The Holidays - Part 1

So 2019 has ended. Never to return. Priya and I spent an evening over the holidays recapping the year. Interestingly we both remembered different things. It’s not that we remembered things differently, it’s just that different events popped into mind of our experiences of the past 12 months. Obviously different things made more of a mark on me than her and visa versa. Perfectly normal but it was interesting to note the differences.

I won’t go through the year since a good amount has been recorded in the blog. But it’s been eventful. One thing I realized is that I had a nasty carbon footprint. Though I am much more aware of my actions than I used to be and I have made changes in some of the things I do, I still have some big areas where I am failing and will need to take steps to scale it back. I counted that during 2019 I made 62 international flights, or flight segments (one way)(this doesn’t count probably a dozen or so domestic flights). That means that 62 times I boarded an airplane headed for a different country. That’s insane. It’s about one every 6 days. Granted, most of this was for work but still, I need to see what I can do to ratchet this back. So far this year is not looking good. As I type I have 2 under my belt and 10 are already booked.

snow fight

A quick recap of the holidays. Things started off with a chilly stopover in St. Paul, Minnesota at our friend Cathy’s. Always a nice place to overcome jet lag, we had the opportunity to acclimate to sub-freezing temperatures. And snow. Surprisingly the girls very quickly threw on their winter layers that had been kept in storage in the US and off they went. It was too cold to make a decent snowball so they occupied their time scooping and throwing, sweeping, making snow angels, etc. We even played a robust game of fox and guess – a bit like tag but with the limitation of staying on carved out snow trails.

We got out a few times. Minnesotans seem to be invulnerable to cold temperatures. They just carry on doing whatever it is they do. So we joined the pale throngs in exploring some old and some new things about St. Paul. As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of the Twin Cities. Just need some mountains.

enjoying the balmy holiday weather in Louisville

Then, as is our tradition, it was off to Louisville, Kentucky. One of the first things I need to do, other than finish Christmas shopping, was have a varicose vein operation on my left leg. In fact it was more of a “procedure” than an operation but it was still a doctor doing stuff inside my leg in an operating room for about 45 minutes. I had a local anesthetic but it was not without some pain and discomfort. In fact I was on pain killers for a couple weeks afterwards.

family out for Cuban food

One notable thing about the procedure was when they finished and more or less cleaned up, they all left the room. I was told I could put my clothes on and stop at the desk on the way out. So I sat up on the gurney and awkwardly came to my feet. My left leg was still deeply under the anesthetic so I couldn’t walk properly. I also noticed that there was blood coming out of a hole in my leg up near my groin. I couldn’t feel it but I could see it. I couldn’t run out to the hallway looking for assistance since I was “indecent” so I looked around to see if there was something I could use to stop the bleeding. There were surprisingly few options that I could see in the operating room without going through some drawers. I finally homed in on something that sort of worked like gauze. I held it on the wound for a while and it seemed to do the job. I then decided I would just hold it in place and put my clothes on over the top. I had made quite a mess on the floor but I figured that whoever was coming in to clean up would be accustomed to such things. Still, I think it was a bit odd that such a leak was left behind by the doc or the nurse or whoever was supposed to tidy up my wounds. Also strange was the fact that I was given the okay to drive home. I guess the assumption is that most Americans, unlike other parts of the world, drive automatic vehicles. I’m not sure how well I would have done if I’d needed to do a lot of pushing on a clutch with a leg that had little sensation in it.

Christmas Eve on the deck

Other than soreness and being prevented from working out during the holidays, the leg was sort of a non-issue. I was supposed to walk or elevate it. No extended periods of conventional sitting or crossing my legs. The green light on walking was helpful for my sanity and I ended up doing a lot of it.

Christmas morning would not be the same without the frenzy

The weather in Indiana was chilly in the beginning but soon turned mild. Christmas eve lunch we had outdoors – a striking change from Minnesota.

Christmas angel 1

Christmas angel 2

In addition to the normal Christmastime traditions, we also went to see my mother-in-law perform in a Christmas concert and we also took in a play - “A Christmas Carole”. Very well done and the girls really seemed to enjoy it. Not a lot of opportunities to do things like that in Nairobi.

The days flew by and before long we were boarding the plane for Idaho.

Living by the second hand

From late November, when I posted the last time, a few things happened. I didn’t anticipate such a gap in posting but these things happen. As I often say, life happens to me faster than I record it. I don’t really have the instantaneous social media presence like most people. I don’t do things and immediately share it with the world. It’s a different kind of documentation of one’s existence but one that doesn’t seem to suit me very well. Ben Hecht said something about this long before social media existed:

“Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.” -Ben Hecht, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, director, and producer (1894-1964)

Obviously I’m connecting the old daily newspaper with social media today. Interestingly, the pace of the current media is lightyears faster and thus accentuates Hecht’s point. I know people are trying to make sense of all this by extracting data over time and thereby determining patterns and meaning. It’s depicted in all kinds of graphics and gets interpreted in various ways. To be honest, I don’t think we have a handle where the world is going and it sometimes feels like the car has lost its breaks. I think the same can be said of certain peoples’ lives.

I tend to try to reel in some of this, at least in so far as it is something I can control, whether it is in my job, my family or in my own head. I gravitate towards budgeting time for reflection. Periodically taking stock. Not getting to caught up in the moment. Giving time for wisdom to get involved in steering the car. People seem to increasingly steer their lives like a child sitting in a car pretending to drive. The jerky motions left and right would never make for a successful driving experience. It would produce the same nausea I get from tracking news. Information is coming out so fast, the quality of journalism suffers and there’s a tendency to over-dramatize any one thing.

I’ve spoken to some people that have decided to look at their favorite news websites no more than once a week or more to mitigate this phenomenon. I’ve done that myself on occasion (though I’m often too curious to wait that long) and it does sometimes feel like you’ve missed an eternity. But when you step back you realize that in reality you didn’t really miss all that much.

In any case, don’t expect me to spew facts about my life moment by moment. I probably have a much more interesting life than a lot people who do but it’s a level of narcissism I prefer to avoid. And it wouldn’t provide a better picture of how, or even what, I’m doing. In most cases it would just be stuff – noise that people are trying to filter through in their respective feeds.Who knows, maybe the next generation will have a better sense of the folly in all this over-communication and rebel. But I doubt it.

Snapshot of my day

I’m on a flight from Mogadishu to Nairobi (27 Nov.). I feel like it’s the first time I’ve had a chance to stop and think given the busy week I’ve had. 

Every once in a while, I like to record the events of one of my days it to remind me someday in the future of what my life was like. While this particular day was not noteworthy (like meeting Jane Goodall or arriving on the summit Kilimanjaro), it does provide a glimpse into what I do for a living.  

 

sunrise in Mogadishu (from our roof)

Yesterday I woke up to the sound of the call to prayer, as I often do in Mogadishu. It’s not thunderingly loud but it’s audible enough to wake a light sleeper like me. In fact there are several early morning calls and they are not all at the same time. This one, from a mosque closer to where I stay, was around 4am. As is the case often with me, I was not able to return to sleep. Once my mind begins thinking about the obligations ahead, I’m generally doomed. After a vain attempt at going back to sleep, I got up and officially began my day.

First thing is a cold shower. We don’t have hot water in our guesthouse so I’m used to it by now. Usually it’s quite hot and humid so the adjustment to the cool water isn’t bad.  This time, however, it’s rainy season and both the weather and the water coming out of the pipes were cooler. Feels good when your body adjusts to it but it’s a bit unpleasant in the beginning. 

My dad is currently in the hospital so I used the early morning to catch up on what was going on and any other emails that came in during the night. The communication tools are so much better than they were when I first moved overseas in the late 80’s. Back then it was basically a letter or an occasional expensive phone call. Thankfully it’s much easier to maintain close contact with family and friends. 

I also get quite a few emails from NY and, as morning hits in East Africa, the night owls on the East Coast are finishing up and going to bed. So I usually scan for messages that are more urgent or possibly quickly addressed. The rest I leave for later since I have other things I need to do to prepare for the day.

The focus of this week has been senior management meetings. A couple of times a year I pull together top leadership our various field locations and Nairobi for face to face meetings. We meet bi-weekly electronically but this is more of a 3-day retreat where we (about 20 of us) dig a bit deeper into thornier issues and sort out the way forward. We discussed our flood response in southwest Somalia. We sorted out some supply chain issues. Implementation of a new enterprise management system. Etc. For an extrovert, it’s an energizing time since the days are long and full. For an introvert, it can suck the life out of you. 

The official meetings ended at 4pm and I was escorted to a meeting of our women at work group. I started our organization’s first such group in Burundi back in 2011. At the time we had a rather masculine leadership team, most of whom I inherited when I arrived in 2010. The purpose of the W@W group was primarily to give women a greater voice in the organization. I knew I couldn’t go through and start removing male staff, for legal reasons if nothing else. In the end the group was a huge success and they are still thriving today. In fact W@W is now a global initiative for our organization after its humble beginnings back in Bujumbura.

About 20 or so women dressed in their colorful hijabs were all crammed into a rather small office. It was an impressive sight, to be honest. There are some strong willed ladies in our organization and I can see that they’ll be taking full advantage of this group to make sure that the interests of women are recognized and addressed. 

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay long. After less than fifteen minutes I was pulled away to a phone interview with a US-based news organization. It’s hard to say how often I get contacted for such interviews but it happens from time to time, particularly when there is an acute humanitarian situation unfolding. In this case the topic was the flooding in southwest Somalia.

The call lasted for about 20 minutes and afterwards I was told that the article is likely to be published in the next couple of days. They said they’d send me the link once its posted. Since NY set up the interview, they generally receive the link and push it out through various outlets. 

At this point I hoping to have some down time before a call with NY at 6:30pm. This would not happen as I was pulled into a meeting with HR to discuss a rather sensitive personnel situation.

Finally I was back in my room to take the evening phone meeting. In fact, in spite of the inconvenience of the timing, it was a particularly interesting discussion. This task force deals with sticky humanitarian access issues. For example, one challenge we face is when donor governments, particularly the US but not only the US, place certain restrictions on what type of support can be provided and to whom. They call the shots since it’s their funding. But sometimes these restrictions can be somewhat politically motivated. It can relate to access to reproductive health services or potential unintended support to people associated with terrorist groups or something else. It’s up to us to determine how we feel about the restrictions, whether or not they are in line with international humanitarian law or whether they might compromise our own principles as a humanitarian organization in making sure people in need get the support they desperately need.

As interesting as the call was, I was happy when it reached its end and I could shut my brain down for the day. I clicked on a US football game (streaming TV was something that I was unable to do my residence in Mogadishu a couple years ago) and went to the staff mess to serve up some dinner. Camel. Some fish. Rice, of course. A few veggies for decoration.

I was off to bed early as is my norm. I need to sleep with the AC on. Can't open windows due to the mosquitoes (the screens on the windows are weathered to the point of not being functional and it's too hot anyway). The white sound of the AC and the cool room help me sleep. I did hear a couple of nearby gunshots but it wasn't the kind of thing that sounded hostile. Soon I would drift off to sleep, happy that I would be back with the family the next day.