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.