Sylvia's Journal

I am now waking up with the sun; finally. It was along winter. I was glad to have a day of working at home yesterday; to organize myself, finish unpacking, and putting things away.

At breakfast I read to Axel to children’s book about the discovery of coffee that I bought in Addis (Kaldi and the dancing goats). Reading it aloud to someone else made me realize that it is an odd children’s book with several, unintended no doubt, messages to children like: when you see animals act funny after eating bright red berries, try them yourselves. Or, there are berries that you can pop in your mouth and they alter your mood. Tell your dad and he will agree; and then you can sell the stuff to others and get rich!

We followed Kaldi’s advice and ground the Yirga Chaffe beans for breakfast. The coffee was as good as adverised and everyone drunk too much, whch made us, just like the dancing goats, all energized and hopping around the entire morning. I was very productive as a result.

Tessa called us a few times from the road and is now back in the US although she did not make it home. She and Val decided to try their luck at the Herkimer mines where a particular kind of diamond is found. It is actually not a diamond but a particular kind of quartz which was discovered by quarrymen in the late 1700s. Val sells these at her store in Rockport. They shine and sparkle, hence the name.

The girls planned to sleep in the car, kept warm by their two dogs, since they had not prepared for an overnight. I hope the dogs bodies did the trick because I slept under a puff last night. It is still cold in Manchester and I imagine the nights to be quite cold in Upstate New York.

Sita came back from a trip to the bookstore with several books about Egypt. She is having a hard time deciding where to go after the work is done to see something of the country. The books did not help as they only expanded the range of choices. The heat in Upper Egypt may drive her to Alexandria rather than Aswan and Luxor. She is leaving today.

We are back home after a quick and pleasant flight back to the US. The blooms that we saw in Holland when we arrived two weeks ago are now visible here; we got a double spring.

Axel went to the head doctor, a long overdue visit, at Spaulding Rehabilitation hospital (the official rehab site of the Red Sox it proudly advertises). As it turned out Axel did have some damage on his frontal lobe. The doctor explained that for normal people the neural paths in the frontal lobe are like a 12-lane highway. Axel has about half that number closed off for traffic right now. This explains much. In a perverted kind of way Axel sounded relieved on the phone, after his visit. The problems he has had organizing himself and his forgetfulness aren’t because of old age or something that he could do anything about. The doctor explained that the frontal lobe is like the brain’s control tower. Axel could fly just fine but the control tower was only operating at half its capacity; thus the flow of traffic was not all that well organized with just a few too many glitches.

The problems were indeed caused by the crash which had resulted in a ‘contrecoup;’ the impact had pushed his brain hard against the front of the skull. That was the bad news. The good news is that the damage can be undone through a variety of therapies that will help to recreate the damaged neural pathways. This includes speech therapy and occupational therapy to help with his slightly damaged organizational capacities. We both hope that he will come out of this better than the pre-crash original, with bright newly asphalted neural highways!

Tessa is on her way back from Canada, driving in convoy with her best friend Val who went there to pry her out of her depression (and appeared successful). Tessa needed a little R&R from her friendless existence in London in the parental home. We are looking forward to having her here. We believe that the many gardening chores that come with spring time are just what the doctor prescribed.

And just when Tessa arrives Sita is leaving the homestead again for a trip to Egypt for a piece of work that resulted from her, apparently, excellent performance in Davos, earlier this year. We warned her that it will be hot (we heard from Joan and Morsi that it was 140 degrees Fahrenheit in Aswan where they were a couple of weeks ago).

Last night was full of dreams again. But when I woke up, just minutes before the alarm went off, the dreams popped like soap bubbles. I tried grasping at them for awhile but my mind could not retrieve the images; all I could register were some vague feelings that, much like the film of soap that remains after the bubble pops, have little to do with the shape and colors of the real thing.

Last night I went to bed after a long non stop workday that started at about 5 in the morning and finished at 9:30 at night. It is the mixed blessing of those virtual events. I used to say what a wonderful invention it was because you could be a facilitator in your pijamas. It is great to do if there is nothing else going on and the image of me sitting in my pijamas gives it an aura of leisure. But now, with a full plate during the day, getting ready to leave for a trip, the virtual events end up being relegated to the evening, while our participants in Africa, Asia and the Middle East are asleep and I can prepare the ‘classroom’ for the next day without anyone looking in. Both events have three days to go and then I will go myself, taking a break from this extreme multi-tasking. The trip allows for a few days of rest in Holland and then the focus shifts to Ethiopia.

After work I drove to Beverly, had dinner in the parking lot of the supermarket and had my hair cut by Bonny. I was reminded of the haircuts she gave Axel and me, a few months after the crash, while we were sitting outside looking out over the cove. I am sure that the hair snipped off then is now serving as bedding for baby birds, squirrels or chipmunks with animal mothers vowing never to do without this new luxury.

When I came home I found Axel busy with his (and Sita’s) beer project, now in its final stage of bottling. It is a lot of work, as is the whole process. But judging from his mood I could tell that he enjoyed it and is looking forward to the first tasting.

The countdown to my next departure has started and with it the long list of things to be completed. This includes two sets of virtual facilitation responsibilities, one of which is shared with two other people and thus requires phonecalls, drafts and approvals. Another is teaching a class at Harvard’s School of Public Health which was cooked up when I met Marc in Dar es Salaam, two months ago. April the 24th seemed far away in the future then but now, with only two days to go, this proposal requires some serious attention.

It is Earth day today and I learned to my great dismay that I am a very bad person in the book of conservers. I lead a wasteful life (commuting by car and plane and being a private pilot for fun) that produces about 54 tons of carbon dioxide and very little to offset it. In my dreams last night I was rowing, using my own energy to propel myself, but it did not count for much in the Earth Day Carbon Footprint calculator.

I did try out my new Alden shell yesterday. I wore Axel’s olive green wellies so that I did not have to get my feet wet before stepping into the boat. Compared to the dory or the kayaks this new boat is fast: it takes me about 10 seconds to cross the cove at mid-tide. The real rowing will have to happen out on the bay. A flat sea is preferable over the usually choppy waters so I may need to wait until after this trip. In the meantime Axel insists on re-doing the woodwork (seat, oars, footrest) with real marine-grade varnish, brightwork, so that the boat looks presentable again. He is also making a case for waxing the fiberglass with something that keeps it from deteriorating in the sunlight. Of course all these chemicals will probably cancel out whatever ecological benefit this boat will bring to this household.

We ended Boston’s Marathon day with a dinner at Edith’s to celebrate the marathon victors. Edith has run the marathon some ten years ago and knows, deep in her cells, what such a last minute sprint means that brought Ethiopia’s fastest woman runner first to the finish line. I celebrated the Kenyan and Ehtiopian victories by sending congratulatory emails to my Ethiopian and Kenyan friends, one a namesake of the men’s race winner. I marvel at how one part of Africa can so dominate long distance running. But nothing beats the Japanese in the over 70 category. Imagine that, running after 70, after flying halfway around the world. It must be the noodle diet.

It is nice when you have an illustrator in the family because the notes you find in the morning on the counter are so much fun. Sita returned from a week in New York, finished off with a weekend in Northampton while we were on the Cape.

Yesterday morning was another glorious day in North Truro. We went for a walk along the beach in Wellfleet, Atlantic side, where a 19th century shipwreck had washed up on the shore in a January storm. It was our first serious walk on a sandy beach since July. Before then we had taken such walks for granted but now we realize they are hard on the body; sturdy shoes helped and we kept the walk short, much too short as far as Abby was concerned. We also wanted to be back before a memorial service, set up on top of the dune, would start so we did not have to walk across the aisle in the middle of the service. On the beach below several shrines were set up for the fallen friend. We could tell from the items in the shrine that he was a surfer, a pirate, liked roses and used lipbalm. By the time we had climbed back onto the dune the parking lot had flled up with a large crowd of mourners.

We went to the Lighthouse café in Wellfleet to have a second, more substantive breakfast and then parted ways. On the long way home Axel finally succumbed to the allergy medication, taken as a preventive measure for dealing with seasonal and animal-induced allergies. He drifted in and out of sleep while I kept myself awake listening to Cervantes’ storytelling about chivalry and damsels in distress, some 400 years ago in Spain (we women have come a long way!). In the background was the loud and rythmic humming of the wind streaming by the boat on our carroof.

Although I would have loved to put the boat into the water, the low tide and choppy ocean conspired against me. I also have to solve the issue of how to get into the boat without getting my feet wet as we have no nice dock like the rowing club has. And the water is still very cold

I prepared dinner while on the phone with Ankie from Brussels, catching up on the things not written in my blog. We will be seeing each other soon and often, as distances do not seem to matter much these days. We will meet at a reunion of my maternal grandmother’s family on Saturday in a place in Holland that is full of childhood memories.