Sylvia's Journal

Yesterday and this morning I dragged myself out of bed, sleep-drunk. It looks like the short wedding-party-night of yesterday will haunt me longer than I thought. I think I am going to decline school-night weddings in the future. Axel and I concluded this morning that this reaction has something to do with increasing age. I used to be able to function fine after a short night. It seems those days are gone.

Nevertheless I did my early morning 30 minute exercise routine which had me walking a distance of only 4.4 km rather than the usual 5.2 to 5.5.
All day there were meetings here in the compound. I hardly had time to breathe – with only a brief lunch break. Towards the end of the day we had our weekly call with the students in Boston who are learning about the Millennium Development Goals and leadership at Boston University. The class has a website where we can see pictures of the students in class and where we can follow their conversations with the faculty, all colleagues of mine. I used to be on the other side, teaching.

We are working with a team of four students (three Americans and one Pakistani) on an enormous leadership challenge here: how to create champions within ministry structures (outside health) that can advocate for using religious leaders to advocate for family planning. Everyone is looking for clarity about the challenge – it takes many patient Skype and phone calls to sort things out between us. It is hard to find clarity in an ambiguous assignment, but it is also good leadership practice.

Today is Bastille Day which, for us, is also crash day: it was exactly 3 years ago today that 4337P crashed near Gardner airport, and Axel, Joan and I miraculously escaped death. Axel and I celebrated the survival and recovery of the three of us when we were in Kabul last year, at the Sufi restaurant. We are going to celebrate there again tonight and, as long as we are here in Kabul, will make it an annual ritual.