Sylvia's Journal

While Sandy has passing through the Eastern seaboard, cyclone Nimal was blasting South East India and whipping up the Bay of Bengal . Cyclones are named after women only. No one, according to one of my Bangla colleagues, has questioned the logic of associating the devastating power of cyclones with women. I learned that cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes are all the same phenomena, distinguished only by their location. As a result of Nimal it is still raining here and clogging up the drains and streets.

The official opening of our event unfolded without a hitch – everything and everyone was where it/he was supposed to be and we completed the opening ceremony 10 minutes before the break. The rest of the day followed suit. Here, when you invite 100 people you get 50, more or less. This is what my local colleagues predicted and it was exactly what happened.

The afternoon session was in Bangla, conducted by one of our local consultants, who learned towards the end of her turn that a relative had died – we sent her home and others took over. We have an amazing team, aligned and ready. It was very exciting to see people take my design and run with it in a language I don’t understand. From the energy in the room I could tell that we were getting the intended result.

The visit of the Prime Minister to another meeting in the giant conference center put her security forces in charge, overriding the authority of the conference center management. After we had refused to change our 3^rd day to Friday we were told that everyone had to be inside the center at 8 AM. Whoever would not be there would have to wait till 12:30.  We had no choice other than cancelling the entire third morning and squeezing everything into tomorrow afternoon; another leap of faith.

I met up with my friend T from a competing organization, who happened to be in Dhaka but since she doesn’t do facebook we only just found out that we were in the same place. We managed to squeeze in a dinner, catching up from a last visit, years ago.

And now I am sitting in front of the TV biting my nails. It is late and I have to go to bed and hope that when I wake up Obama will still be in the saddle. The American community here is meeting very early in the morning at a hotel to watch the final results.