Sylvia's Journal

My last few days in Kinshasa flew by – being a single facilitator of a process that usually takes two, kept me busy and on my toes. My colleagues stayed with the process till the end and produced their learning plan – an accomplishment that surprised them. Once again I am amazed how little of the facilitation techniques and methods that I use to get people to talk in groups about things that are important to them, gets out to the various corners of the world, whether Mongolia or the DRC.

In the closing session people indicated that they will incorporate some of the things they experienced and learned in their own sessions with people out in the health zones. I wish I could be a fly on the wall.

After Mongolia where I could not understand the language, nor read its (essentially Cyrillic) script it was wonderful and easy to be able to both read, understand and communicate with my colleagues without the interposition of an interpreter. But being alone I did not probe and question enough, I realized, as I was putting together the various sections of the plan they produced. Some entries now puzzle me. I suspect there will be several rounds of review and revision. The Afghanistan plan, after all, took about 6 months to finalize.

My exit from DRC showed me some of the chaos and ‘pagaille’ that I had been spared living in a luxury hotel and being driven to and from the office each day. The travel agent hired to get us in and out of the country, the one who didn’t show up on time when I arrived, took me through all the phases of the exit process, which was a good thing as little is obvious for a newbie like me. One can be denied boarding at the very last moment, when one is already checked out of the country by the Congolese officials, if proof of a particular tax cannot be produced. Luckily all my papers were in order and I got my seat in a jumbo that was filled to capacity with families, crying babies, missionaries, and God knows who else.

I had a short wait in Paris, enough for a shower, a more substantive breakfast than the one given on the plane and time to review a consultant’s report from Nigeria. That too showed that we have a long way to go from telling people what to do to having them draw on their own wisdom and wishes. They do this when we are not around but then we come in. We shake our heads about everything that is not up to our standards. And then we tell them what to do.

The last leg, although long, was easy with a coveted economy comfort seat and an open middle seat and a series of good movies. Watching three movies in a row makes a 7 hour flight easy.