Logical discourse

Breakfast buffet in the hotel is not included in the nightly rate. But coffee is important - and its difficult to know what lunch will look like when you're executing a program like this. So we eat breakfast - and smuggle pieces of fruit and yogurts and dinner rolls with cheese wrapped in paper napkins. This is dinner when we're cooped up in the hotel room, madly working on materials for the next day and don't have time nor energy to get dinner in town.

I was grateful Eve had printed the methodology worksheets and slides. I've been so consumed with getting the right metrics up to the leadership and keeping the program, I didn't have any attention to see the work she was slowly and carefully assembling. I'm glad she had it together: got a visa for my passport, worked with the Embassy, obtained clearances, and reserved the car and the hotel. Now, it's like a vacation in Africa. Where we work. A lot. Every day.

I love Cameroon still. I look forward to the day when I can come into the country and just love it without the aching memories it brings. I've never been able to do this with the Netherlands - so maybe its not possible.

It is the rainy season so the heat has broken. The mud here is a rich red and the hills are lush with green. I've lost the ability to speak about Africa and Africans in some distant, keenly observant way of a travel magazine article because it isn't foreign to me anymore. It's certainly different than Naples or Paris or Salt Lake City, but not mysterious or exotic. Just comfortable and welcoming. People live their lives just like anywhere else. The challenges are different and can be severe when there is inadequate support - but this is true everywhere. If I ever needed to, I could come and stay for a while. It would not feel bad to me.

There are eight naval officers in the Cameroon SAMP team. All are so forward-leaning, so well-educated and articulate, so clear-minded. Its quite a pleasure to work with them. The level of discourse is high. We present the concepts, they wrestle with them, debate them, make sense of them, and evolve their answers and results so quickly.

I remember years ago, when I was leaving for Naples, my friend Anne threw me a going-away party at a restaurant in DC. At some point, I asked everyone at the table what they would do if they could make one big change in the world. There were good answers - from energy conservation to health care to diplomacy. But Anne said something that stood out for me. She said that she would teach every child logic. We are so susceptible to emotional decisions, she said. People are manipulated by corporations and politicians and they don't make decisions based on their own best interest nor the interest of the community. They get suckered into making terrible, illogical choices. She wanted to arm everyone with analysis so that they could resist propaganda.

I think about this now that I'm executing this program. It's a complete delight to see the way that people are empowered with logic. It isn't anything earth shattering that we discuss: we talk about the scientific method: examining questions and objectives, developing hypotheses, and identifying assumptions and personal bias. We design experiments, collect data, and conduct inductive reasoning and deductive logic on qualitative and quantitative problem sets. These things are natural for me because I'm a scientist. But they are NOT intuitive. And certainly they are not broadly taught to military people. Suddenly, these techniques become maps. People can navigate through any problem. Anne was right - although I only recently made the connection with her words of three year ago. Reasoning and logic are powerful tools.

Back again tomorrow. Looking forward to the smell of burning hair as the brains heat up.