Sylvia's Journal

Saturday is for rest, in principle; as is Sunday. But this Sunday is for travelling back to Manchester by the Sea and yesterday was for finishing the work of this trip and the last day of work of nearly 23 years of work at MSH headquarters. It hasn’t quite hit me, but it is momentous.

I completed our report as far as I could get and in the late afternoon we met to complete the missing pieces. In between we played with friends. Jacqui was one of them. I met her in Rajindrapur last Decemer at the BRAC conference and we clicked, as they say. She is from the UK and her husband is from Denmark. His job here has earned them a CD license plate. I am not sure it helps them much in traffic jams but maybe it helps in other ways.

Jacqui was the chief of party of one of the USAID projects that has just ended and did not win the follow on project, against all expectations. This means that Jacqui is free now and available on the labor market. This is good for MSH.

Jacqui was one of the lucky people who got to chat with the Obamas during their visit here in Ghana. Laterwe met with Barbara who also shook hands with our president and his wife. Everyone agreed that the Obamas visit was spectacular and special in addition to being a lot of work and, traffic wise, a pain in the neck. Barbara told us there was a baby (Theresa) sitting on the lap of her parents near the family planning station, who was picked up by the president (presidents do this sort of thing) and that this baby is now referred to as the Obama baby. Maybe the parents should consider a name change (Obamia? Or simply Michelle?)

After a lukewarm Nescafe capucchino-wanna-be, Jacqui took us to a shop to get one of the many designs of cloth with Obama’s photo in large ovals. She also took us to a small shack-like store of a long-term resident Swedish seamstress whose unusual designs told us something about her unusual mind. We had not expected to go shopping and so the prices exceeded what was in our purse.

At the end of the morning Jacqui left us to return to her family and we pursued our (re)discovery of Accra. I found the Lebanese silversmith I had first visited with a colleague some 8 years ago. We spent a lot of time in the store that is like a living room with thousands of lovely and not so lovely pieces of silver jewelry, hiding in a regular house off the main shopping street. I practiced my rusty Lebanese and bought a few pieces to be gifted away. Lunch was across the street, Lebanese of course.

And now it is time to zip up the suitcase, pay my bill and say goodbye to Diane and Ghana, for a while.