Sylvia's Journal

The Africa I first visited, some 32 years ago, is different now in ways no one could have imagined. Of the 40 people or so in the room today, all are computer savvy, several have iPads or Samsung tablets, notebooks; many have two cellphones of which one a smart phone.

Wireless availability in the conference room requires my utmost effort to compete with the distractions of the entire world that can enter at any time through electronic portholes.

Many things didn’t quite go as indicated on the agenda which we used to our advantage. We skipped ahead to sessions planned for tomorrow. One speaker didn’t show up and another was shorter and more engaging than we had expected.

Although we haven’t quite gotten the partners that we wanted in the room, the ones who did show up are 200% engaged and fully supportive of what the Kenyan government is trying to do – the creation of an institute to ensure that, in the future, anyone graduating from medical school, or seeking a refresher course, will know how to manage a health facility or service – thus avoiding at least some of the costly mistakes and most of the painfully acquired lessons about good management.

Less than 10 years ago we did much of that preaching but now we are preaching to the choir. There is much energy for the task at hand, even right after lunch and deep into the afternoon. We got all the work done before it was time to leave, and more.

With a medical engineer, principal of one of the technical schools, I retraced the 5 km jogging trail around the golf course. With company the track seemed shorter but we walked one hour nevertheless. The monkeys had moved to another place. We spotted them grooming each other on the far end of the gold course, small moving black dots on pristine greens. The ants had completed their crossing and I didn’t see them again.

For dinner I avoided the formal and empty dining room downstairs. Instead I had a pizza, beer and lemon grass ice cream by the pool. I sat at the bar, the only place with enough light to read from my portable library on my Kindle-equipped smart phone. I am halfway through The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, a historical page turner novel about my (our) next destination, Nagasaki.