Sylvia's Journal

I have been making 18 hour days since I arrived in Windhoek, leaving little time to write but tonight I was done at a more reasonable hour.

I am finding myself once again in the company of people who know the language of experiential learning but only as a concept. It is a delicate process to create opportunities to show when my so-called co-facilitators are highly credentialed people, as lecturers that is. It feels arrogant but I have to create these spaces for demonstrating what I am talking about because that is the only way to bring about a change.

Yesterday we started the crash course in applying adult education principles to teaching about leadership with people used to imparting knowledge. It was a halting start. There is pressure to produce a workshop that stands out from all the others AND to make sure there is ownership, all this in only a few days with people coming from such different background. So yesterday was the first tentative dance step – today a bit more and tomorrow is the last day before we are on stage so to speak, on Monday.

Last night my colleague Don and I had dinner at S. house and I finally saw baby A. S and I met at least 7 years ago, sitting next to each other on the plane to Lesotho and discovering we knew the same South African man: a friend of mine from previous work in South Africa, and her fiancée. Since then he has been staying at our house in Kabul, consulting to MSH while I never made it to Windhoek. And just when I finally made it, he is once again consulting in Kabul – such bad luck.

S’s company and ours work with the same ministry here and although it was a social visit, we did talk shop, mostly to make sure we complement rather than compete with each other. The dinner was lovely but took a big bite out of the evening, keeping me working till after midnight and up before 7 AM.

Today we met with the ministry that is sending 40 people to the national public administration learning institution where we and one of their staff will hold a one week workshop about leadership for decentralization. The meeting was to get the green light on the design and create some excitement. Without even having gone through the exercise a request for a repeat workshop is already on the table – followed by a request to prolong my stay here.

The rest of the day we worked with our counterparts through the program, a mini version of what we do next week. People are getting on board though not necessarily ready to lead sessions. We will play that by ear. My colleague A from Pretoria is joining us on Saturday, brining an extra pair of experienced hands.

We had lunch with the participants of another leadership and management program that is put on by a French group and part of the certificate program. They work like us with round tables and flipcharts on the wall.

I noticed the iPad near the plate of the participants. I asked him if he was the owner. Yes, he said, but he was still mastering it. He told us that he had to choose between a cow and an iPad, they are about the same value, and that he had chosen the iPad. This is a significant shift away from traditional practices. This then led to a heated conversation about paying for things in cash on or credit, about ‘those’ teenagers and such – not that different from conversations around lunch tables in other parts of the world I bet, except of course for the cow/iPad part.