What next?

We were sitting here in the living room, having a meeting about next steps to get the hospital project moving again. It was 4 pm. We were actually more excited that Switzerland had won its first game in the World Cup, defeating favored powerhouse Spain, than we were about talking shop.

Somewhere in the middle of the discussion, we decided we needed to talk to Bargny’s assistant mayor. Paul called and five minutes later, we were on our way to his office. The meeting lasted two hours and included a review of the new drawings, the site plan and a long discussion about the community relationships, construction management, procurement and politics, which seem to be in full force…so much so that Mamadou Gueye said a committee had been formed from within the town and their sole responsibility is to deal with issues arising around the construction.

How did we get from feeling as though nothing was happening and wondering how to get things moving to feeling as though we had lost control and the project was out of our sphere of influence? Either this is a nightmare or remarkable progress. Perhaps more important, the level of information that Mamadou Gueye divulged suggests that we have a partner. He wants the hospital built. He wants to engage the community. He wants it all aspects of the project to be truly humanitarian. He wants us to proceed absolutely according to the procurement standards established by the city. He wants to introduce us to the people he knows at the corporate and community foundations in Senegal. And he wants to claim this as a victory for his party, in opposition to the current president.

Who knew our little hospital project would become so interesting?

Hot, Humid, Heavy

The rainy season is approaching, so says Paul. I have to believe him because I have no reference points of my own. One thing makes me want to believe him, and that is that everything about the weather changed during the two weeks that I was in Amsterdam.

When I lived in LA, the same thing happened: I was gone for two weeks in the middle of winter, which in LA meant that the temperature only went up to 75, not 85, and there were heavy black clouds until 11:30 a.m. Those were the big differences. But there were also barely perceptible changes like the tiny succulents that were blooming down low in the grass. And the small, washed out, easy-to-overlook blossoms in hedges. Easy to see if you didn't expect them to be there. Easy to miss if you were a lifelong Los Angelean.

The Dakar changes are somewhat the same. Perhaps because I don’t know what to expect, I experience the variation more vividly. Although we've been living by the sea, and humidity is normal, now, the humidity is way, way up. And it’s warmed up at least 10 degrees in the past two weeks. As a result, the air has become heavy. Before I left, it was refreshing. Now, it’s just heavy. Very heavy. It would be unbearable, except that the wind has been blowing relentlessly for two days. Outside, it is possible to be comfortable, even in the sun. But inside, with all the windows thrown open as wide as possible, with the wind whipping down from the roof through the central ventilation corridor of the house, there’s not much relief. It’s sticky. It’s tropical.

It’s Africa.

Hot, Humid, Home

I’m back. In Dakar. When I stepped off the plane, the humid air slapped me in the face. What a difference two weeks and a few degrees of latitude make!

Paul was waiting…Mr. Cool and Casual was leaning against a wall at the airport, standing out in his Red Cross t-shirt…a big X on his big chest. I spotted him immediately. Even though our language capabilities are limited, I have no doubt this guy missed me and loves me. We laughed and hugged and laughed and kissed and laughed and laughed…all in our babbling pidgin French/English. Our language skills were as bad as always, but we couldn’t stop trying. We understood enough.

When we pulled into our parking lot, the young man Adama, who sells us our daily baguette, smiled and waved and welcomed me back. Hugs and kisses awaited at the house, as Ieta and Suzette were at the door immediately. More laughing about the official Amsterdam t-shirts that I brought for everybody. Then we sampled peanut butter on baguette…because I see a real market opportunity for buerre de l’arichede. Of course, the key is to develop a palette for peanut butter here in the peanut capital of Africa. Tomorrow we’ll refine the experience by adding jam to the PB. And we’ll start working on the creation of our first mango crumble. I’ll let you know how that goes.

It is good to be back. It’s different. And it’s good.

Present...

...and accounted for. I will be back with regular posts soon. My time in Amsterdam has been focused on talking rather than writing. It' been very good. More later.

Building

The glorious summer days that greeted me on arrival in Amsterdam are gone. We are in the middle of a classic weather pattern…the sky is gray, the temperature is cool, the air is damp and chilling. After three early summer days, completely unexpected and totally blissful, I am not going to complain. But as with my return to New York after living in Los Angeles, my post-Senegal blood is a little thinner and the cool a little less welcome. But so what? The warmth of friendship more than compensates.

Yesterday, David and I hopped on the bikes and went. Our first stop was to have been the new subway station under Centraal Station. Amsterdam has a comprehensive metro-transport system that includes trams, buses, and rapid-transit trains. Since 2002, the city has been building a 20 km north-south subway line. Several of the stations are nearing completion, including the station near Michael and David’s home. The bore is about half-way along the route and is now estimated to be completed in 2013.

The station designs reflect that the Netherlands is home to some of the most innovative designers on the planet. The multi-use spaces include shopping, bike parking, theaters and other sorts of leisure activities. Unfortunately, we had to learn all this from an exhibit rather than a tour of the new station. The newspaper published the wrong open house date, and we missed it. Nonetheless, a project of this scale is exciting simply because of the challenges that are inevitable when boring two massive tunnels through a central city that is a) laced with canals; b) built on reclaimed land; c) has many residential areas that are 300-500 years old.

Engineers and parents…two professions that always amaze me!

Touched down...touched

From Dakar to Brussels and Brussels to Amsterdam, I arrived with all my bags and all my brains. It’s lovely to be under David and Michael’s roof.

This gorgeous day—flawless blue, cloudless, mid-70s--day dawned much earlier than in Senegal. The sky began to get light around 5 and I was ready to get up and have some real coffee. Out around 7 to walk and admire the difference between early spring and late spring in this city of canals. En route to Dakar, the trees were still budding; now, they are deep green and in full leaf. Then, everyone bundled up against the cool temperatures of late winter; now, they are in skirts, short sleeves, sandals and sunscreen.

After four years of multiple visits to Amsterdam, I can feel my way around the city without a map, whether walking or biking. I like having some sense of where I am and where I'm going. And it is a perfect day to be out and about.

Changing Places

My bag is packed. I am so ready to go to Amsterdam. And just to make sure I don’t forget that Dakar is my second home, Ieta and Suzette are sending me off with a jar of the hottest pepper sauce on earth! [See the blog for 5/31.] I am hoping to breathe a little fire into my Dutch friends, who all love Indonesian food and think it’s spicy. Ha!...think again!

Frankly Indonesian, Thai, Korean…none of them can hold a candle or a blowtorch to this sauce. I’ve grown to really enjoy it with traditional Senegalese cooking. Today, perhaps because I’m leaving (and they are so excited to have one less bed/bathrooms to clean), Ieta and Suzette prepared yassa, a Woloff dish…chicken with a wonderful onion, olive sauce that’s flavored with Maggi, which is the brand name of an herb combo like boullion. The pepper sauce does something to the yassa…I can’t explain it…it just does. Yummy!

Odd, as excited as I am to be going, I am also a little hesitant about leaving here to re-enter my own familiar Western culture. I don’t think it’s the culture but the past that has me a little edgy. For two months, I’ve been very free of my past. I’ve been relatively unknown, somewhat mysterious because of the distance created by language…not that there have been all that many direct questions. Twice I’ve been asked if I have children, once if I am married and twice about my work. It’s odd to be so free of questioning, given that “What do you do?” is the driver for most American conversations. Here, nobody asks much of anything. They have allowed me to simply be present…so much so that Paul’s family has decided I am really Senegalese and have said that I never get to leave.

In Amsterdam, I will be attending and speaking at an LGBT diversity conference. I will be leading and participating in discussion about issues that were the focus of my professional and personal life for 20 years, issues that I helped frame. I have been relatively unengaged with these ideas for the past 2 months. The few times I have uttered the words gay or lesbian have been in conversation with Nathalie or on a Skype call with a friend from the US or Europe. As I left LGBT behind to come to Senegal, now I am leaving the Hospital of Hope behind in Senegal.

My once integrated life is feeling just a bit scattered. I am wondering if I really have figured out what I want to do with my life. Glad to have an opportunity to think about it.