Fishy

I found a surprising message in my mailbox on one of the many social networking sites I subscribe to. A boyfriend from my early teens found me on the internet. He is now the chief of Schiphol’s freight services. Our meeting place will be obvious, if not in the air, then on the ground. We have not seen each other for more than 40 years.

We left our hotel in Abidjan yesterday and drove to Bassam. While I was waiting for Oumar to check out I took some pictures of the lobby, a special request from Sita who thinks my blog should have more pictures. I went all out.

When you enter the hotel the first person (thing?) you encounter is a large seated statue of a local king in traditional garb. To me he looks like a Ghanaian king the way he is dressed with his Kente cloth and all the gold(paint), but then again, the Ghanaians and Ivoirians are cousins, if not brothers.

The king sits with his back to a large waterfall sculpted out of cement, plastic vines and leaves that blocks the lobby off from the street and fills one side of it. On the left of the entrance all the chairs are bunched together to make room for the ceiling painter. This made it a little harder to get a good view of the wall decorations, pictures of shiny and slippery beauties that, I presume, are intended to lighten up the experience of meeting with a business partner in a hotel lobby.

On our way out of town we passed by a roundabout that I had noticed earlier because of the two huge cement statues of an eagle and a lion. They stand by the side of the road, rather forlorn, as if waiting to be put in a more fitting place, or returned to where they were taken from. The lion needs some repairs as its head has been cut off. The eagle is intact and spreading its wings as if to fly away. I asked Alphonse how come the lion was damaged and the eagle was not? He did not know.

After driving past countless little beach restaurants, all equally inviting but all ignored, we arrived in Bassam at lunchtime. We had to ditch our plans to go to one of the beach places in order to honor our commitment to the rest of our facilitation team of starting our work at 2 PM. And so we settled in the hotel’s open air dining area, next to a noisy and splashy swimming pool full of teens and preteens. We assumed we could eat quickly and start on time. We did not. Lunch took an hour of preparation (grilled chicken and fries). We ordered our drinks, ginger juice, going for the least chemically enhanced drink we could find on the menu. It was served in two tones: green at the bottom and yellow at the top. We asked about the green and were told ‘c’est pour decoration.’ We asked for an undecorated drink.

Sometimes it is good that time is so very elastic here, since our co-facilitators were not quite on schedule, if there is such a thing. One showed up five hours after the appointed time. I watched Oumar use this as a teaching moment (‘How long have you known about this assignment? You know, being a facilitator has certain implications…’) He did it with grace and great care. We’ll see how this team will evolve; for now calling us a team is either premature or an article of faith. This is going to be as just-in-time as it can get, since the program starts today after lunch.

We met the president of the CCM who is a retired professor and gave him the design and our intentions in a nutshell. We were doing this in the hotel lobby where a huge plasma screen TV is permanently turned on (as it is now while I am writing, the X-files). I always find it hard to engage with people who are watching TV during the conversation but no one else seemed to be bothered and there were signs that people were indeed listening.

As far as the field visits are concerned, everything is extremely sketchy but no one seems to worry, so I don’t either. It certainly will be an adventure from a design and facilitation point of view. My past experience was in South Africa which had none of the protocol requirements and no outsiders handing out money to pay for this or that. Interestingly, when talking with people in private here they dismiss the protocol as something that isn’t really necessary but collectively everyone agrees it is important. This is the power of myth-making at work; only interesting if you can observe it at arm’s length but a pain in neck when you’re in it yourself.

For dinner we drove in a noisy diesel Mercedes to a maquis hardly recognizable from the outside but well known by our local hosts. The notion of serving a customer with speed and grace was entirely unknown to the two sullen waitresses who seemed just as happy to see us go. We nearly did go when over an hour later we still had not seen any food. When it finally arrived we had two types of fish, aloko (fried plantain), rice and atieke. This time I believe a few uninvited guests slipped in along with the food, judged by the gurgling sounds coming from my stomach last night, but luckily gone this morning.

Miracles

Oumar and I are used to hear the word miracle. That we are both here working together is the big miracle; that we got the boxes with books out of customs, in less than 24 hours after they left Lagos is another miracle, minor but a miracle nevertheless. The boxes looked tired and have been resting in Alphonse’s car every since.

A meeting was called at 10 with a few officials from various agencies to explain that the field visits we had planned for the participants were not the usual inspection visits. It was a last minute meeting and we eventually met with one person representing each of the three diseases of the Global Fund (AIDS, Malaria, TB). An official letter had been sent earlier announcing the visit in the way this is usually done, under the seal of the minister of health. Such announcements to officials lower down the hierarchy traditionally mean that important people come to inspect and you drop everything to make the best possible impression.

That we wanted none of that on Monday needed to be communicated quickly and convincingly, by people who themselves had no frame of reference for what we had in mind. Oumar explained and did a good job. People got excited when they realized that this was a ‘learning’ visit rather than an inspection, supervision or needs assessment visit. The mental model for a site visit includes people sitting around a table and looking at documents, listening to a chief speaking or watching a carefully crafted PowerPoint; it is about one way information, and questioning to find fault or weaknesses. The ones I have participated in were often stiff, formal and hollow with a lot of superficial politeness and subservient behavior from those at the bottom. The hierarchical distances are enormous. Our wanting to change this in one visit is maybe a little preposterous. But, on an intellectual level, everyone loves the idea because it has at least the promise of closing a bunch of gaps.

We explained that we want people to follow their curiosity. Again, another nice idea, and very appealing, but given the way things are it is a tall order, incomprehensible to some. Curiosity and the art of asking good questions have been carefully excised from children at a young age. The teacher is the one who asks questions, not the child; expecting adults to follow their curiosity is asking for another miracle.

Recognizing that it takes two to tango, we promised that we would take care of preparing the visitors if they could take care of preparing the hosts. And with those promises made we ended the meeting on a high note.

It is challenging to work with counterparts on something that is called by the same name (a workshop, a field visit) but has totally different connotations. This is where faith comes in: our counterparts have to trust us enough that nothing untoward will happen that will damage their reputations or careers. And we have to trust that the learning will happen even if the design has some rough edges and the execution will be less than perfect.

At lunch time we were taken to a large, partially open air restaurant called ‘Le combatant.’ It is squished in between the heavily fortified embassies of the USA and France and behind a statue of an ‘ancien combatant,’ of one of the two world wars that hapless Africans were forced to fight on behalf of their European masters. We avoid the western restaurants and prefer those where local food is served. Once again we got plenty of that: two kinds of fish, one in an eggplant sauce and the other in one of my favorite sauces (stew is more like it) called ‘sauce feuille’ which contained, in addition to cooked greens, all sorts of other surprises, including shrimp, crab, fish and agouti (also called bushmeat, an animal that resembles a large rat). The sauces are eaten over rice or atieke, a couscous-like substance made from manioc.

In the afternoon we finalized all that needed to be copied and returned to the hotel rather late. For dinner we took a taxi to a quartier called Cocodie and ended up in a patisserie. This was not what we were looking for but since we let taxi drivers take us places they like, it is one of the risks we take. There weren’t any local dishes and most were deserts, as one would expect in a salon de the. Oumar ordered a mushroom pizza from which he removed all mushrooms and I had a bunch of nems (spring rolls) and crabs hidden in something deep-fried. Aside from hamburgers the non sweet choices were limited. I did sample the main event, a crepe au chocolat, accompanied by a perfect ‘petit café.’

Back in the hotel it was time to relax. I discovered a new solitaire game in the Air France plane on my way over here. It is called Shanghai and it is played with Mahjong stones. I found a better version on the internet and got hooked until about 2 AM, an obsessive streak I have in common with my sister and can only indulge in on trips.

I dreamed of needing to catch a KLM plane and wanting to fly with Axel and Tessa but could only find their luggage and no one to help me make the change. When I realized they were on another plane I ran to get on at the last minute but could not catch. It was one of these leaden legs dreams. I knew where it came from. I tried to change my ticket to go home earlier since I did not think I needed to stay until the 13th but it could not be done.

A way with boxes

On a continent where most of the people have little money and live at great risk with very little protection I always wonder why the majority of large buildings in the center of its capital cities are occupied either by banks or insurance companies. Whose money and who is insured, one wonders. The place around our hotel is awash with banks and insurance companies.

We started yesterday with a visit to our MSH colleagues who have an office on the outskirts of Abidjan. We are much indebted to them since they are making all the logistical arrangements for our adventure here. It is always nice to meet far-flung members of our extended MSH family. Alphonse the driver who picked me up at the airport has been assigned to drive us around. He is very helpful in showing us what is where, where to eat and what’s happening on the political scene. After one day in Abidjan I told him I saw no signs of this being a danger post; for that I have to go north, he said, adding that even there it is calm right now.

Some two weeks ago we had shipped 3 boxes containing some 50 copies of our leadership book to Abidjan via DHL to be handed out to the workshop participants. Since no one here had seen the boxes we tracked them down on the DHL website and discovered they were in Nigeria. They have been on an interesting world tour: picked up at our office on the 29th of August, shipped via Ohio and Florida to San Jose in Costa Rica where DHL realized, 4 days ago, that the boxes were shipped to the wrong place. Since then the boxes have been in Panama City, Caracas, Barbados, London, and Brussels before landing in Nigeria. According to DHL they left the Lagos DHL office at 5 PM local time yesterday. With any luck they arrive today in Abidjan but that’s only half the challenge. Getting boxes out of customs can be a huge undertaking, especially when you are in a hurry. I am not counting on seeing our shipment any time soon.

After our visit to the MSH office we returned to town and set up our computers in the conference room of the CCM in the center of town. To get to the CCM’s floor you can take a tiny elevator that has no lights. Once the door closes you are in the dark and can only hope that the electricity does not go out. If that were the case for any length of time it would lead to a slow and somber (dark) suffocating death, I imagined. After one trip up I decided to take the stairs, also in the dark, but less constraining and good for digesting the heavy (starchy) meals that are common in this part of the world.

For lunch we went to an abandoned hotel which has a working restaurant on the top floor. You had to know it to find it. It would have been the last place I would have looked for a restaurant. The tiny restaurant, without windows and with hard slatted chairs did not look very inviting. But appearances are misleading. I had my first sampling of Cote d’Ivoire’s famous cuisine: a piece of fish in an eggplant sauce with rice; slightly spicy and delicious. For Oumar who comes from the Sahel, this place has it all: the sea and forest for fish, fowl, fruits and vegetables in abundance.

After lunch we worked with the administrator of the CCM, which included some teaching right there and then by Oumar. Oumar is an exceptionally gifted teacher and a serious and conscientious worker. He knows where Africans stumble and confronts people, gently, where most other Africans I have worked with would not dare to. He runs the show and I am there to support him; I am not sure he needs much support but we enjoy working together and besides it is fun to see him in his element, as a trainer/facilitator.

For dinner we went to a small roadside restaurant in Treichville, a part of the city on the other side of the lagoon where there is life after 5 PM. The Plateau section of town, where our hotel is located, empties out at 5 PM when all the offices close; it becomes a ghost town. We took a taxi with an angry driver; Oumar, always the teacher, tried to teach him about customer service (not a bad idea given the unemployment and the glut of taxis here) but he wouldn’t listen and deposited us angrily at a main artery after having gone through several red lights and taken the reserved bus lane, driving faster than prudent; as accident survivors we were a bit sensitive to his driving style (‘doucement, doucement s’il te plait’) but this only made him angrier.

We talked more about our respective accidents, which would have been boring to anyone else, while we ate our Kedjénou and I had a beer twice the size of a normal beer (‘plus petite, ce n’est pas la peine, said the waitress). On the way back we had another taxi adventure. This time the driver was more congenial and willing to be taught to stop at a red light. I don’t think it will stick but at least he was willing to please us for the duration of our ride.

Landed

I am waiting for the ‘technicien’ which is what you need here to connect to the internet. The best signals on the wireless list come from Standard Bank next door, especially the one for the CEO but of course they are locked. While I am waiting and writing I watch a French program that is entitled ‘people in bathing suits aren’t necessarily stupid.’ What I see does not match the title.

I arrived in Abidjan while it was still light but by the time my suitcase arrived, in the very last batch, it was dark. Alphone the MSH driver was waiting for me. It is always nice not to have to hassle with taxis after a long flight and seeing someone waving a piece of paper with your name on it in the packed arrival hall. The ‘rentree (des classes)’ in the Francophone world does not happen until the middle of September. This explains why there were so many children on the plane. Their presence made the wait for my suitcase easier. I marveled at their ability to have fun with whatever was at hand. I was totally absorbed by two 5 year old boys who commented on every suitcase going by. One of them had a well-used stuffed lion who he would deposit in between the suitcases, to be picked up a few meters further by his buddy, both squealing with laughter.

Downtown was empty, at 7 PM, which is unusual for an African city. Large concrete barrages, no longer in use, were shoved to the side around some of the banks. According to Alphonse everything is being rebuilt and repaired and things have been calm for a long time. It looked that way. In daylight there are few signs of the destruction, which acoording to Alphonse wasn’t so bad here on the Plateau part of Abidjan. ‘Wait until you see the destruction in the countryside,’ he added. This is what I see from my windows. The view is that of a hundred other African downtowns.

In the hotel I called Oumar. He was a slimmer version of the Oumar I remembered, slimmer and taller as if he had been stretched lengthwise. He was in a horrendous car accident in Kindia in Guinea some two years ago. No one thought he would survive but he did. He had none of the insurance cushions we had, nor the support of his employer (the government of Guinea) as I did. But the things we learned from our respective accidents were quite similar, about community and support networks and the taking and giving of support.

And after that I fell into a dream-filled sleep of 10 uninterrupted hours.

Half way

I used the morning of my first post vacation workday to check out the global fund website and download several documents about the Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCM) by which the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) assures local ownership of interventions; reading for later, to pass the time in transit. I finished packing, filling my suitcase up with French books that had been culled from my library earlier this week, to leave behind with my colleagues in Abidjan. It produced a rather heavy suitcase.

Then it was off to the doctor. I arrived with my list of body parts to be discussed. After we had ticked each one off, I was hardly any wiser. I had some X-rays made of my sacrum and small toes to rule out any mechanical failures but we both knew that these would be unlikely. The doctor’s order is to continue with the physical therapy, do another round of acupuncture for my sacroiliac joint or go straight for the cortisone injection, get a second ankle opinion and set a date for the carpal tunnel repair surgery. This fall is going to have nearly as many interactions with the healthcare system as last fall.

On my way home from the doctor’s office I picked up some nice gentlemen who were out for a walk on this beautiful day, heading exactly in the same direction as I was (Joe and Axel). Joe took us out to lunch on the way to the airport and they both delivered me to Air France in time for them to squeeze in a visit to the ICA before closing time at 5:00 PM.

The flight to Paris is short, a mere 6 hours. By the time dinner is served you are already halfway there. I had a very short postprandial nap, too short, and woke up to see Indiana Jones, up to his neck in quicksand, refusing to pull himself out by way of a huge python. He is so not my favorite character; after I saw him in a snake pit in his first movie I have refused to see any new IJ movies; and now this, waking up to the only snake scene in the entire movie; my luck.

I tried to get back to sleep by listening to my meditation tapes which always put me to sleep before track one is finished; but not this time.

I arrived at an empty AF terminal E, was bussed to terminal C and found my way to the lounge which is the only thing that makes a 7-hour wait at CDG bearable. It is a reward for frequent flying and, counterproductively of course, for the huge ecological footprint I am making in the process. Tessa had me do a survey on the internet to ‘measure’ my carbon footprint some years ago, before the word was common currency. According to the not so scientific calculations my high-flying lifestyle required about 9 planets. Should I change jobs?

I showered, served myself a nice French breakfast including pain au chocolat, and am now ready to start reading and familiarize myself with my client. If all goes well, the next entry will be from Abidjan.
 

Over and out

I woke up with an image that looked like a computer screen with sentences running, telex style, along the lower side that I could actually read, word by word. It was remarkable because all my dreams are in images. If I had not fallen asleep again I would have been able to remember but now I can’t. What I do remember is that some of the words seemed, even in my half awakened state, nonsense and some were, to my great surprise, totally intelligible. Now I wished I had not fallen asleep again, as I am very curious about the message that was telexed in from my unconscious.

Today is the day after Labor Day. It is back-to-work day. We are also gearing up for the presidential election a few months from now. I am gearing up as well. The suitcase is half packed. My MSH Outlook box has several hundreds of emails to sort through; the documents I have to read are in my hand luggage, waiting for attention during my 8 hour layover in Paris. The vacation is over and I am on my way out, on the 5:30, to Paris today. I have no regrets and am very grateful for this first vacation I had since last July which is among the best I remember.

We celebrated the end of our vacation with a beach fire. It was a 10+ night – a clear sky filled with stars, planes taking people home, the occasional satellite and one falling star, accompanied by my wish on its way down. Joe had gone off to bed, having burned himself out with last week’s intense work. Tessa and Steve joined us later, hoping to find s’mores but there were none, only two squares of chocolate and a small glass of cognac. They stayed for awhile and we talked about nothing and everything, as one does around a fire. Puppy Chicha came along too and showed that she can retrieve sticks even at night and we kept sending her off in the dark. As only a dog would do, she kept bringing the stick back over and over again.

Yesterday, I started preparing for my trip while Axel and Joe sat in front of their computers taking care of stuff. After lunch we could no longer stay inside and kayaked/rowed to Tuck’s Point in Manchester’s harbor. We set out against the wind and through choppy waters which made the return trip fast and splashy. At the outer harbor we watched a stream of sailboats leave for the open waters or return home. When you are on the water you also have a front seat to see million dollar houses being built or remodeled along the water’s edge. We felt very small amidst the large luxury boats and MacMansions, but also quite content with our share of the bounty.

In the afternoon we drove to Brookline, alongside much homebound traffic, to say goodbye to colleague Miho who is off to Washington (State) to pursue her MPH and to congratulate Chris and Kairos once more on their June marriage. It was nice to see colleagues and ex colleagues again and find out who had been doing what and where. Many had not seen us for some time and commented on our physical fitness. It’s true that you cannot tell how crippled we were only a year ago. Today Axel is shipping back a torture like apparatus that he had rented many months ago to flex his wrist. He’s done with it now and his guitar-strumming of yesterday proved it.

Still, we are not quite there yet, if we ever are. I am seeing the doctor later this morning with a list of several body parts that need attention, sacrum, ankle, toes, and wrists. The carpal tunnel surgery that was scheduled a week after the crash, is needed again as the rowing had made abundantly clear. I enter this fall with two surgeries on the horizon that will put a temporary halt to my progress and interfere with writing (right wrist) and walking (right ankle). It’s hard to select a date for these interventions which cannot be done at the same time, each require a certain length of time for recovery adding up to several months in total.

Two firsts

Axel’s tiny lobster boat finally went into the water yesterday; without the traps. It was the first time in two years that it was launched – last year it never even left Andrew’s barn. Taking his dory out is one of Axel’s summer joys and it nearly looked like it wasn’t going to happen for the second summer in a row. Once on the beach, where it stays anchored to the big tree when not in use, Axel used to be able to take it out into the water on a set of wheels, all by himself. Yesterday he found out that this is not possible anymore, the strain on lower and upper back too much. This will cramp his style a little bit but since we have Steve living with us, he can call on him to help him out for the remainder of the warm weather days.

In the afternoon we had nearly our whole fleet out: Axel in his boat, Steve in the red kayak and I in my Alden (while Tessa was selling leather goods in Rockport). Rowing on machines is much of what Axel does at the PT office and so doing the real thing seemed to make sense; but it is a little harder with waves and wind. Axel tried the Alden and did well for a first time but from his face I could see he was not enjoying it, wanting instant perfection, not practice.

Back in his own dory we made the first outing onto the ocean a short one, not quite to Singing Beach. It was my second in the Alden shell that day. It is wonderful to surf the waves and feel the spray. When this summer comes to a close I will have rowed more in the Alden on the ocean than in the much narrower single on the Charles.

The second first happened after dinner when Axel played the guitar. I think he was truly shocked that he could do that, the left hand and fingers moving as if nothing ever happened to them. It may have looked like a familiar and ordinary scene – man strumming guitar – but it was extraordinary as we all remembered the lifeless left arm, hand and fingers, only a year ago. We were all moved by this new milestone. Our diner guests, Anne and Chuck, didn’t even know Axel played the guitar. I was happy he picked it up again as it brought back memories of Beirut when he wooed me with his improvisations while muttering that he had no idea how to play. I thought a guitar-playing man was very romantic. I still do.

In sync

I am looking out over an empty cove under blue sky. It is a shame to sleep in on such a day. The air is chilly; it is, after all, the last day of August, right on cue the summer is ending and the fall starts with the frenzy that accompanies back to school and back to work. I went to Staples to buy supplies for my upcoming trip and realized too late that my timing was really bad. The usually quiet store was filled with weary parents and whiny kids. “Dad, I don’t want that plastic ruler, it will break!” “Sorry, you will have to be more careful!” (plastic ruler lands in basket, dad grins, son pouts).

I have finished my last two vacation sewing projects, something for myself and something for a doll (for whom? asked Axel, in a typical utilitarian male way – not for anyone, just for the fun of it, I answered). The sewing table has been cleared so that there is room to put out everything that has to go with me to Abidjan. The table is filling up with electronics/facilitation supplies and stuff to give away; there is a little to make myself comfortable in my hotel room (teakettle, coffee and tea, watercolor set, books)’ the remaining space in my suitcase is for clothes (very little).

I used to prepare weeks ahead of time for my trips but lately I stopped doing that. Partially because I did much of that in my own time (which happened to be vacation in this case) and partially because I will be working with a team and it is not good form to arrive with everything thought through already, even though they may prefer that. And maybe the third reason is this card I bought at the bookmill in Montague with Sita on Thursday. It is from Brian Andreas who makes whimsical illustrations of well known but ignored truths. The card shows a woman holding on to a pole with her body and feet in the air and underneath the words ‘If you hold on to the handle, she said, it’s easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it’s more fun if you just let the wind carry you.’

One of my team mates is Oumar who I worked with years ago in Guinea. When we write to each other we always start with the words ‘cher frère, chère soeur.’ He was also in a terrible accident (road) and we haven’t seen each other in our recovering states. I am looking forward to see him.

Joe and Axel went to the ballgame last night, which left me with a delicious late afternoon and entire evening alone. I worked in the garden planting our fall crop, sat on the porch reading, and puttered around in my room, going through my library and making a four-feet high pile of books to give away. It was a trip down memory lane as I read scribbles or flagged pages that indicated what I was learning when; some books were signed and took me back to lectures attended in a period when I was like sponge absorbing everything I could about organizations. The books that landed on the pile seem boring, irrelevant, or stating the obvious; I got rid of all the Tom Peters books and wondered what happened to him, a meteor who disappeared into a comfortable retirement maybe?

Joe is finally done with his work for MSH. I watched him from my vacation vantage point as he got up in the dark and came home exhausted, in the early evening, day after day. It is as if I was watching myself. I have enjoyed not getting up at 4:30 and have decided, by way of experiment, to start going into work late, after the morning rush when I get back from my trip – I am liking this waking up and going to bed at the same time as Axel does – our clocks more in sync.

American story

We went for a visit to Sita and Jim in their new home in Haydenville, just a little further into rural America after Northampton where droves of students were busy finding their way around town and the Smith College campus.

 

The village of Haydenville is so small that you could easily miss it when driving through. There is no cell phone coverage, no signal to get any interesting TV or radio, no fast internet connection and in the beginning no phone either. For a couple whose livelihood depends on good and fast internet connections, this made for a slow start. Now they are somewhat connected and living (very) rural at the same time.

 

They live next to the police station and across from the fire station. An empty lot next door has been turned into a badminton court and no one has complained. There are no fences and gates and little of the ‘me and mine’ attitude that is so present in Manchester. There is a brook down the street with a lovely little beach that includes a bunch of small waterfalls with stone seats beneath them; those are good for upper back and shoulder massages.  Someone told Sita there are water snakes and so she is not using this free offering of Mother Nature.

 

Their house is lovely, half of an old farmhouse with porches front and back and brightly colored rooms, one yellow, one orange, one pink and a large turquoise and black kitchen. The cats adjusted quickly and seem less neurotic. The yard has a joint vegetable garden, an apparatus that produces sun dried tomatoes and other vegetables, and a little boy on a swing set while his mom, their neighbor, plays the guitar. It is the kind of scene I remember from record album covers of American bands that stood in contrast with the large, fast and big image that I first had of the USA. I fell (then) and still fall now for such a romantic scene.

 

Sita took us to the Montague Book Mill, a half-hour drive to a most picturesque old mill, next to another brook, and, as the name says, full of books. Their motto: ‘books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.’ It is way off the beaten path, on the Connecticut River and not easy to find if you don’t know about the place. Axel and I happened to know about Montague, or Turner Falls as it is known on the aeronautical map because of its tiny airport, where we landed and picnicked on July 14, 2007, hours before the unhappy ending of that day at Gardner airport.

 

Axel was the only one who exercised self restraint by not buying any books; Sita and I had no such restraint and we each came home with a few more books ‘we don’t need’ while our mates rolled their eyes.

 

By the time we got back to the house Jim had returned from his Manchester-by-the-Sea office which is in his dad’s house. He still needs to be there several days a week until he has sorted out how to do his job, which I still don’t understand, from their rural home.  Jim was too pooped to cook or think about dinner at home and so we took everyone out to a sushi fest in Northampton, followed by ice cream and coffee before we parted to our respective homes.

We drove down (East) on the Mass Turnpike while listening to Obama’s acceptance speech. All through it I marveled at this wonder that put the grandson of a Kenyan farmer on a direct road to the White House. It’s a very American story.

Vacation, cont’d

The end of my vacation is beginning to appear on the horizon. With that also comes the vague outline of a trip to Africa. The malaria pills have been purchased and a trip shopping list is taped to my computer.

 

But before that happens I have a few more days to enjoy living in this most beautiful place. It was another glorious day today, for flying, gardening, reading and doing nothing.  The last two evenings, before the sun went down, we took the boats out, Axel in his kayak and I in the Alden shell, to enjoy the end of the day. On Tuesday we went to Singing Beach, today to Manchester harbor.  It’s a short outing, not too strenuous but good exercise for Axel’s arm and getting our strength back, without it feeling like ‘have-to’ exercise.

 

Last night we had a cookout on the beach, the first of this summer, a bit late. By the time Joe joined us it was dark and the mosquitoes gone, the fresh tuna grilled and the (home grown) potato salad ready with cold ratatouille, one of our favorite summer dishes, hot or cold.

 

Both of us had therapies today. Axel made another visit to the vestibular therapist at MGH, a short therapy that uses up the entire morning because of the time it takes to get there (by train).  He is learning much about how the brain coordinates what comes in from the senses and when it can learn and when it cannot. The experience lends itself to countless organizational metaphors. He is making progress and I expect the therapies will all be ended in the next few months, after which he and his brain are on their own.

 

My (physical) therapy may have been the last for some time, as I am waiting for the doctor’s opinion about what is going on in the sacroiliac region. The therapist told me I am mechanically OK, everything is aligned as it should be. The problem remains with tendons and muscles, all the ones in my neck and upper back are still full of knots and tight as elastic bands.  May be it is time for a weekly massage again. The problem is that no one reimburses that and it gets a bit costly at $80 an hour.

 

So far I have managed to stay away from my computer to check emails. I know there will be a price to pay for this later but this is the first vacation in a long time that I have completely unhooked from work. It is working! I am as stress free as one can get.

 

Tomorrow we are going to visit Sita in her new home in Haydenville near Northampton where she used to live. I would have liked to fly there but no one in our family is ready for me to fly with Axel in the co-pilot seat. So, instead of a 40 minute flight, it will be a 3-hour drive each way, which will take up a sizeable part of the day. It is good that we like each other’s company so much.