Sylvia's Journal

We made big progress yesterday with several of the things that have been a big headache the last month. The most elderly of our cars, a 13 years old Subaru with 250.000 miles, was certified for another year. It proudly displays its 2010 window sticker.  We had not expected this. It will help with the selling before we go.

Axel completed painting the living room and, after 8 months of camping out, we started to move things back to where they used to be. Normalcy is what I want, I told Axel. I am anxious to move stuff out of my office which has more the look of a storage place than an office.

We made a fire in the new fire place. It was both a test (no smoke came out of unexpected places) and a dream come true – this is what we had in mind when we ordered the new fireplace a year ago. It’s been a lesson in patience. The work is not done yet around the fireplace but that is, at this point, minor change. It was lovely sitting in front of the fire and then being able to simply close the fireplace doors and go to bed. In the past we had to carry smoldering logs through the house and throw them out in the yard and then extinguish the fire by spraying it with a fine mist of water.

And finally, I received my official terms of assignment, my new TOA as it is called in our jargon. The work in Kabul, even from a distance, is ramping up. Because of Ramadan, phone meetings are now late at night rather than early in the morning. My first meeting with my colleague Steve and my boss started at 11 PM and lasted till after midnight. It is good they could not see me yawning as I am still on Ghana time.

The meeting generated many tasks in addition to much learning. It’s tricky to manage 3 teams from 8.5 time zones away but we are all trying. The big complicating factor, especially for work at the central ministry level, is that the dust has not settled from the elections, and may not settle for awhile. This means that we don’t know whether we will be working with the old and familiar cast of characters or an entirely new crew. Still, we have to submit a comprehensive work plan to our funder, the US government, before the end of the month.  Work planning has never been my strength and as an underling my work planning experience at headquarters was not something I relished. But now I am overseeing three large teams and I have to encourage those who find it similarly draining to soldier on.

I like working at home, in charge of my own schedule, and being around Axel.  Best of all, Lobster Cove is beautiful these days. The early fall/late summer days are of the 10+ variety: clear blue skies, perfect temperatures and brilliant colors all around. Although I am anxious to move to Kabul and be with my colleagues, I am acutely aware of this most gorgeous environment I have to leave behind.