Sylvia's Journal

On Monday I shifted from attention from my colleague and her team whose work targets the highest levels of government to my colleagues in the bilateral project that focuses its attention at the base of the health pyramid. I received a briefing about how things are done and what needed to be improved.

In the afternoon I had to excuse myself for a courtesy visit to the highest health chief (below the minister), who turned out not to be there. The team I had coached the previous week was now meeting without me and busy preparing their coaching visits and the next workshop in the leadership development program. They invited me to wait for the next official in line who was happy to receive us. While waiting to be called in his office I observed my team in action and noticed good energy – something promising had been set in motion during the previous week.

Done with our various meetings we all went out to a fish restaurant, with me and my colleague K who is in charge of managing relationships, money and deliverables of our Madagascar work. We were treated as the guests of honor.  I had just learned about the size of the servings at this place. They are so large that with the 8 of us we only needed to order for two dishes: enormous plates with all sorts of fish and roasted vegetables. We drank Malagasy wine produced by a Chinese company and toasted on leadership in the health sector. And then we talked about what was going on in the world with Trump and Orlando on the forefront. When we landed on the topic of homosexuality we cut the conversation short as we could tell our colleagues were baffled by same sex marriages. I told them most Americans were too, not all that long ago, and clearly some still are. After that we returned to safer topics.

A new appointment had been made for my courtesy visit for the end of the workday on Tuesday – this meant another trip into town (not so bad), and worse, back out of town which was very, very bad because of roads blocked off for the 10 day long independence day celebrations which strangles all movement by car. Leaving at 4PM, I returned back to my side of town at 8PM to meet up with the woman who used to oversee a project I worked on decades ago, out of her USAID Washington office, but now an independent contractor. We tripped down memory lane over lychee martinis and Chinese food.

It is rare that I play the tourist during my travelling weekends but today I did with two colleagues. We visited two sites that sell Malgache handicrafts: semi-precious stones worked in a variety of ways, including jewelry and the ubiquitous solitaire sets, raffia turned into bags, sacks, animals, place-mats and whatnots, raw silk scarves, embroidered children’s clothes, table cloths, vanilla, spices, natural soaps and a variety of objects made out of woods or tin cans (coca cola, Heineken, etc). These include tiny 2Chevaux, R4-Ls and R4-camionettes, my first car. I got myself a scarf as it is still winter here, some soaps, wild pepper and a few dresses for babygirls.

The 10 day period to celebrate independence started earlier this week and roads have been blocked off which has made the already terrible traffic jams even more insufferable. We met up at Chocolatier Robert, the famous Malgache chocolate maker, from where we went on foot and joined ever growing crowds. Tiny ferris wheels and merry go rounds were set up for the small ones and there was singing and dancing and eating.  I was told that later in the day and night there will be more drinking and consumption of forbidden substances and that it is better to stay far away. I had now intent to join that crowd.

It is funny that we are constantly warned about being in crowds (because of the pickpockets) and here we were with our local colleague in a big crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see. So we clutched our bags tightly under our arms and walked on. Taxis refused to take us because we’d be standing still most of the time.

We left the crowd to enter the quiet haven of the beautiful old train station – a weird experience because in my book train stations are where the crowds are. But not here, as there are no more passenger trains (I was told, though Tripadvisor told me differently). The small boutiques that have moved into the beautifully restored building sell for prices no ordinary Malgache can afford, luxury items made from the same raw materials as in the handicraft markets, but a few steps up (and no haggling).

We talked about the challenges we face in our work of leadership development, here and elsewhere, over coffee in a lovely adjacent restaurant that had the air of being the old station waiting room; the toilets were an attraction all by themselves, as one has to enter a very old train car parked on the platform in the back; a train car that dates from the 1800s.

We have nearly come to the end of our intense week of getting the team ready to conduct the second phase of this somewhat rushed leadership development program; rushed because we have just started the series of workshops and the project ends in a few months.

After our Monday meeting at the MSH office we met the next few days at the Institut National de la Sante Publique et Communautaire (INSPC), an model of elegant French colonial architecture that housed the faculty of medicine during colonial times. It is still used to teach the next generation of public health professionals.

I had selected a hotel in the center of Antananarivo (Tana) to be closer to where our counterparts live and work. But it turned out to be a bad decision. As the crow flies, my hotel and INSPC are very close but every night it would take me a full hour to make the trip back to my hotel, probably less than a couple of kilometers, if that. Walking would have taken 20 minutes (there are shortcuts, steep stone stairs straight up the hills), but my colleagues wouldn’t hear of it – too risky, too many pickpockets. They wouldn’t even let me take a taxi, to save our drivers the slow ride into the city. Everyone is very protective of me.

Antananarivo is built on hills, with narrow streets snaking up and down these hills, most one way. Traffic jams are a fact of life and everyone complains about it (for decades already) but nothing seemed to have changed for the better since I was first here more than 20 years ago. Since then more people and more cars have arrived on the scene, some two-way streets have been made one way and the standstills continue.

Rush hour is continuous with peaks at the start and end of the workday. Today was market day and the traffic gets worse, which I didn’t think was possible. In 10 days it will be the national holiday and whole streets have already been blocked off and podiums installed for various ‘manifestations.’ Things are impossible, but here people shrug it off. They are used to this. I suppose one has no choice.

The cooks must have arrived (though apparently not our Board Chairman and his wife). When this Ibis could have been any Ibis anywhere in the world since I arrived, tonight it is Ibis in India. Furniture has been brought in, incense stick holders, inlaid wood products, posters and of course the music which was already with us. And then there are the women in sarees, a tombola (to win a trip to Incredible India! or a saree or an incense burner is not clear – put your business card here – a mailing list builder!).

I am sure the Palak Paneer has arrived but there was no a la carte. One would have to order room service for a la carte, this menu that always features a Palak Paneer that is never there. Tonight, no doubt, it will be in one of the many copper pots set out for the buffet, but you’d have to buy the whole buffet (50.000 Ariary for Indian Buffet -which is only 15 USD by the way).  I think I will forego my Palak as I already ate at the foodcourt 5 creole bouchons with pork and soy sauce. Bouchons is one of those very versatile words which can refer to anything that plugs: a cork, a top, a stopper or a traffic jam. They use that word a lot here (bouchon) but mostly to refer top traffic jams which are a fact of life.

Many notables were on hand to taste the ‘délices gustatives de l’Inde’ – and with them their security details; suddenly this mid-range hotel was surrounded by SUVs and armed guards. I slipped out to get some fresh mangos – it’s that season now – for my desert. I learned to ask for the export mangoes which are less fibrous and creamier. They sell (at least to a foreigner) for 30 cents apiece.

Another treat here is the rum. I was familiar with the Haitian rum which visitors cart away in suitcases. But here, on the recommendation to add a thimble of rum to one’s grog, tea, medicine, I bought a half a liter of the smoothest rum ever for 1 USD. It’s become a very nice after work treat – really the only alcohol I am drinking. It’s medicinal, I am told, so it’s good for me.

For days now the Ibis Hotel in Tana has been telling us that Incredible India! is coming to the hotel for a week long of Indian culinary delights for lunch and dinner. Cooks are being flown in with the complements of the Indian Embassy. In addition, huge curved screens (compliments of Samsung)  are set up all over the already very noisy restaurant to get the full benefit of Incredible India! coming to our doorstep.

The restaurant already has the acoustics of an indoor swimming pool. Add to that some mindless guests who put their mobile phones on speaker so everyone can hear their phone partner(s) on the other side of the line. On the days I was really sick I couldn’t stand it, being already in a highly irritable state.  But there’s more: I hate restaurants with large in-your-face TV screens flickering with sports and news, inescapable, no matter where you sit.  The new Samsung screens are curved and also large so that we can all enjoy Incredible India! to the hilt this week. Now, in addition to French sports and news there are Indian skits playing in the east, Bollywood dancing in the west and some other loud thumping Indian (what? why are these thinly-clad and anorexic ladies so European looking?) art style going on in the south of the restaurant, which is, by the way, not very large. It is a cacophony of impressions – something they also claim our palates will get once the food appears. One could get an epileptic fit from this.

Tonight, because of my massage, I arrived later than usual to an already crowded dining room. I had decided that I was going to have palak paneer, something that is on the usual menu but never available. I thought they couldn’t possibly tell me they didn’t have palak paneer on this first night of the India week. I expected a new menu with all my favorite Indian dishes. But no, I was told the start of the India week has been postponed.

I wondered whether that was because the cooks were booked on Air Malagasy (a company notorious for arbitrarily changing not only its departure time but also date, sometimes by days, and not just for domestic flights). Our Board Chairman and his wife had booked themselves, unbeknownst to people who would have counseled them otherwise, on an Air Malagasy wide body from Paris. They should have arrived on Friday or Saturday but are still not here. Maybe they are twiddling their thumbs with the Indian cooks at CDG airport.

I have been taking my medicines faithfully but the progress is slow. I skyped with Axel the other night, that is, he talked and I wrote since I was not able to talk yet. It was better than no contact at all, but awkward as our words and questions where always out of alignment.

On Saturday I decided to join our (MSH) Board that is on a visit to Madagascar and South Africa – it is a coincidence that their itinerary overlaps for a good deal with mine, both here and in South Africa — in fact we are travelling there together on Wednesday. Since I am (at least structurally) a-midlevel-on-the-periphery-MSH-employee, I never have unfettered access to the Board, so this was interesting. I accepted the invitation to join a couple of Board members and one old time colleague for dinner even though I was still in whisper mode. The fact that it was a small group (only four of us in total) was compelling, as whispering is easier that way.

We went to a small Alsatian restaurant that served raclette, imagine that, in the hard of Tana: cornichons, small potatoes, thinly sliced zebu and other charcuterie and raclette cheese melting on a stand in the middle of the table, and all this accompanied by a nice Chilean wine. One of our Board members is from Chile and we complemented her on her country’s great wines. Other than some rum in my daily grog, I haven’t had any alcohol, so the glass of wine was a real treat; in fact the whole evening was a nice treat, and we didn’t talk all that much about MSH.

I was invited to join another party of Board members (they split into smaller groups for activities and meals when going out) on Sunday, today, to see the Lemurs in a nearby park and then the Kings Palace, a UNESCO heritage site. Although I wasn’t quite fully recovered I decided I needed a break from being in my small hotel room and working all the time. So I went.

As it turned out I was the only French speaker in the group and could make myself useful to serve as an interpreter as well; I was able to talk, still croaking, but beyond the whisper stage. Still I have these occasional throat tickles that turn into major coughing spasms that take about 10 minutes to pass – leaving everyone worried and concerned. The attention makes it worse of course, there is nothing one can do other than letting the spasms recede. This was my third major coughing fit, the first in the middle of my in-briefing at USAID, the second in the office and now this one in the car. I am so done with this coughing.

On the way home I had myself dropped off at my hotel and was able to secure a massage slot right away. That was a nice ending of the day – although it is not quite over. That’s the next post.