Sylvia's Journal

We have completed the three days of work with 9 NGOs that our project is working with. It is part of a longer process that should arrive at 6 strong NGOs towards the end of the project. Although it may not seem so, it is a big undertaking because each NGO is a complex organism where cultural, intellectual, social-political-economic, financial and leadership personality dynamics come into play.  Just telling them ‘improve this or that!’’ may not make much of a difference.

We are addressing some of these complex challenges with technical assistance, training in a variety of subjects, coaching and competition for grants. I am observing the various groups and can already see which ones have the engagement that will make them more likely to come out of this process victorious, and those that will not. Right now I am only observing the leaders (executive directors and chairmen of the boards) and know little about the rest of the organization.

Yesterday afternoon they discussed resilience – looking at children, families, communities and organizations. Based on their observations they created a local theory of resilience that contains the following elements: spirituality, social milieu, personal characteristics and open-mindedness. When I look at those and compare the groups in the room, I can already see resilience.

We also talked a lot about vision and explored their own personal ones and created one out of clay for the support network they are in the process of creating. I got to read my favorite quote about vision which I have translated in French, that tells people to hitch themselves to something big and important and start because they will find that Providence will walk with them (a combination of Murray and von Goethe).

I can sleep in tomorrow although I probably wake up at 5:30 as I do every day, no matter where in the world I am. I have a quiet day – some design work and a work day that ends at 2 PM. I am not expected in the office until 9:30 AM. This means I can relax now and can go to bed before 9 PM.

I am getting better and am nearly again my old pre-flight  self. I am sending little whiffs of seawater mixed with copper up my nostrils three times a day. It is wonder medicine. I think I should bring it on all my trips in the future. The cough medicine and ear drops are not bad either – it’s a good package and I am tempted to ask the doctor to prescribe me another set for my travel kit.

We completed the first day of a three day event to help the NGOs we support here with questions of basic management, leadership and governance. I am working with a dynamite team and actually have little to do – they are carrying the bulk of the work and do it masterfully. The follow up of this event is in good hands with them.

I taught the team (I teach every team but some ignore this) about filling a program with several pockets of unprogrammed time, hidden to the eye of the participant. It allows us to be unfazed by people trickling in late and starting nearly an hour late, or lunch taking 50% more time that what we had anticipated, or people expecting the program to end half an hour earlier than we had planned. All this, one might think, means people are not getting their money’s worth (or the taxpayer his/her money’s worth) – but really what it means is that we don’t have to rush, we can be patient, we can go into side roads that seem pertinent and people don’t feel like we are stuffing them with information and theories that they cannot connect to their daily lives, while we are constantly looking at our wrists. Good time management is what they expect from us. We honor that commitment in seemingly magical ways – but really it’s no magic. We simply program only 75% of the officially available time.

We explored what leading and managing really look like in daily life, what good governance requires, having the knowledge that is in the room circulate freely, from the highest levels to the lowest levels, Some NGOs are more sophisticated than others. We have physicians, accountants, engineers, professional managers, administrators, educators and musicians in the room – for once not a lot of medical folks – this is rare in my work. The diversity of professional experiences adds richness to the conversations. I like it. There is also little hierarchy in the room as most are executive directors or Board chairs – I like this too – everyone seems to feel at ease speaking out, except one woman who lost her voice – so she whispers in my ear and I amplify her voice. I feel for her because I nearly got to that place if it wasn’t for the doctor and her medicine.

I am expanding my French vocabulary: I had a “Flamiche” for lunch, which is a leek tart – French is so much more elegant than English. The description of wines on the French menu also contains several new words that roll off the tongue like, well uh, good wine. The hotel caters to an English clientele but I must have passed the test as I am given the French menu now. The restaurant is lovely and looks out over the marechages (also sounds better than marshes, non?) and the human and bird lives that they sustain. I still don’t know what the people, half submerged, do all day, but one thing is sure, they toil.

My work is no toil and my light schedule (this weekend and today) help me to recover from whatever I picked up in the plane. I am feeling much better though the gurgling sounds in my lungs are a little upsetting, even though they sound innocuous, like a baby’s little noises.  I took an afternoon nap and keep drinking warm water with lime and local honey. I should be good enough for action tomorrow morning and for the next 3 days.

I was joined by my other co-trainer this morning at the project office and we reviewed the program and divided roles. We first met 16 years ago when he worked with our project here. He has set up his own training institute which has done well in all these years, making a name for his firm and contributing to ‘andragogie’ being known and practiced all around. Madagascar is the only place where I don’t have to explain anything that relates to adult education. They know – and it all seems to be part of the legacy of that distant MSH project called APPROPOP that ended in 1998. We talked about this and what made such a legacy possible and concluded that an enormous investment in training and education and full integration of project staff and counterparts was responsible for the change of mindset and outlook that is still noticeable today, nearly two decades later.

I had hoped to reconnect with a few remarkable Malgaches I got to know well when I came here periodically and was sad to hear that one was dead, two retired (one of them in France) and one had left the country after having been jailed for being in the wrong party. So there won’t be as much reconnecting. On the other hand, I am meeting plenty of new interesting people, new colleagues and even a friend of our ‘across-Lobster Cove’ neighbors who I hope to see next weekend when I should be past my contagious state.

On Friday I wrestled with my sore throat but otherwise felt OK, able to do some work at the office in the morning and be productive in the afternoon.

As I drove through town I was surprised to see that the standard taxis are Renault 4Ls and Deux-Chevaux – all cream-colored and most seeming in good to excellent condition. The Renault 4L was my first car – it is one step up from the Deux-Chevaux in terms of simplicity – a far cry from our newly leased Subaru Impreza.  My last Renault of that type was stolen in Senegal, just weeks before we shipped out. I waxed nostalgic seeing so many here.

During the night my sore throat developed into a terrible sinusitis which produced painful pressures on my teeth, my ears and my forehead. I woke up miserable on Saturday morning and resolved that this time I was not going to assume my problems would go away and repeat the Burkina experience. My colleagues mobilized a doctor who came to check me out in my hotel room and confirmed my self-diagnosis.  She wrote four prescriptions which I was able to fill immediately at the ‘Pharmacie du Roi’ in the adjacent shopping mall. The consultation and the prescriptions cost me the equivalent of 64 dollars, half for the doc and half for the pharmacy. I am now taking an antibiotic, something to drain my sinuses, something to reduce the inflammation of my ears and syrup to turn my raspy dry cough into a productive one.

On Sunday I felt much better already and continued to recuperate by taking a very long nap in the morning and in the afternoon. I was able to complete my homework for the weekend.  I am confident, after one more good sleep that I will be able to return to work and be fully present tomorrow when I will meet with my team and put the finishing touches on the design of our workshop with NGO executives.

I am glad there was the weekend to recover – unlike my previous trips where I had to go to work immediately. Still, it pisses me off that I have now had two consecutive bad experiences travelling in planes. Although I brought masks, and used one most of the time, something must have squeezed in during those periods that I had taken my mask off.  Maybe it is my inability to sleep that lowers my defenses; not being able to sleep is a problem when a trip takes 24 hours door to door. Maybe I should be interrupting my trips, cut them in two with a good night sleep in between in a capital somewhere in Europe.

The trip to Madagascar seemed endless: 7 hours to Paris and then nearly 11 hours to Tana. I slept a bit but mostly killed the time watching one movie after another, including such old ones as Barry Lyndon, with its beautiful musical score, the Birds, One flew over the cuckoo’s nest and a few newer ones that I have already forgotten (‘niemandalletjes’ we call those in Dutch).

This time I traveled with a facemask, the kind that would keep me from inhaling infected droplets from coughers and sneezers around me. There was such a gentleman, one row and three seats away from me. He was one of these people that, once starting to sneeze, couldn’t stop.  I felt for him because people cast him annoyed glances. I simply pressed my mask a little more tightly on my face. But these masks are not very comfortable and they fog up my glasses, so I didn’t keep it on all the time.

And now, after this interminable trip over the entire continent of Africa, I have arrived in Madagascar with a sore throat. So much for the mask, or was it the sneezing woman in front of me when I tried to follow the opaque and chaotic entry formalities at the airport. I didn’t keep my mask on; afraid I would be whisked away by the white coats that were everywhere. Madagascar is clearly prepared for the arrival of Ebola: everyone had to fill in a special health form indicating where we sat in the plane, whether we had had any fever recently, which countries we had visited, and where we would be staying. That way, I suppose, they can trace people if Ebola or SARS slipped in among us.

As we poured into the arrivals hall each person’s temperature was taken with a small gadget that looked like a gun. They pointed it at our temples, producing an instant reading.  I passed. The next stop was an examination of our health form and only then came the police formalities of visas and stamps – one has to clear the health hurdles before being admitted.  Madagascar is of course a little easier to defend as the borders are clear: ports or airports, none of this porous border business of West Africa.

I arrived at the hotel after midnight, tired beyond tired, and tumbled into a restless sleep.  The next morning I discovered where I was. The hotel is beautiful, with lots of tropical wood (floors, furniture, sculptures) and looks out over what are essentially marshes that have been transformed into a water front. It radiates peace and tranquility, attracting birds that sing lustily and hide in the marshes. For a while I watched people in the distance, partially immersed in water, cultivating something. Others were harvesting something from wild bushes on the dry ground. I had so many questions which still remain unanswered.

I visited the MSH office briefly, got my marching orders for the weekend and inspected the room where we will have a workshop next week. I think Madagascar is the only place where I have held a workshop in a functioning restaurant. It is not without challenges. We will be in a restaurant again next week. The hotel manager didn’t seem fazed to move bulky furniture and hang up curtains to shield us from the restaurant’s clientele. I am a little more relaxed about such things than I was in the past. Que sera, sera!

Back at the hotel at took care of such basics as a simcard, money, water, honey and limes. I will give my throat the same treatment as in Burkina. Hopefully this time it will not evolve into laryngitis, bronchitis and pneumonia. I was very rested before I undertook the trip and my immune system should be stronger than last time. Fingers crossed.