Sylvia's Journal

We flew, or rather I flew, with Bill handling the communications and alerting me to unintentional losses or gains in altitude, around the Quabbin Reservoir. Bill had taken us out to the west, to Northampton but we never quite made it there because circling the reservoir was more fun.

We were about half a day ahead of the first winter blizzard. We flew in the direction that the weather was going to come from so we’d see it in case it would move faster than expected. By the time we landed at Beverly the winds had picked up and fall had ended.

When we returned from a dinner party in Jamaica Plain the blizzard had arrived in full force. The drive home was long and arduous. In the west where Sita lives a foot of snow had already arrived. If you don’t have to go anywhere winter blizzards are wonderful.

With full day meetings to facilitate and annual report revisions at night I am one busy bee who is taking only short breaks for food. The launch of the project is going well. Even if at times it is a bit uncomfortable because of the ambiguity that goes with any start up but with this project even more than I am used to. The guidance to not work at country level but at regional level makes it even more difficult to conceptualize what results can be expected.

The purpose of this five year effort is to guide major actors in health in Africa towards promising but unused or underutilized approaches to reduce preventable mortality and morbidity – from everything, everywhere in Africa and to have that done by Africans themselves.

The necessity of focus creates both comfort and discomfort and the newness of the team adds to the soup. I am seeing all the usual turbulences that go with such a challenge. I don’t think I have ever seen this (mandated and quick turnaround) planning process generating the fun, creativity and cohesion that people want it to be or think it should be. I think it could be but not under the time constraints we are working under.

People use the words excitement and innovation all the time but I sense they are often pushed aside by more immediate considerations about how one is seen and whether one’s selection for the job was warranted – at start ups I am sure these thoughts flash through people’s minds all the time: “will I be liked, seen as competent and effective?” This is Will Schutz stuff by the way, not my invention, but powerfully explanatory.

I have not once turned on the TV or gone to the pool or exercise center. I am told they are nice. Only twice did I manage to follow a 30 minute AM yoga teacher on a DVD I brought. That routine from Kabul is very hard to recreate here. My days aren’t as predictable and circumscribed as they were there.

The big celebration event of MSH being 40 years – of which I witnessed 25 – took place on Wednesday night and I am very sorry I missed it. Axel went and represented me and got to see all my favorite MSHers, old, new, retired and gone elsewhere.

Last night I missed another event, Sita’s 31st birthday which was celebrated with friends, dad, pizza and bowling. I got to hear the happy voices in the background and was, once more, sad I missed that too.

This is indeed a taste of what’s to come – missing a lot of events with people I like to be with. The urge/search for another overseas position has not gone away, in fact it is getting stronger as work is piling up on the horizon – work that makes for a heavy ecological footprint.

I am back in my element – doing what I like to do most: helping people have productive conversations together. I am helping a new project get off on a good start. It is fascinating; I am learning a lot and am awed by the deep experience that is in the team brought together for this project. It is also great to see the team from our donor, the folks who selected us, asking the project team to have fun – imagine that, the thought even! How far away Kabul seems once again.

I am seeing lots of colleagues who I haven’t seen for two years or more, some dear friends. We are sitting in a glass-walled room right across from the glass-walled entrance so I see everyone come in in the morning and I wave discretely to my friends or dash out for a quick hug.

Now most people know about my plight and everyone indicates there will be work. This makes me complacent and tempted to stop looking for a new job. It’s seductive to stay; it is easy and comfortable. But there are no firm offers yet, just ideas and assurances that something will come. I wonder when and keep looking.

Back in the home office my new office is taken away again – I am moved to a room without windows but I am told I can’t be picky. It would make me want to come to the office less. I need to see the sky. But I understand that the less you come in the less attractive your office – the nice spaces with windows, I am told, are for 5-day workers – the fact that I am a 25 year worker doesn’t seem to carry much weight. We are a very flat organization in that respect.

My friends from Holland are being entertained at home by Axel who wants to take them places but they just want to be at our house and relax. I would too after having rowed 3 miles in the Head of the Charles. Resting at Lobster Cove seems just the right things to do. I am sad I am missing out on the fun but grateful that I have work this week. C’est la vie!

Everything and everybody was converging in on us over the last few days: visitors from far away (Afghanistan and Holland), the Head of the Charles with a Dutch team to cheer on, preparations for the trip to DC and Japan which now all have to happen in between all the other stuff. I could so have used all these activities two weeks ago when I was twiddling my thumbs. Multi-tasking, although apparently not the good thing it used to be now comes in handy.

In the morning we picked up my colleague from Afghanistan and walked most of the race course of the Head of the Charles, from MSH where we parked out car, all the way to the finish, chatting about Afghanistan, America and everything in between. We didn’t meet up, as we had planned, with our Dutch friends as the wives were following their men in their Masters 50+ eight on bikes – there was no way we could keep up with their pace (boat or bike).

We did learn later that they came in 31st in their class and were not happy with their performance. When we saw them going underneath the Western Ave bridge they looked pretty good – but that was only 1 mile into the race.

Having lost contacts with our friends because of exhausted cell phone batteries we returned home and were just on our way when Tessa called that she was on her way into town to deposit a slightly invalid Steve at work. While he tried to work (and on Tessa’s insistence negotiated with his boss to return home) we took Tessa out for lunch. We had to step over a dead rat into the restaurant – it would give one pause but we were too hungry. The meal was fine.

On our way home I bought a new cell phone that is wifi enabled and thus works at home where T-Mobile’s signals don’t reach us. Now I don’t have to keep the landline tied up during long distance work related calls. A phone with internet is of course also a new toy which makes me want to sit in waiting rooms for long times so I can figure out how to use it.

When we finally came home the day was nearly over and the light was already fading when Ted from SOLA showed up. There was just enough light to show him around our estate and have him marvel at the cove and the ocean. Driven inside by the cold Axel lit a fire, and cooked our meal over it, consisting of foodstuffs that he cannot have in Kabul. We caught up on news of SOLA students here and there and finally said our goodbyes. Ted is soon returning to Kabul.

When it rains it pours. Not only on the Charles River were eights and fours and singles were clocking time against stiff winds and whitecap waves durng their final rehearsals for the Head of the Charles.

At work the pouring is also happening. Suddenly I found myself engulfed in work requests, all coming to me at the same time and all interesting and more in line with my skill set than the work I did in Kabul.

The timing is a bit off as my friends from Holland are coming to stay with us after having rowed in the Head of the Charles. When they settle in here at Lobster Cove, I will have to fly to Washington.

I spent hours reading up on health system reforms in Albania so that a colleague and I can propose creative ways to tackle persistent leadership challenges. Everyone who has been a consultant on that project has written a voluminous report. I spent a good part of the day plowing through them all so that I can ask intelligent questions not answered in them.

Another colleague who has had many bumpy landings after returning from a field project told me that each time she is in despair about finding work and starting to look around something comes through, making her postpone her search. Something to look forward to? Avoid? Accept?

Axel is of course worried that he won’t see much of me now that travel is picking up – all of next week I will be in Washington and then soon after that in Japan. Axel wants to go overseas again so we can be together most of the time – as we were in Kabul. If only we can find a nice place without dust, violence, guns, barbed wire and with an interesting job.

One of my Afghan colleagues has arrived from Kabul for a two week visit after he finally got his visa that we had requested for a conference in May. We counseled him not to wear is mullah clothes upon entering the US. He did enter in jeans and jacket and was very warmly received, welcomed into the country by a very friendly US Border Control employee. A good first impression, something that makes us all happy.

When he showed up at MSH in his western garb we hardly recognized him. At lunch time I introduced him to the abundance of Whole Foods and the complexity of their recycling bins.

After work we took him out to one of Boston’s three Afghan restaurant, the one that is not putting more money in Mahmoud Karzai’s coffers. I attempted some Dari and Pashto on the owner but I have to delve deep into my hard disk to retrieve words that came so easily to me only a few months ago. I am letting my languages slide.

Why is it that things need to build up to a crisis before they can find resolution? I think it has to do with attention – only the most urgent matters tend to get attention – this is why we don’t fix a problem in our house until it causes greater damage. There is also the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

I have been a little more squeaky lately, was much too quiet until now. I work in a large and complex organization and most people have no time to pay attention to something/someone that is not making a noise. My urgency has become a few other people’s urgency. I am a little more hopeful now.

I drove down to Duxbury to attend Razia’s fundraiser, a community affair that gives one hope in the goodness of others. Razia had gotten straight off the plane from Kabul and was busy providing way too much food, as she tends to do, for the number of people present.

To avoid the rush hour I had come early and was mobilized to cut the melons into small pieces – not anything like Afghanistan’s melons but at least a hint at something utterly Afghan.

Some 60 people showed up to hear her speak, watch yet another inspiring video of her school and then two of us in the audience spoke about her school which we had seen in action. It was an intensely affirming and inspiring event and I am glad I made my third attempt to go there successfully.

It is a bit of a long drive home after a 14 hour day but worth it. I shortened the ride by eating chocolate and listening to a tale of the Bin Ladens told by his first wife and fourth son – a somewhat irritating but interesting peek into the private life of this century’s most reviled person. It reminds me of a quote from Nietzsche in Also Sprach Zarathustra, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

I sent out some more emails to various places where MSH works or where some of my colleagues find themselves, South Africa, France, Nigeria and Washington, among others, to see what work there might be for me. I am no longer crossing my fingers as that isn’t working all that well. I am now casting my net far and wide.

The contract for my one week in Japan has been signed. Now I can use an entire day – such a luxury – on designing the two day workshop. I can also get my ticket before the price gets over what we budgeted. One could say things are lightening up but I don’t think the roller coaster ride is over yet.

Before dinner we went to the point hoping that the stripers would be chasing the bait fish into the cove – this happens nearly every year during the fall but we never know exactly when. Axel is checking the movements of the seagulls and other sea birds closely – they do tend to give us a heads up that something is afoot, or rather, a-fin.

Axel casted out a few times with no luck. I kept him company while trying to soak up the last rays of the increasingly weak sun. The walk toward the rocks is tricky for me these days – I think it is the fear of falling, a new sensation that I recognize from people much older than myself – Axel is more agile although I did wonder what would happen if a big fish would bite. I think he would topple right over into the water. Luckily no such fish were around. Fishing is mostly about trying, and while doing that enjoying being out in nature, I think. That works for me, with no fish on the line.

After the unproductive but relaxing fishing expedition Axel cooked a wonderful meal: scallops (bought, not caught) in a butter-Pernod sauce, not a weightwatchers recipe exactly, accompanied by a thyme risotto and Indonesian pickled veggies. I was responsible for the Swedish apple custard dessert – a fusion meal that was quite appropriate for the season but rather mismatched in its appearance.

If Saturday we missed the Charles Olson lecture because Axel had not really looked carefully at the invitation and got the address wrong, today it was me. We drove all the way to Duxbury, some 65 miles south to find no action at the Senior Center where Razia jan was supposed to have a fundraising for her girls school in Kabul.

I thought I would learn the lesson from Saturday and got the address from the flyer and then googlemapped it. We left with the directions in hand but not the invitation. I got the date wrong. So we drove all 65 miles back. If this is just a taste of getting older we better start some new routines: from now on all invitations will be printed out and studied by both of us. Maddening!

We have still not been able to get the lobster traps out – the sea remains too choppy and the wind was still gusting up from the southwest, away from land. If there had been any lobsters in the traps, remaining two weeks in close quarters with each other is not something lobsters do well – they eat each other. So if there had been two in any one of the traps there will now be one only – a bit bigger I suppose than before it entered the trap. We are anxious to find out. 

I went flying again, as a passenger; me in the right seat and Bill on the left. We had planned to fly to Katama airport on Martha’s Vineyard. But the strong southwesterly winds reduced our airspeed to about 60 knots forcing us to shorten our trip and turn around at Bedford.

It was a very bumpy ride; our little plane was tossed around like a leaf in the storm and constantly blown off course. Bill handed over the controls a few times to me and it took all my concentration to just hold speed and altitude. How did I manage all that plus the radio and navigation instruments I wondered? I was suddenly in awe of my accomplishments before. It seemed daunting to re-learn my flying skills.

Back on the ground we finally deposited six fishing crates full of Sita’s and Tessa’s old sketchbooks, Waring homework, old guidebooks, Gourmet magazines, our own life drawing practice pads at the Manchester recycling center.

In the afternoon we had planned to go to a lecture about the poet Charles Olson but we got the address wrong and ended up at the Fisherman’s Brew pub, sitting on a terrace overlooking the harbor and drinking our ales – once again Kabul was very far away.

In the evening we celebrated Mary Anne’s 80th birthday. We met at yoga class some five years ago. We became friends with this extraordinary artist – several of her pieces have found a place in our house. We share a common Dutch ancestry and a love for Indonesian food – a preferred potluck contribution.

We brought chicken satay with peanut sauce and atjar, a pickled vegetable salad, to the festivities. Our present for the birthday girl was one of the smoothest beach stones we could find with a Charles Olson poem written on it and wrapped in a lobster bait bag – a fitting present for a Cape Ann artist we thought.