Sylvia's Journal

Although it is nearly bedtime, I can’t quite end the day without writing. I started up my computer and stared at the MS desktop background (‘bliss’) and suddenly had this intense urge to get into a small Piper plane, with my buddy Bill, and fly over Vermont. It’s probably because ‘Bliss’ is Vermont. Memories came flooding in about flying over the green mountains. I realized how much I have missed flying. One day…(sigh).

This morning we discussed our project’s extension budget at our funder’s home. I used to think I didn’t understand a thing about budgets, reinforced by my colleagues’ low opinion about my financial skills and insights. I wish they could have seen and heard me talk about millions of dollars of pharmaceuticals and other direct costs as if I was the finance director – well, sort of. Of course I am not, and W. who flew in from HQ, was a great help in explaining things that none of the rest of us could. We are all public health folks, doctors, educators, psychologists…not your typical financial types. We need one more meeting about the budget –I think, I hope, and then we can get on with the work.

W. is a finance professional from Texas. She has worked several years in Afghanistan and Iraq with big contractors, the kind that ‘burn’ a million dollars a day (that takes us about one month, with pharmaceuticals included). She is full of stories that made her leave Afghanistan. They illustrate the dark side of US development work here. I think we, in health, have been spared the really bad stuff that make you want to scream ‘no more dollars, no more lives!” The stories are amazing, juicy, entertaining. They made W. cynical and leave. I have to ration them or else I would want to pack up too.

In the evening we joined P and M in one of the restaurants where expats hang out who cannot have a meal without a beer or a glass of wine. There aren’t many of those left in town. The food is overpriced but the company was excellent. Both M and P are leaving, tomorrow and the day after and so this was our goodbye. We agreed to meet again in Lobster Cove for a mussels and lobster meal. I can just picture us, right by the lilacs and irisses.