Sylvia's Journal

All morning we listened to our program managers presenting their accomplishments, the reasons for non accomplishment of activities, risks and challenges they foresee for our last project year and how we plan to deal with those. These presentations are collectively referred to as ‘the DAR,’ or the During-Action-Review. I am not sure where the term comes from. Whoever came up with the idea had some foresight about how different teams can come together and reflect on what we did the last 3 months.

Exactly one year ago I attended my first DAR; today was my fifth. The improvements in both the quality of the presentations and the thinking behind it was quite remarkable. From the powerpoints and notes taken during the discussions we will produce the annual report of the last year – a deliverable but also an opportunity for stock taking.

Our house guest Vince has left and Ankie has moved in. Over dinner Axel reported on the activities in house 33 during the day: one of our administrative staff has been assigned to check on dust in the houses. She showed up and checked the tops of doors and windowsills with a Kleenex.

Someone must have alerted our staff because the Kleenex remained clean and everyone rejoiced. Spotless window sills is no mean accomplishment here.
Now that Axel is home more he discovers the use of household chemicals.

We discovered (from purchase requests) that our household staff uses 6 cans of Russian insecticide spray per month. The cook sprays the kitchen more than is good for us as well as unnecessary (there are few bugs in this high and dry climate). The instructions on the can are indecipherable (Russian and very small English print), besides, the cook cannot read English (or Russian for that matter). Axel explained that the spray does not only kill the bugs that are portrayed in small circles with an X drawn through them but is also bad for humans. Ankie proposed to take a picture of the cook himself and paste it below the bugs with an X through it as well.

We wonder if all our coughing and sputtering when we sit in our living room in the evening has something to do with this abuse of chemicals.