Sylvia's Journal

I started the day once again with my door and window wide open to let the fumes out of my small office but now it is really a bit too cold for this. The housekeeper put another rag soaked in salt water around the vent and the boss suggested packing mud around the edges. We are involved in a scientific experiment, changing one variable at a time. Now the rusty pipe is replaced by a brand new pipe and if that doesn’t change things we are going to exchange the whole thing with another stove, from someone who doesn’t mind.

In the middle of my weekly team meeting we heard a loud bang that rattled the windows. We stopped for a moment and wondered when the sms would come through telling us not to go across town and then we resumed our meeting as if nothing had happened. It was much like last night’s rocket attack on the Serena hotel that most people seem to shrug off as yet another example of a poor shot.

As it turned out it was the diesel stove in the office next to mine that had exploded, presumably because the secretary had turned it up too high and this flooded the chamber with fuel. Between the fumes and the chance of explosion, I hardly dared to go into my office again.

I joined my colleague Ali for a visit with the highest ranking female in the ministry, a deputy minister, to talk about a study visit to Egypt next February and who should come along from her staff. We were a little early and used the time to shake some hands (allowed again after the early panic about H1N1) and check in on our colleagues.

We found one shivering in front of an electric heater while the cold came streaming in through the thin single-glazed windows loosely set in their wood frames. A bunch of thin wood strapping, with a lovely geometric design burned onto each piece, were waiting in a corner for the plastic sheets that might not come in time for this winter. I am learning quickly that going to the ministry means putting on layers of warm clothes, scarves and jackets, and, soon enough, gloves. My stove troubles are in a way a luxury: I have a diesel stove with fuel supplied automatically.

Our meeting with the deputy minister was short and sweet. I took advantage of her undivided attention to query her about her experience of being in a leadership position amidst all those men and what advice she would give to women wanting to follow in her footsteps. To my surprise she mentioned: learn to speak English fluently, as you need it at this high a level, and learn to use a computer effectively; transparency and commitment came next.

The transparency theme continued into the afternoon when we visited a team of consultants from the European Commission who are trying to sanitize and rationalize the governments’ approach to grading and paying civil servants, a yeoman’s job full of landmines and traps. At the end I understood why the senior consultant’s hair was white. He has been here for five years helping to reform something that is currently incompatible with the kind of government that Barack and Hillary are insisting on. At the end I ask one of the consultants what she was doing for fun. One more year, was her response. Hats off to these brave souls.