Water, Music, Lights

Some days make you wish you could go back to bed, get up again and start over. Some arejust better than others. Some are just perfect. They not be made better by anything…by more sunshine, by more blue skies, by more conversation, by more walking or talking or laughter or insight or awareness or laughter. That’s the kind of day I had here in Barcelona.

My flight arrived on schedule yesterday morning at 8:50, a short hop from Madrid. A short 45 minutes later, I was in the elevator on my way to my dear friend Connie’s rooftop apartment on Avenue Parallel. Only minutes later we were deep in conversation over cups of coffee and tea. The day was leisurely, ending with a walk to the Caixa Forum, a contemporary museum that is finance and run by one of Spain’s largest banks where we enjoyed a pastry and café before walking to the Montjuic where thousands gather on summer evenings to watch an hour-long water, light and music spectacle called the Magic Fountain of Montjuic.

The evening was as perfect as the day…no clouds, light breezes, 82 degrees, and thousands of Barceloneans strolling the plaza. Connie and I walked from Plaza Espanya, which is marked by two Venetian towers and is only a few blocks from her home all the way up Avinguda Maria Cristina to the Palau Nacional, the national palace, now home to MNAC, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. Created by Carles Buiga, the Magic Fountain’s first performance was in 1929 during the Great Universal Exhibition.

Promptly at 9 pm, the lights came on, the fountains roared to life and the music started. Let the “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” begin! I can only imagine that the fountain has an added benefit on a really hot evening, lightly misting and cooling everyone in its path. Pre-AC, it would have been a welcome relief on after a hot summer day. It’s impossible to experience this hour-long extravaganza and not ask oneself: How do they do that? How much water? How high are the highest plumes? So, a few stats: 134 pumps, 3,620 water jets, 2600 liters of water per second, 54 meters is the highest water jet.

Stats are one thing. Magic is another: the miracle of creativity that happens when a human imagination brings together light, sound, water and 134 pumps.

Iberia

My bags are packed. I’m ready to go. Well, almost…everything except my shower.

I’m leaving for Barcelona in a few hours. I’m joyfully anticipating seeing friends, walking the streets, drinking the coffee, eating the lovely tapas, enjoying the moderate temperatures, which are forecast to be in the 70s and low 80s. I also intend to practice voyeurism, which is one of the behaviors I had perfected over nearly 25 years of living in New York. Here in the Dakar suburbs, where everyone lives behind walls and no one walks anywhere, I’ve lost the knack for looking like I’m lost in my own daydreams when I am actually eavesdropping on the couple at the adjacent table or the couple that’s fighting in the Sheep’s Meadow where I sunbathe in New York or the family that’s having a major row about what fast food the kids are demanding.

Unlike the other trips that have taken me out of Senegal this summer—one to Amsterdam and one to Warsaw—this one has no purpose but pleasure. I intend to spend time reflecting on the past five months and thinking about my return to New York. I intend to walk and walk and walk. I intend to listen and talk, listen and talk because too many thoughts have been lodged in my head with no outlet. My feelings need to light and air…I think best and understand myself best when I think out loud.

My friends Connie, Alicia and Helle are great listeners and wonderful talkers. We’ve been friends since 1995, when I visited Barcelona on a cruise, and the girls led the nightclub tour of Sitges. I swooned over Connie—and with good reason! She’s absolutely lovely. Pedro Almodovar would cast her in a hot second. With Alicia and Helle, Connie owns Spain’s most respected LGBT bookstore. They have also built a thriving publishing company that has discovered many new LGBT Spanish writers and publishes the old English LGBT standards.

Here we are 15 years later…visits to Barcelona, visits to New York, letters for the first five years, then email, and now Skype calls. It’s been wonderful to experience the evolution of this friendship and I’m delighted that this retreat will be spent in the company of such smart, intuitive and insightful friends.

I also admit that I have mixed feelings this evening. I’m very aware that the next 10 days will pass quickly, and that the three weeks after that—the remaining time that I will share with Seal, Nathalie and Paul—will fly by. In some respects, I think this trip to Barcelona is practice for the last time I leave.

Day is done

I’m sitting on the terrace outside the second-floor office where I spend most of my time. The terrace is an ideal workplace for a sun lover. From early morning until about 1 pm, I sit in the shade, pick up a breeze and enjoy being outside.

Right now, at 7:30, the western sky is glowing. Cotton-candy clouds are giving the sky a wispy texture. The sunset is rosy, and along our street, the white stucco homes are turning pink. As the light fades and dusk begins, the doves are cooing and settling in for the evening. The bats are waking, stirring from their upside-down-ness. Soon their wings will unfold and they will launch themselves from the trees, commencing their nocturnal mosquito pursuit.

This is a particularly beautiful night. It’s warm enough to be outside in a camisole. The air is light, a welcome relief after yesterday when it was heavy with moisture, exacerbated by repeated thunderstorms and torrential downpours. The call to prayers just signaled the end to another day of fasting. Ba is assuredly enjoying his baguette and Nescafe, heavily laced with milk and sugar.

There’s no wind tonight. But sounds are carrying great distances. I can hear the surf, which is unusual when there is no wind. That means the tide is crashing in, and if it were not evening, the surfers would be playing in the waves. It’s a rocky beach, just like all the others that surround Dakar. It’s small, maybe the length of a football field. But it’s tended…cleaned regularly…free of the plastic bags that generally wash up on Africa's beaches.

This has been a busy week and I’m happy to sit quietly, enjoy the calm and appreciate all that we accomplished.

ROI

This post is about investing. It is not a rant about how the financial institutions got away with breaking the financial back of the working class. Nor is it a diatribe about the over-mortgaged middle and lower middle class that got rescued from the errors of their ways. Nor will I complain about how those of us who didn’t have credit card debt, didn’t have a high-risk mortgage or didn’t take positions on both sides of risky deal got no break from the federal government. No, that’s not what I’m thinking about.

I’m actually thinking about old-fashioned, long-term investment. The kind that financial advisors strongly advocate for…steady, consistent investment that produces a positive yield over time and hopefully provides supplementary income when it’s needed.

Capital is often spoken of as financial, human, intellectual and even social. Nowadays, it’s tossed around in corporations to describe the investment that employees make of themselves. Today,.it felt like all the capital we have invested had a tremendous return.

Over the past five months, it has often seemed as though the project was going nowhere. We were unable to move forward on construction because we had no title to the land. We were unable to raise money because we couldn’t demonstrate that we were making progress with the building…because we didn’t have a title and couldn’t start. We have been diligently and carefully building a website, which is ready to launch except that we are awaiting our certification from PayPal. We have had meeting after meeting but only a few of them produced tangible outcomes, usually in the form of yet another person that we need to meet. Every aspect of the project seems to have been blocked by something. Nonetheless, Nathalie and Paul and I pushed forward: meeting people, showing up, talking about the dream of a healthier Senegal. The obstacles have been many; the victories few. We have been very frustrated, and at times, I personally have wondered if my five-month investment has been worth it.

This week, after two weeks to think about the situation while Nathalie and Paul vacationed, we collectively put our heads together and decided to put the hospital facility aside and to refocus on our mission, which is to deliver healthcare. We don’t need a building in order to deliver healthcare. We need to be wherever the need is…where the people with diseases, injuries, pregnancies, newborns and chronic health issues are. In order to meet those needs, we need a vehicle, a doctor, a nurse and medical supplies.

So we’ve refocused on field operations, delivering care where care is needed in the rural area around Bargny. As we demonstrate our efficiency in this new model, we will win funders and friends who will help us build the hospital. But most important, we won’t let a building…or the lack of a building…stand in the way of our mission. The change of direction has made us giddy with excitement. We have a garage full of medical supplies, we have cash for hiring a physician and nurse, we have contacts that can help us procure a vehicle. And best of all, we have the blessing of the Ministry of Health! Today we met with the secretaire generale to the minister and got an endorsement, encouragement and direction about the next steps we need to take.

He complimented us for all the work we’ve already undertaken, noting specifically that we have met all the right people and produced all the right documents. He likes our plan, our thinking about mobile care and our determination. Our return on investment is growing.

Home Again

Monday was homecoming. After three weeks of vacation, Suzette came back to work. On Monday evening, Nathalie, Paul and Seal returned from their vacation in Switzerland. The household is intact again. [Sigh…]

Of course, there are changes. Seal is in that remarkable stage of “becoming” that brings daily development. I still have a slight edge in vocabulary but only because I can remember three-syllable French words and his expertise declines with two syllables. But he will attempt any and every word he hears. Yesterday, at my prompting, he yelled from the balcony: “Regardez-moi, Papa!” [Look at me, Papa!]

His newest character development is facial expression. At 22 months, he is developing a repertoire of expressions that have several effects: they are completely unpredictable and out of context to whatever is going on, so adults are surprised and delighted; when we laugh, he laughs and laughs and laughs; and then, he pulls another face.

The other big change occurs daily in his motor development. Admittedly, in Seal’s universe, “motor” could be a reference to all things “voiture,” which is French for automobile. He is all-boy in the vehicle department. He has many…cars, trucks, fire engines, trains, motorcycles and scooters…in all sizes from match box to “little boy sitting on” size. In this case, however, “motor” refers to his physical skills. He now swings a tennis racket like Pete Sampras, kicks a football like David Beckham, learned in 15 seconds how to open AND close the sliders when he wants to be on the other side, is only seconds from figuring out how to climb over the “child-proof” protective screen on the second floor terraces.

Suzette used her vacation to….get married!!! And it was her dear friend and coworker Aita (whose name I have been misspelling as Ieta), who told me…casual delivery while washing dishes. At first, I thought….hmmm….”I think Aita said something about getting married…did Suzette get married?…No…not possible.” A quick glance at Suzette, who was smiling like the Cheshire Cat, and I realized that it was true. She not only got married but she married the father of her four-year old daughter, which is almost storybook in this culture of blended families.

So, we’re all home…it’s nice to be together again.

Words Nourish

Until my opportunities for a great conversation were limited by the French/English language barrier here in Dakar, I’m not certain I really knew how delicious it is to roll and idea around in my head and find the words to express it and share it with another person. It’s not unlike my new appreciation for brewed coffee, which I had frankly taken for granted, foolishly believing that Starbucks is on every corner of the universe just because Starbucks is on every corner in New York.

We learn our lessons as we need to learn them. I now know—and you do too—that in some cultures, Nescafe is considered as good a morning brew as there is. In fact, when given the choice of freshly ground, brewed French Roast with half and half or Nescafe with powdered milk and three sugar cubes, there are multitudes who will pick Nescafe every time without a second thought.

That’s the way I thought about conversation. It happens. And for 58 years, it happened at my pleasure. I’ve just come from lunch and lots of conversation. Lunch was good, but the conversation was delicious! Free flowing, political, personal, about New York, about growing up in the Midwest (Rachel is from Atchison, Kansas, and Emily is from Blue Springs, Missouri), and of course, we talked about living abroad…the learning curve, the acceptance factor, the time it takes to adjust…it was wonderful…just close enough and warm enough and easy enough that I believed the loneliness I periodically experience here in Dakar is temporary.

We were introduced by our by our mutual friend Jim, who is working for the UN in Khartoum. They met at a US State Department social event. He graciously passed them along to me. I will leave Dakar soon, having shared Emily and Rachel with some other people I know here. This was the way of social networking before the internet introduced us to the idea of social media, which allows us to meet people without ever shaking their hands.

The internet version is fine but there’s no replacement for sharing lunch, sharing conversation, sharing a hug at the end of a leisurely meeting at a café on The Point, the western-most point of land in Africa.

The experience was deeply satisfying; in fact, it was better than a cup of fresh rich, cream-laced French Roast.

Five Times Daily

Building a mosque near Ground Zero was sure to be a battle. One has to wonder why the developers/ promoters/organizers didn’t think about that. They are, after all, financially successful and socially prominent, and in New York, neither of those achievements is accidental. In fact, the people who succeed in New York are those who understand the impact of the media and know how to play it.

So, how did this situation get out of hand?

I won’t pretend to have an answer. I am just watching how it has spun from a local PR issue into a maelstrom in which we now have Billy Graham’s somewhat successful eldest preacher kid reminding us that President Obama is a Muslim. Because the seed passes from father to son. Good lord...

I am fascinated by this story because there’s an element to it that no one has pursued…not the PR firm that is now involved, not the politicians, not the media, not the organizers. It’s not about right to practice one’s religion. It’s not about being associated with terrorism. It’s not about besmirching the memory of those who died on 9/11.

It’s about noise. Someone needs to ask the residents of the Lower Manhattan/Wall Street how they feel about a mosque broadcasting prayers five times a day starting at 5:30 a.m.

They really need to ask.

Why?

It’s really frustrating to want to have questions but to lack the vocabulary for the questions and the answers. This causes me to I’m thinking of my brother who went through a serious “why” stage when he was in 6^th or 7^th grade. I specifically remember the stage (but not the year) this because it was the summer our family vacation took us through Denver, where we picked up Aunt Doris, Mom’s youngest sister, and then we drove on to Wyoming. There we visited Dad’s oldest sister, Auntie Elma, and his cousin Dorothy and her family before we headed into Yellow National Park, returningto Kansas by way of the Black Hills in North Dakota.

By the end of the second day, the adults wanted to throttle my brother. He had two things to say that summer: “Why?” and “But…why?” Nonstop. At the end of two weeks, he was lucky we didn't leave him at Mount Rushmore where he did a spectacular disappearing act for most of an afternoon that left mom a nervous wreck and me secretly hoping that maybe he'd fallen off the trail and plunged...you know how siblings are.

Well, that’s the way I felt today…all day…I wanted to ask questions. But I don’t have the French vocabulary for it. If I had, here’s what they would have been:

Ba, why did you sleep until 8:30 this morning instead of staying up after your prayers at 5:30?

Didn’t you hear the prayers this morning at 5:30? Why?

Are you tired from Ramadan fasting?

There’s no bread for sale today. Why? Is it a Ramadan tradition?

How many imams say the prayers? Two? Three? Why?

Are the prayers in Arabic?

Ba, do you read the Qu’ran? In what language?

Why do you touch your forehead to the ground?

What do you think about when you’re hungry?

Ieta, this is the first day you are fasting. Why today?

Ieta, why is there no bread for sale? Is that why you're fasting?

Ieta, did you take a nap this afternoon for two hours because you are fasting?

Did you know I knew you were napping?

Ba, are you sure you don’t get headaches?

What are you going to have to eat when Ramadan is over?

Do you feel better about life because you’re fasting?

Do you want to have sex because you're not supposed to?

What day of Ramadan is this?

How many are left?

Will there be more days without baguettes? If so, when?

It’s good that I don’t have the vocabulary and they don’t have to answer. If it were otherwise, there would be compound headaches.

Language

I have a fantasy: One day, not tomorrow, and certainly not before I leave Senegal, I fantasize that I will have an intimate dialogue—intelligent, emotional, rapid-fire, intense, and logical— in French.

As I have attempted to absorb some language French language skills, starting in New York at the French Institute Alliance Francais (FIAF) and continuing here with everyday conversation at chez Cretin-Oliveira, I have arrived at deep respect for those anyone who masters another tongue.

My guess is that many of you know people who speak other languages or have studied them. (Didn’t we all have to take a language in high school and/or college?) My friend David, who grew up in Oklahoma but moved to Amsterdam after graduating from university, speaks German, Dutch, French, English and Spanish…I think that’s all. My friend Angelo speaks Italian, French, German and English (owns a translation service). All of my Dutch friends speak fabulous English because they studied it K-12. Even the structural engineer who is working with us on the hospital project is Senegalese but speaks fluent Chinese!

I’m thinking about this because last night I had the pleasure of meeting with my teacher from the FIAF, from whom I took two courses before leaving for Senegal. It was wonderful to see Ann, who is here in Dakar teaching smart board technology at the French Cultural Institute. (Don’t know what a smart board is? Imagine a white board, not blackboard, that is actually a computer screen hooked to the internet and a teaching data base, as well as a blackboard. Imagine a student makes an observation about a movie, and the teacher uses the board to search for a trailer on the internet and shows it to the class. Imagine copies of all the notes that were written on the board being downloadable after the class. Imagine how the world opens up beyond the classroom!) Ann is teaching other teachers how to use smart board technology in order that they might improve their teaching competencies.

Ann is a quintessential Parisienne…petite, stylish, lovely, smart, quick, funny, decisive. I liked her as a teacher, as did many of us who started French 101 together. Some of my classmates stayed with Ann through eight months and four levels of lessons. Her ability and ease with language—like that of my friends or even a stranger who has picked up English enough to give me directions in downtown Dakar—is remarkable. She speaks English without having to search for the right word or the proper grammatical construction. English is at her command, as it is for Nathalie, for the guy who runs the café at the beach, for recently arrived new immigrants who are determined to learn to speak the language of their new home.

I think about my grandmother’s parents—Grandpa and Grandma Dietz—who lived in Galatia, Kansas. They were immigrants to the US from Germany in the late 19^th century. Grandpa Dietz learned English, probably because he had business affairs that required it and he was out in the community meeting other farmers and having opportunities to practice. Grandma Dietz stayed at home. She understood English, but did not speak it. As a child, I was frightened of her, didn’t know how to get close to her, wondered what she was saying about me, and wished I could trust her. She just wasn’t as available emotionally or intellectually as Grandpa Dietz. The parallel to my situation here in Dakar is too obvious to ignore.

This morning I have deep respect for those who make themselves vulnerable and are willing to make mistakes when learning a new language. And I’m grateful that they are making it possible to create understanding, to lower the barriers between themselves and others, to increase the likelihood that something good can happen.

Gently

Last night’s storm was refreshing. It rained hard for a couple of hours. The surprise was that the rain continued throughout today. Eight hours of the gentlest rain, falling all day and completely soaking the thirsty earth. Around 5, when I went out to buy our evening bread, it was tapering off…just a sprinkle.

Even though it was an inside day….very unusual here in Dakar…it was perfect. I think we all appreciated the peaceful, quiet rain. At dinner, Ba smiled and said: La pluie etait magnifique!

Yes, the rain was magnificent.

Waiting for the Storm

There’s a big storm blowing in. Thunder in the distance. Finally, rain.

I was told the rainy season starts in June and lasts through October. I was told it would rain every day, not all day but every day. It has rained exactly five times during the 18 weeks I’ve been in Dakar. OK, that’s not precisely true because it did rain a couple of times when I was out of the country. But this has been the driest rainy season I’ve ever experienced. When it rains, it rains hard. The three times in July when it rained, the roads, which are mostly not paved and very uneven, filled with water that remained for as long as a week. This standing water is the breeding ground for malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

We’re two weeks into August and this is the first time there have been clouds that are threatening. And it’s sincerely threatening…moving closer…lightening flashing and thunder crashing in the distance. The dogs are going nuts. Just yesterday I commented to someone that I was concerned about what the potential damage of this dry spell on the crops.

I’m a fan of violent weather. Growing up on the Kansas prairie, it was just a part of life. Summer meant thunderstorms and tornadoes. Much to Mom’s chagrin, I liked to open my windows during storms and watch the trees blow, lighting up with each flash. The air cooled down drastically. Sometimes it hailed. The next morning, the yard was always full of small branches and twigs from the wind. Sometimes the tornado alarm sounded and we raced to the basement to wait for the “all clear” signal.

Everything changes when a thunderstorm is moving in. Rright now, the temperature is dropping quickly now and it’s getting very still. The neighborhood dogs are barking, probably because they hear the thunder that I can’t hear. The bugs and the birds have gone silent. The sky is getting darker and darker.

I hope it rains…soon and hard.

Connection

The greatest adventure of my life has not been coming to Senegal. This has been a great adventure but not the GREATEST adventure. No, the greatest adventure has happened in the nondescript locations and it has happened many, many times. I’m always surprised when I realize, not because I’m unconscious at the time but because I am totally engaged and engrossed…I’m always surprised when I realize that it’s happened again.

It happened yesterday. And as always, when I realized it, I was as freshly amazed as when it happened the first time.

Yesterday, I rose to the sound of Ramadan prayers at 5:30, checked email and read the New York Times, drank a couple of cups of brewed Italian coffee, hopped in the SUV at 8 and met up with Malle Fonana, who is a staff consultant at Focus Africa, the business consulting group that is providing pro bono support to the Hospital of Hope. Malle has undertaken the perverse role of untangling the governmental red tape affairs that periodically strangles the project. Malle is slowly but surely finding the right people to move the project forward.

We drove to Bargny to meet with the Secretary General of the Office of the Mayor. We had a 90-minute drive, we arrived early and we waited an hour past the appointed meeting. We met a technical advisor for land issues and the head of the local rural medical council. We looked at the land. Both were helpful about describing the next steps that we need to undertake in the process of project approval. Then, we got in the SUV and began the drive back to Dakar, which was a much longer returning because it was mid-day, traffic was heavy and the road is under construction. The case for why Bargny needs a hospital was really evident.

But that’s not what this blog is about. This blog is about Malle and the conversation we shared in our very long day of driving.

First, I asked him questions about family, education, past career. Then I got bold and asked if he was married or intending to marry, as it was apparent that family is greatly valued in the Senegalese culture. He laughed and offered a very sensitive response that focused on the work of relationship, which he said he doesn’t have the energy for because work itself is so important to him. We talked about his career, which has been at large firms and now at Focus Africa, which though small is landing huge and important projects for companies and governmental agencies all over the continent. It was evident that he loves his work. I was honest and open with him when asked a question, telling stories from my own life and work life. We talked about the importance of mentors and advisors, people who will tell us the truth and help us through the rough spots…with love, with honesty, with commitment.

We were having an excellent conversation. I was very happy and contented to be there. In part, I was surprised by what was happening. In part, I felt like I was having a long cold drink of water after a day of Ramadan fasting. My desire and need for intimacy was being met. Then, in one of those moments of blinding connection, the intensity of the conversation increased and deepened. I asked him if his family ever talks with him about his life and work. The answer was a very simple “no”. And the follow-up question: “How do you feel about that?”

At that point, Malle began talking on another level…very personally…about feeling different from the rest of his family, feeling alone and isolated from them, feeling that there’s very little connection between them, that he feels his has the power to change his life and they don’t. He also spoke about the need for cultural and social change in Africa, about how important leadership is to the change process, about the fact that a leader has an obligation to lead people to believe that they can change, about a book on leadership that he wants to write.

It was a moment that I might have expected to share with my English-speaking friends in Amsterdam or Barcelona or New York. But all this is happening with a 35-year-old African man in Bargny, Senegal, in the Secretary General’s outer office, in the company of two assistants and three other waiting gentlemen. And then, we were in the meeting, and the business of the day was underway. But a shift had occurred: Malle and I talked most of the way back to Dakar. I shared with him some of the frustration and loneliness I’ve experienced in Dakar. He talked about his hopes and dreams. It was unguarded.

Malle is, in my opinion, Africa’s hope. His emotional intelligence is matched by his mental intelligence. His commitment to Africa’s humanity is deeply moving. I have six more weeks to know Malle. I’m grateful for that time.

Working Smart

It was a day of memorable meetings for and about the hospital. Sometimes I have to pinch myself just a little because it’s hard for me to believe that my world is opening up as it is. I don’t delude myself about the fact that the world is the world. It has always been as wonderfully complex and interesting as it was today. It’s just that I’m experiencing new parts and I’m thrilled.

I think it would be accurate to say that Americans have been cloistered. Or perhaps a more accurate statement is that Americans of certain generations were cloistered. My generation was certainly among the last to live with mistaken notion that the best of everything was from the US. Perhaps there was a time, especially post World War II, when that was true. The ‘50s were a decade of incredible economic growth and prosperity, and the ‘60s were a decade of unparalleled social upheaval and change. Let’s hear it for sex, drugs and rock and roll. But while we were thinking that the best of everything was in the US, we missed amazing changes that were taking place in the rest of the world.

The Hospital of Hope has introduced me to a number of individuals and NGOs, non-governmental organizations or nonprofits, that work globally. Their scope is vast, their organizations are effective and efficient, and their impact is far-reaching. Last week, I wrote Tostan, the organization that works on health and empowerment of women with a special focus on prevention of female genital mutilation. Today, I met with Marie Stopes International, an organization that is a for-profit corporation in Britain, but in the 43 other countries where it has operations, it is an NGO. Its focus is birth spacing, family planning and reproductive rights.

MSI is smart. They take their services to the population that has a need for family planning and they do it through a variety of delivery modes. My favorite is mobile outreach…a doctor, a nurse, a driver take the services into the regions where transportation and healthcare are not available. MSI also engages in “social franchising,” which means they train and credential physicians who want to use the curriculum and products that Marie Stopes International has perfected, and then, they engage in quality control testing to be sure that the service delivery meets their standards. Cooperating physicians also get assistance with the setting up the clinical business operations so that they run efficiently. MSI also has its own clinics, which they sometimes operate as stand-alones and sometimes as units within existing and well-functioning healthcare facilities.

There’s ingenuity, flexibility and creativity in their approach to the global need for family planning. I really appreciate that, especially because nonprofits and NGOs generally are perceived as not being well run…not urgent, not smart, not fast, not well managed, not tuned into the consumer’s needs, not using research to figure out what’s being done well and what’s being done poorly.

Based on what I heard and saw today, that’s not true. NGOs can be innovative as well as effective, especially when they work with social entrepreneurs who are bringing best business practices to the nonprofit sector.

Let the Fasting Begin

Tonight marks the beginning of Ramadan. Recognizing that the world as we know it is overwhelmingly Muslim, it seems appropriate then that www.msnbc.com ran this headline: “World’s Billion Muslims Begin Ramadan Fast”. And so they have.

The Tehran Times, editorializing about the celebration, noted that fasting is a form of obligatory worship. Their abstinence will encompass food, drink AND sexual intercourse from dawn to sunset for the entire month. During this time, Muslims are also obliged to control their behavior, sight, hearing and speech if the rite is to be perfect.

Knowing how bad my behavior can get when I don’t eat for five or six hours, I think that last obligation to control “behavior, sight, hearing and speech” is ideal. Don’t eat, but we don’t want you behaving badly when your blood sugar plummets and you’re ready to drive over somebody’s foot or you’re ready to take out the car in the other lane or you can’t concentrate and that’s why you’re not listening! And no sex during the day…well, isn’t that just too bad.

In full disclosure, I should probably mention that New Yorkers don’t particularly like to ride with fasting cab drivers during Ramadan. Touchy, touchy, touchy and seldom alert.

Tonight, I had dinner with Ba, who is our security guard. He lives here at the house, does all the exterior work, takes care of the yard and the flowers, looks after the livestock and when he can, he tends to slip away during the day to tend to his flock of cattle and to see his wife and three kids. I asked Ba if he gets headaches when he fasts. Perhaps it was my perfectly horrible French that caused his reaction, which was one of disbelief…”Mal du tete? Mais, non!” he responded with incredulity. To which I replied: “Vraiment? J’ai le grand mal du tete après quatre or cinq heures quand je ne mange pas.” [Loosely translated: Really? I have big headaches after four or five hours when I don’t eat.”]

At that precise moment, the evening prayers started over the loudspeaker from our neighborhood mosque. Usually when I’ve read about prayers being broadcast, it’s in reference to morning prayers, which begin at 5 a.m. There are actually prayers five times a day. Tonight Ba said that the prayers would be broadcast all day every day during Ramadan. For a whole month? All day? Oh dear. Fourteen hours of amplified prayers could make one hateful and hurtful. It could make one say un-nice things. It could make one want to have sex, I suppose.

Perhaps I should join Ba in his fast. Suddenly, it seems imperative that I, too, control my “behavior, sight, hearing and speech.”

Just the Facts...

The truth isn’t always easy and isn’t always kind, but if it’s true, I can work with it.

Tonight we met with the structural engineer and architect who’s been working on an independent estimate of the hospital construction costs. The numbers came back about 2.5 times higher than our original estimate. There are good reasons. First, we now know what the building regulations require for a public facility, so the hospital will be built to code. We also are required to construct a doctor’s residence, renovate the forestry building that is in the land package, level the land and divert a canal that runs through the middle of the parcel and build a wall to surround the property. None of those last five items were included in our original estimate. So, the price tag is higher but the estimate is solid and it’s independent of any governmental agencies or officials.

I’m actually relieved to know the real number and the cost of the land “gift” from the City of Bargny. I suspect we were given the land, so that we would bear the cost of improving it. As it is, with an open canal running through it, the land can’t be used for anything. If we divert the canal and build the hospital, the City can use the hospital as an anchor to attract other businesses and develop a health-oriented business district. It’s what I might do.

The surprise will be Nathalie’s intention to push back on the cost of developing the site and to demand some support from the City. Stay tuned

Family

Woke up to the whimpering of Darius, the puppy who is living with us this weekend. Darius belongs to Johann, who is Paul’s second son. There’s a son in Paris and the newest addition, Seal.

It seems to be the way of families in Senegal. They are very diverse without much regard to strict lines of parentage. A kid seems to be welcome within the family, regardless of how they came to be a part of the family. So, for example, on a typical Sunday, at Mami and Papi’s I’ve met numerous of Paul’s nephews who share a father and seem to be very close, especially through their relationship with their grandparents.

Maybe that’s a generalization and an observation that I’m not qualified to make. As I mentioned previously, Paul’s family, like that of his siblings, is bigger than our household. His oldest son, who is seldom mentioned…actually only once in four months…is in his late 20s and lives in Paris. His two middle kids are adolescents, living here in Dakar with the woman to whom Paul is still married, Jessica (19) and Johann (10). Johann, who’s visiting this weekend, is a sweet, beautiful boy, well-mannered and always kind. He seems unquestioning in his love for Seal and Nathalie. They are his family and that’s the end of the discussion. Jessica does not share those feelings, and in fact, has a strained and painful relationship with Nathalie. It may be the old paradigm of daughters-fathers-stepmothers, which is challenging for all concerned. And then, there’s Seal, who at 21 months is the pride and joy of the whole family. Or maybe that’s just my interpretation of what’s normal for Senegalese families.

As I’ve previously reported, a normal Sunday gathering at Mami and Papi’s, averages around 15, and for special occasions, such as a birthday or a first communion or Mother’s Day, it can get as big as 25. All are family: parents, children, grandchildren, halves and steps, husbands and wives and sometimes brothers and sisters of Mami and Papi and their kids, which equates to aunts and uncles and cousins. Sunday dejeuner happened here at our house today. And along with Mami and Papi came David (first son of Paul’s brother Claude, who lives in Lisbon with his wife and their three kids); Mari Dor and Ayesha, daughters of Paul’s sister Ida; Miguel, son of Paul’s brother Louie and his first wife; Ebu, Miguel’s half brother and won of Louie and the first woman he was with.

What I’ve learned by observation of these messy gatherings is that there always seems to be enough room and enough food and enough love for everyone who shows up. The next person who walks through the gate will be as welcome as the first. Another giest? Sure, c’mon in! It’s such a contrast to my own upbringing. Mom was always concerned that someone would drop by before a meal because she always had “just enough” for the family and not much more than that. How could we possibly feed one more person?

But there is enough because the family has an automatic throttle on serving themselves. In some of my friends’ families it was called “FHB” or “Family Hold Back” when they served themselves; it was an announcement at the beginning of the meal and everyone in the family understood that there needed to be enough for the guests, so “don’t be a hog!”

In Paul’s family, there’s also a reverse pecking order by which the littlest and litterle ones are taken care of first. The older kids play with them, feed them and parent them. Moms and Dads don’t worry or fret about their kids because they were raised in the same big love where everyone shares and plays. I suspect that this easy affection is passed along from generation to generation without much consciousness. Each one teaches one. Each was loved by a big bunch of people when they were young, so as adolescents and adults, that’s what they continue to do.

It’s not perfect. There are challenges in this family, like any other. It’s big, and at times, it’s messy and hurtful, like the relationship between Nathalie and Jessica. But there seems to be a tremendous amount of love and kindness.

Family

Woke up to the whimpering of Darius, the puppy who is living with us this weekend. Darius belongs to Johann, who is Paul’s second son. There’s a son in Paris and the newest addition, Seal.

It seems to be the way of families in Senegal. They are very diverse without much regard to strict lines of parentage. A kid seems to be welcome within the family, regardless of how they came to be a part of the family. So, for example, on a typical Sunday, at Mami and Papi’s I’ve met numerous of Paul’s nephews who share a father and seem to be very close, especially through their relationship with their grandparents.

Maybe that’s a generalization and an observation that I’m not qualified to make. As I mentioned previously, Paul’s family, like that of his siblings, is bigger than our household. His oldest son, who is seldom mentioned…actually only once in four months…is in his late 20s and lives in Paris. His two middle kids are adolescents, living here in Dakar with the woman to whom Paul is still married, Jessica (19) and Johann (10). Johann, who’s visiting this weekend, is a sweet, beautiful boy, well-mannered and always kind. He seems unquestioning in his love for Seal and Nathalie. They are his family and that’s the end of the discussion. Jessica does not share those feelings, and in fact, has a strained and painful relationship with Nathalie. It may be the old paradigm of daughters-fathers-stepmothers, which is challenging for all concerned. And then, there’s Seal, who at 21 months is the pride and joy of the whole family. Or maybe that’s just my interpretation of what’s normal for Senegalese families.

As I’ve previously reported, a normal Sunday gathering at Mami and Papi’s, averages around 15, and for special occasions, such as a birthday or a first communion or Mother’s Day, it can get as big as 25. All are family: parents, children, grandchildren, halves and steps, husbands and wives and sometimes brothers and sisters of Mami and Papi and their kids, which equates to aunts and uncles and cousins. Sunday dejeuner happened here at our house today. And along with Mami and Papi came David (first son of Paul’s brother Claude, who lives in Lisbon with his wife and their three kids); Mari Dor and Ayesha, daughters of Paul’s sister Ida; Miguel, son of Paul’s brother Louie and his first wife; Ebu, Miguel’s half brother and won of Louie and the first woman he was with.

What I’ve learned by observation of these messy gatherings is that there always seems to be enough room and enough food and enough love for everyone who shows up. The next person who walks through the gate will be as welcome as the first. Another giest? Sure, c’mon in! It’s such a contrast to my own upbringing. Mom was always concerned that someone would drop by before a meal because she always had “just enough” for the family and not much more than that. How could we possibly feed one more person?
But there is enough because the family has an automatic throttle on serving themselves. In some of my friends’ families it was called “FHB” or “Family Hold Back” when they served themselves; it was an announcement at the beginning of the meal and everyone in the family understood that there needed to be enough for the guests, so “don’t be a hog!”

In Paul’s family, there’s also a reverse pecking order by which the littlest and litterle ones are taken care of first. The older kids play with them, feed them and parent them. Moms and Dads don’t worry or fret about their kids because they were raised in the same big love where everyone shares and plays. I suspect that this easy affection is passed along from generation to generation without much consciousness. Each one teaches one. Each was loved by a big bunch of people when they were young, so as adolescents and adults, that’s what they continue to do.

It’s not perfect. There are challenges in this family, like any other. It’s big, and at times, it’s messy and hurtful, like the relationship between Nathalie and Jessica. But there seems to be a tremendous amount of love and kindness.

Don’t know what’s happened but we have just hit a few days of really pleasant weather. There’s less humidity. The air is moving, not as much as I would like but there are light breezes in both the morning and the evening. The mosquitoes have gone someplace else to hang out. It’s been really beautiful at dawn…for frogs, for bats, for chickens, for Daniel, for me. This morning I slept until almost 7, late considering that I usually wake with morning prayers and get up because I like the house before everybody else gets up.

Nice to sleep in this morning. Now we’ll see what the day brings.

Hot and Crusty

I saw the potential. I thought it might happen. It has.

After two months of resisting, I started shrugging and asking myself, “Why am I fighting the urge to do this?” Now I don’t fight. I just do it. I’ve lost my willpower. I tell myself I should adopt the ways of Senegal. Truth is, I’m addicted.

Every morning, I eat one-third of a fresh baguette. One-third? That’s a huge chunk of bread…with either butter or peanut butter. Giving in to the call of the carbs…I don’t even consider consequences any longer. At home, where there is a staggering variety of opportunities to eat good old carbohydrates, one makes these choices carefully. Here? What would be the worst consequence of eating bread first thing in the morning? Not being hungry?

Right before we moved from the old house, we were buying our morning baguettes from Mama Mia, the new Italian café/pizza place that had opened about a block away. Their bread came out of the oven at 6:30…the bread was crusty on the outside (as it should be) and warm on the inside. It was just so yummy that to resist was impossible. Well, we left Mama Mia behind last week. Now, we walk across the road to the little kiosk, big enough for one person to work behind the counter, to buy our baguettes. They aren’t warm, but they are fresh and sell for 35 cents each.

The baguettes make perfect sense considering Senegal’s colonization by the French. It’s a French tradition to start the day with fresh bread and fresh coffee. But what doesn’t make sense, at least to me, is that in a country where fresh bread is higher in Maslow’s pyramid of needs than malaria medicine, it’s impossible to get a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

The Way We Live

This morning, it occurred to me that for four months, I’ve had the luxury of sleeping until I wake. Please don’t interpret that to mean we are living in a “sleep interruption-free zone”. Remember, we have Daniel the sheep living out back. He’s quiet now, but I don’t expect that to always be the case. Why? Simple. Daniel has the biggest set of balls I have ever seen on any animal. [Who knew sheep came with that kind of equipment?] I can only imagine how emotive and expressive he will become when he’s not had a chance to use them for a while. And as there are two girlie sheep living next door, on the other side of the big wall…think Romeo and Juliet…I think we can safely assume that Daniel will eventually have a deep and noisy desire to get acquainted.

Anyway back to sleep interruptions. Senegal is 95 percent Muslim. The most common practice here is Sufism, which is a more tolerant kind of Islam than is practiced in the Middle East. It’s common to see women with their hair covered by a hajib and to see men carrying large prayer beads, which move through their fingers in accompaniment to continuously silent repetition. The devote pray in public, spreading a prayer rug wherever they are and proceeding without regard for who might be watching. Recently at the Dakar airport, I watched a woman proceed through the entire 30-minute prayer ritual of standing, kneeling, touching the forehead to the ground over and over in proscribed motions. She was pregnant and labored at the beginning. In the end, she actually seemed refreshed by her prayers.

We have a neighborhood mosque a few streets away. The domed roof of teal tiles outlined in gold is visible from my terrace. The tiles are beautiful and incite my curiosity about the interior. Every morning at 5 a.m., the amplified call to prayers is broadcast through the neighborhood. It is not a beautiful sound. It is tinny. It is not melodious. It is not beautiful. It does it incite my curiosity. It occurs five times throughout the day. It makes me want to throw things.

Like I said, we are not living in a “sleep interruption-free zone” because if the mosque fails, we’ve always go the rooster who lives with the sheep on the other side of the wall. He is happy at sunrise. He is also very very loud. He doesn’t have an amplifier and he doesn’t need one.

Welcome to The Almadies, Dakar's nicest neighborhood.

Every Day...something

Today was another eventful day at Casa Cretin-Oliveira. After much mournful bleating, Paul settled Daniel into his new sheep shed. It’s right next to the bunny hutch, which is adjacent to the turtle palace. We also have the pleasure of enjoying the real wildlife, which is only apparent in the early morning…right at dawn…right after the mosque has let loose with the amplified call to prayers.

Oh yeah…back to the wildlife…that’s when I get up to watch the three resident grenouilles chase their breakfasts. They come in three hopper sizes—big, medium and tiny. They hop around the terrace, stopping only long enough to let their tongues flick out and grab a mouthful of mosquito or gnat or whatever makes a frog happy.

Or maybe they’re toads. I don’t know. They hop, they seem warty, and they ribit. I like them.

The frogs are much more amusing than the escargots, who could easily become somebody’s lunch. Big, fat, kind of luscious looking. Definitely slow. They are not going to win any race to the finish line. And lucky for them, Nathalie has zero interest in escargot. OK, she’s interested in looking but not eating, so I’m confident that they’re safe. For now.

Today, Nathalie and I met with Tostan, an amazing international NGO that was started 20-some years ago by Molly Melching, an Ohioan who has lived in Senegal since 1974. Started in 1991, Tostan—which means “breakthrough” in Wolof, has been honored repeatedly for its accomplishments, promoting health, literacy, women’s empowerment and democractic process. Before I came to Senegal, I was encouraged repeatedly to “be sure to meet with Tostan.” It was an enlightening and an enlightened meeting…not just because Cody Donahue and Katie Fair, both Americans, were welcoming gave us real contacts that have the potential to become working relationships that support the hospital. But it was meaningful because they validated that our thinking about how we would like to work with Tostan was a workable model.

Thoughts on Moving

First, I didn’t feel like writing because I didn’t feel well. Then, there wasn’t time to write because of the distractions with moving. And then at the old house came the power outage, which took our internet connection down for good, and at the new house, the mobile company’s missed appointment, which set our phone and internet service back a week. On some level, I am comforted by the fact that customer service is bad everywhere in the world.

I wrote that last paragraph on Thursday, the day before we left the previous house. It was not a sad departure. I had stayed there alone on Thursday night. It was the longest night of my life in the spookiest house on earth. I completely understood why Paul had slept at his parents’ home when both Nathalie and I were gone for a week. It was unsettling…and I’m not one to be frightened easily. I think I fell asleep around 2 a.m. Not sure.

Although it was possible to see it, I was in a state by the time Nathalie and the kids showed up the next day for the inspection by the real estate agent. It was after lunch and felt as though they had abandoned us. As it turned out, they were having their own Private Idaho at the new house: no electricity because the power outages were lasting all day, and the new generator was not working. The night before, breathlessly hot. had been without air conditioning and they were late because nobody had slept until the power came back on at 6 a.m., just in time for everyone to be able to get ready for the day.

Well, the power problems have continued. The generator was repaired later on Friday and worked for a whole hour that evening. We had a second sleepless night. The washing machine does not work. The toilet in my bathroom is broken. The air does not move in this house at all, probably because of the height of the wall that surrounds it. The house is prettier. It’s more modern. But there are some challenges.

Next day…it’s nearly 9 pm. The generator guy arrived at 7 pm to repair the big yellow machine…for the third time. He was disbelieving that it didn’t work until he fussed with it, turned it on and let it run for an hour, at which point, it shut off automatically, as it has the last two times it was used. He scratched his head, said he hadn’t ever seen a generator do that, and set out to repair the problem. Now it’s 9 pm and he’s still here. Guess that means that he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Power just went out. Lucky us because the generator guy is still here. Let him spend the night. Let him stand in the hallway with a big fan and keep us cool.

The other new guy arrived this afternoon. Paul brought the male sheep to live here. I guess there’s no room for newborns in the pen. And Leland or Daredevil or Dominic…I can’t remember what the sheep’s name is…ahh…Daniel. He seems to not have an off button when it comes to sex. All six females with whom he WAS living are currently pregnant. He’s much more prolific than the bunnies, who should have been bearing “clutches” [I think that’s what a bunch of rabbits is called] every 39 days. But we haven’t had one baby rabbit and just before we moved, we found out why. Paul inadvertently bought four males. They’re all the time humping each other, but they aren’t making babies.

We try not to tease Paul too much about his sexing expertise. He seems to have gotten it right with the chickens, but hey…how can you possibly go wrong with a rooster.