necessarily good for humanity, like tobacco) the earned money was used for sex, drugs and alcohol; when the women did well (crops to feed themselves and others) the money went to education, food and clothes. Even if it is an oversimplification and generalization, everything I have seen in my career confirms this. Education of men and women changes the dynamics significantly.

All the articles were right in line with Bryan Sykes’ findings as described in ‘Adam’s curse,’ as well as the description that Sarah Chayes gives about the behavior of men the last 20 or so years in Afghanistan, especially in and around Kandahar, and especially the non-educated men.  Can we take this curse another 100 or 200 thousand years, as Sykes predicts the lifespan of the Y chromosome? Women do keep up half the sky; they also counteract unbridled and uneducated testosterone.

In the meantime, things continue to move along in Ghana. Diane arrived, as intended, on the KLM flight, in good spirits and rested. We ran into our colleagues Issakha and Aboubakry, both from Senegal, who are here setting up a new regional project that MSH won. Issakha will be the project director based in Accra and Aboubakry, who I last worked with 7 years ago, will be the technical lead based in Dakar. We had dinner together and had a good time.

At 10 PM I tumbled into bed and fell into a bottomless sleep, making up for a missed night.