Monday, March 18, 2024

Crisis Averted

 I was going to write this post on Wednesday and it would have just been titled 'Crisis'. Two days and positive movement has seemed to lessen the threat.

On Thursday, I started my day with almost frantic messages from the Theodora Ghana team that their internet was completely unstable and unusable. As we had a very early Rotary meeting they manage (acting as host, running slides, etc.), I had to jump in. I then started hearing from others in Ghana about lack of internet. 

It turned out this was no minor issue. All four of the underseas cables carrying internet traffic from South Africa to Europe were damaged. All of them! Approximately 8 countries including Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, & Benin were affected and it was almost a complete outage. Even banks were unable to function. I was unable to reach anyone on my team.

As I finally learned what the issue was, a grim thought started to come into my head. We were out of business. We would not be able to communicate with clients. We could not do any work for them. I started to think of options such as going to some U.S. providers. But I didn't really think we could pull that off because of cost, time, and the inability to communicate to even find out what to do.

On Saturday, I decided to try a regular phone call and reached my manager. On Sunday, there was some internet and we were connecting through WhatsApp. We determined regular mobile phone communication would work (but it is expensive). Also that they could get most of their work done if they worked late at night when there were fewer people on line. 

We'll see how things go today. It seems that we will be able to function.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Sunday Dinner With Friends

 For a variety of reasons, it is rare for us to entertain anymore. I big part, as I have written in the past, is I find it much more difficult physically to cook. Plus, Wife and I both tire early in the evening and don't have much appetite in the evening. But we are not that fond of going out to restaurants. I find them too pricey for the value, always feel rushed, and uncomfortable. But we had friends who'd just returned from a trip to New Zealand and Australia. If we didn't catch up with them soon, it would be a long while before we could.

We had them over for what we call our 'Sunday French Dinner'. This our eating at around 2pm on Sunday. We find we have plenty of time to talk and relax, have our best appetite, and never get too tired. I wanted to have a light meal yet with some culinary variety. AND i did not want to cook on the day of the meal. So I prepared the following. It only took me 3 hours on Saturday to accomplish. Everything was designed to be served at room temperature.

Potato Leek Soup - I finished it with cream, butter and finely chopped green onions

Fritatta - Made with onions, mushrooms, asparagus, and zucchini.

Marinated Roasted Bell Peppers - Marinated with anchovy paste, onion paste, garlic paste, olive oil and lemon juice. Finished with orange zest, orange juice, and salt cured capers.

Braised Celery - Cooked in Sicilian flavored broth, onions and garlic. Finished with a touch of chile flavored olive oil.

Homemade Pickles - Salt cured baby cucumber slices flavored with vinegar and sugar.

Our guests brought a lovely New Zealand, Central Otago, Chardonnay. I had a French Chablis, made with the same grape which were interesting to compare.

A great time was had.



Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Back To School

As I have written, the Theodora Project that has consumed so much of my life over the last half decade, has suddenly solidified. Things that were so much acts of faith during our first years have become solid and real during the last year and a half. Now, we are not just some hopeful venture thinking we can transform woman with little to no background and experience in what we want them to become. We've done it!

Sometimes I feel I am in a dream and I have to do something to make myself wake up and realize that we've attained the early most vision. But, as with all things in life, there really is no 'destination'. There is only a stop on the never ending 'transformation highway'. 

So I have become painfully aware that my long developed skills as a business advisor are not what are needed to take my team forward. What is needed is that I be a true business manager and leader. Something I have had no experience. This has motivated me to join a peer group mentoring organization that combines facilitated meetings with hands on coaching so I can actually become better as CEO and manager. 

Never too late to learn!

Sunday, March 3, 2024

How Far Have We Come?

As just a slight hint for loyal readers, a vast increase in the number of posts will arrive in the not to distant future. "Hmmm", you say. "Might this involve travel?" Well beloved blog follower, yes it might. 

I was doing some research for this 'project' and looking over some posts from 2016. This was only 2 years into our post transition life devoted to travel. We were taking our first significant trip to Asia and I wrote about getting there. I was quite taken by the length of time (27 hours), number of flights, being in business class and what it took to get business class, and dealing with international airports. 

Fast forward to 2024. Wife and I have done a fair bit more travel internationally. Shoot I have taken 17 trips to Ghana alone since 2019. Now we go through and look at the routes and consider among other things;

  • Length of the total flight.
  • The aircraft we will be on.
  • The quality of the business class seat.
  • The overall service on the airline.
  • Can we use points or is it a better deal to use $$.
  • What is the quality of the cuisine on the airline?
  • Will we have enough time after an overnight flight to catch a shower at the business class lounge?
  • Is it better to have a shorter flight with tighter connections or a longer flight with more time in between flights to reduce stress?
  • Is the trade-off of a lower cost worth the extra travel time? (Spoiler alert, less and less as we get older).
  • Understanding that 'airport world' is its own reality and every international airport is pretty much the same as any other.
  • 27 hours? That seems pretty much the norm for any significant international travel

Hoping to take this knowledge and experience and continuing to use it as long as we can.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Changing The Internal Narrative

 We all have our internal narrative...actually many internal narratives. These are the voices in our head. The ones that go on and on talking to you about just about every subject under the sun. They are the ones who criticize you and chastise you for the behaviors your parents scolded you about a half a century ago. They are the voices that remind you of your failures. They are the voices are constantly judging you and everyone around you. 

We all have them, these internal narratives. In my path of yoga we call it the Monkey Brain. Never ceasing its chatter. However, we can exert control over these narratives. We can learn to let them come, say their words and leave. This is one of the prime tenants of meditation. We can also reprogram our narrative. This is purpose of such things as affirmations where we repeat either written or orally, and belief statement over and over. It is to reprogram the narrative.

Recently, I realized that I need to change the narrative in my own head concerning  the Theodora Project. 

For the longest time, the narrative in my head has been either apologetic or defensive. Seriously, when we started, the idea that you were going make professional administrative workers out of young African women, working in sex trade because they had no other alternatives, women whose education, culture, and language was massively different than the American work place, was almost ludicrous. And it was, in reality, incredibly difficult to achieve. There were so many times when I thought it was going to fail. So naturally you develop a narrative in your head that is almost apologetic, and defensive. In your mind, you feel you are constantly having to convince others that this will work while, at the same time, you are fearful it won't.

But, as I've posted frequently over the last 6 months, the breakthroughs achieved by our women have changed the reality. The reality is that we provide really good service to our clients and an incredible value. The reality is that we are now covering our costs. WE ARE BREAKING EVEN. If you are not engaged in the world of social impact you will not recognize what a big deal this is. And the rate of capability change is almost dizzying. Who would have imagined this in 2020/2021 when we were struggling just to do basic work and have a reasonable professional work environment. 

We are now facing a reality that we may reach a point where we are maxing out the capacity of our team. So it is time to add more people, to give more women the opportunity to transform their lives. Plus, the next phase in our plan is to prove we can scale (grow) this business and drive much greater social impact. That is requiring significant new funds. So I am back on the money raising trail. Only this time, I am gradually recognizing that people are reacting much differently to our story. That is because it is not just projection, it is actual fact. 

I am finding I need to change the narrative in my head. We are not this unproven concept. We have definitive accomplishments that are rare in the social impact world. Our story is not just hope. It is leveraging what we've proven can be done.

So I find myself working hard to reprogram my own personal narrative.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

The Weeks of Wrath

 It began in mid-January just before I left for my Ghana trip. The physical agony. It was like every arthritic joint (which is basically all my major joints) was on fire. On top of that, I somehow managed to seriously hurt the rotator cuff in my right arm. I've had issues with the same muscle in my left arm for years but this was the first time I'd hurt the one in the right arm.

So I arrived in Ghana in pretty shit shape. The stress of travel, the bad air of the harmattan, the intense work, and the incessant pain from the arthritis and  led to serious lack of sleep. Stress, lack of sleep, pain, none of this is good for one's immune system

Sure enough, two days after arriving back in the U.S. I came down with Covid. I rapidly got Paxlovid prescribed and started my regime. Thankfully, I respond well to this drug (thank you Big Pharma!). But then other things started to happen all within a couple of days. 

  • Wife gets Covid
  • The Front Door won't open from the inside
  • We have a power outage that affects us for most of a day
  • Our garage door becomes uncoupled from the wall nearly falling on our cars!

Thankfully, as of today, Saturday the 17th, things have started to turn around. 

  • Intense work doing rotator cuff strengthening exercises has alleviated most of that pain. 
  • For whatever reason, the arthritic joints have calmed down.
  • We got a repair person quickly to repair the garage door opener.
  • We have a new front door assembly coming to us. 
  • I have finally finished off the last remnants of Covid, even hiking today for the first time in ages.

Now we just need Wife to get better and we will be back on the positive trajectory.

Monday, February 12, 2024

8

 That is the number of hours I slept straight through on Saturday night/Sunday morning. 

When was the last time I slept 8 hours in a night? It is beyond my memory. I was so shocked, I had to look at the clock two or three times. 

I've written before about my long-term sleeping patterns and the fact I rarely sleep more than 5 to 5.5 hours a night. So why suddenly did I sleep a 'normal' person's sleep?

Prior to my recent Ghana trip, I had been sleeping very poorly due to arthritis pain issues plus injuring my rotator cuff in my right arm. This sleep disruption continued all the way through the two + weeks I was in Ghana. In addition, I mentioned how bad the air quality was. So right after I got home, I came down with Covid. Not a big surprise considering how rundown I was. Fortunately, I respond well to Paxlovid and recovered very fast. Also last week I was finally dealing with my arm pain as well. So I believe the massive sleep was a result of a need to recuperate.