Sylvia's Journal

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!