Sylvia's Journal

I tried to replicate something that I had been enchanted with in Madagascar where a large group of people was randomly divided in smaller groups and each assigned a dance. The Malgaches are very playful. The idea, when transferred here, didn’t take quite as well. Our European facilitators weren’t all that hot about being silly in front of others,

My Senegal co-facilitator and I had left the session and taken two moto taxis to go to the market where he skillfully negotiated the purchase of 7 baseball caps for my team that was assigned to showcase hip hop. The caps had logos of random businesses and sports teams in US and England.

I had no Europeans on my team which was probably a good thing. The West africans were more playful and willing to be silly. One woman of high societal and hierarchical status, and always dressed in fine boubous and head dresses, took to the idea. She studied some You-Tube videos on hip hop and figured the main movements of arms and legs and the sounds one makes in the process. With the baseball cap sideways on top of her headdress she was quite a sight. We practiced to together whenever we heard music that we thought was hip hop, giggling like school girls.

The talent show, to be done during our soiree sociale on Thursday niight didn’t work out as planned. The restaurant was essentially a streetside cafe. There was no stage or room to perform. Two giant TV screens ran music videos, showing scenes that I would classify as soft or medium porn. I sat next to sister Annnemarie from Central Africa. She didn’t seem to mind. I couldn’t stand watching the videos and traded places, preferring to look at a bare wall rather than the screens.

But when the hip hop music came on (or what we thought was hip hop), Madame and I put our basecall caps sideways and started to dance. There are now videos floating around Africa with the two of us dancing hip hop (or so we think).

Although the food was lousy, the company was good and many of us had a good time.

I have been getting up early every morning, and have been able to take advantage of a fast internet. It disappears around 6 AM and remains slow from then on. Everyone in the hotel is on the internet at night, so I go to bed early.

The workshop is going very well. My colleagues from Yale are working on the planning process – something I struggled with in Addis when there were just two of us. With our two colleagues from Yale I can breathe, as they take care of it and the one who teaches the sessions is French, so no worry about language. My colleague from MSH, also a native French speaker, does the sessions related to governance, which allows me to focus on what I love most and that give people insight into the dynamics of their team and what they are contributing to that themselves. The teams were rather rickety when they came in. Now I see some movement.

Around 6:30 each morning breakfast is ready in the large “hut’ by the pool. When you are there early you get to enjoy the sight of about 30 muscled men in their 20s lined up along or inside the pool. Their bodies look elastic and silky. Out of the water they move like gazelles, but inside they don’t move much at all. At first I thought I had chanced upon the national swimming team. Our hotel might well be the only Olympic size pool in town. But then I watched them in the water and the action was rather confusing; a lot of splashing and bobbing but not much else. And then, as suddenly as they appear they disappear into the changing rooms, from which they emerge in their shorts and shiny soccer shirts, running in unison. The only thing missing is the music, Chariots of Fire kind of music. The women from Madagascar are also early and we stand there, looking at the men the way men usually look at women in bathing suits. They even take pictures!