THE NEXT STATION IS OVAL - Concluding Part

And of course, my stint with Wateraid was made all the more special with the fantastic colleagues I got to work with. In my role, I had the opportunity to work with colleagues across all our country programmes and Wateraid members. My travels meant that I could regularly meet them from time to time. And each time I met them or spent time with them, I was always struck by their passion, their energy and their optimism that change can and will happen.

 I cannot forget the animated discussion I witnessed among my Nigerian colleagues over dinner arguing passionately about sanitation policies or the East African colleagues discussing their annual plans and priorities during their morning and evening walks on the beach in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, or the fantastic 'programmatic approach' cake that the Malawian team baked with all enthusiasm during the Wateraid week, or the Bangladeshi colleagues pursuing every single opportunity to push boundaries for innovation and new funding. And whether it was the Sacosan in Kathmandu or Delhi, or the Africasan in Dakar or the Presidential water forum in Nigeria or the India WASH Summit, the manner in which our colleagues demonstrated political savvy to pursue our agenda of a higher priority for WASH was simply amazing ! 

Equally or even more amazing was how our teams put up a brave face in times of crisis - the Tsunami that affected parts of India and Bangladesh, the devastating floods in Pakistan during two subsequent years, the crippling Ebola crisis in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the Abuja bomb blast, the rebels capturing last parts of Mali, the constant insecurities faced by Pakistan,  the massive earthquake in Nepal ......all these and others tested the resolve and resilience of our teams all the time and yet, they remained so focussed and firm !

It was also great to see the huge leaps we had made on some critical challenges on the WASH sector - on sustainability, on equity and inclusion, on rights based approaches, on sector financing, on working with the health sector, on water and food security, on being more confident and collaborative in our advocacy work. 

None of this would have been possible had it not been for the unstinted support from the thousands of supporters - the general public, who stood by us through thick and thin, raising funds - by running, swimming, climbing mountains, crossing the sea, singing, dancing, jumping out of planes, wearing poo and camel costumes, signing petitions...the list can go on and on, with supporters as young as 5 and as old as 80 ! There have been volunteers some of whom having been us for over 3 decades ! And the trustees who, despite their very busy work and personal lives, always had the time for Wateraid ! 

There have been great fun times too - during summer and Xmas parties, the staff summer games, during regional management team meetings, the various birthday celebration (with cake), the singing and dancing with communities and amongst ourselves, the various drinks in the pubs, the dinners and the constant snacking (yes, I gained 10 kgs in 10 years !).

All this is just a snapshot of my amazing decade with Wateraid. I could go on and on, but this was not meant to be a narrative about my time in Wateraid - it was more about trying to articulate why Wateraid has been so special for me and why the past decade will rank as my most professionally satisfying, nay, enriching decade of my life !

The icing on the cake was the last 50 days of my life with Wateraid. I tendered my resignation on June 1, 2015 (coincidentally, it was on this day in 2005 that I took on my role as Director of International Progammes), and my last day was July 20. And while 50 days did seem a long time on June 1, there was a sense of finiteness to my time with Wateraid, which was enough to get me into a denial mode. And that proved to be very difficult. I was not prepared to be overwhelmed by a huge number of absolutely amazing and touching messages I received from all over the organisation, across all the countries we work in. The lunches, dinners and drinks that followed had a strong undercurrent of emotions that I found it difficult to express, yet was very acutely conscious of. Leaving an organisation after a decade was never going to be easy, but I never imagined it to be so difficult. 

I have been reflecting on what made it so difficult. It was most certainly the fantastic colleagues and the thought of leaving them, accentuated further with the wonderful messages and wishes that I received from them during my last 50 days. But it was also about walking away from all the privileges that I enjoyed and experienced, just because I was with Wateraid. And that is what I have tried to capture in my blog post - the privileges of being a Wateraid person !

I will forever miss Wateraid and I can only thank all those who make this wonderful organisation for having provided me with this opportunity !

THE NEXT STATION IS OVAL - Part 2

But the most inspiring and enriching part of my life at WaterAid was the opportunity to meet with communities living in remote areas of their respective countries or in highly uninhabitable urban settlements. What was most inspiring about meeting them was how they saw hope for a better life, just because of access to water, sanitation and hygiene. 

There are several incidents that I can recount. There was a woman in Ethiopia who said that when she delivered her child during one of her routine 7 kms walk to fetch water by the wayside, for a fraction of a moment, she wondered if she should take the child home or the water as her three young children were waiting home for the water and she could not possibly carry both, the water and her new born kid ; an old and blind woman in Mali who had been living on the fringes of her village who said that her dignity had been restored because she now had access to water and threw aside her walking stick to sing and dance for us, just to appreciate our effort ; the nearly eighty year old blind woman chief in a village in Zambia who was delighted that once all houses had toilets, she had not seen a recurrence of diarrhoea or diarrhoeal deaths in her village ; of the bright teenager Dolly in the informal settlement in Korail, home to a million people in Dhaka who was running an enterprise with her young friends selling sanitary napkins and other itmes, who dreamed of a better education and career; of people living in an unauthorised slum in Kampala who said that they knew their rights and can negotiate with their municipalities; of a woman in Malawi who said that she wanted her children to know what rights are and how to hold their governments to account.

There were amazing leaders as well - the woman leader Jane in Accra, Ghana who transformed her neighbourhood with sanitation provision and was dedicated to pursue this even though she had lost a local election; a young couple who enthusiastically promoted ecosan in Malawi as means to promote better agriculture; of wheelchair user Amrita in Nepal who poignant story of her struggle with accessing education and basic facilities like sanitation reverberated through the conference venue in Kathmandu during the South Asian Conference on Sanitation ! And even some gender stereotypes that were challenged as in the case of a male teacher in Uganda who actively got adolescent boys to be engaged with promoting menstrual hygiene.

For that, I will forever be indebted to our various partner organisations, over 500 of them, who connected us to these communities through their programmes. Many of the partner staff belonged to the local communities and hence had a very strong rapport with them. Their knowledge of the lives, the culture, the traditions and the local history was so enriching and informative ! Most partners worked in very challenging circumstances - faced with hostile environments, inaccessible communities, poor infrastructure, difficultly in recruiting and retaining staff - yet, they chose to persevere and make progress !

Of course, there was lots of dancing and singing as well, which was part of the visits to communities, as their way of wholeheartedly welcoming visitors to their village. So whether it was Tanzania or Malawi or Burkina Faso, dancing was an absolute must - of course, I was always high on enthusiasm and low on talent ! Or the memorable experience in Timor Leste when a group of three middle aged women accompanied us all throughout our village visit playing the local musical instruments - a version of a girl band ! Nigeria always had to do things in a very special way. I was quite overwhelmed (and slightly embarrassed) with a couple of formal and rather grand welcomes that had been organised with professional dancing troupes who performed traditional dances from various parts of the country. One country where I did not dare to dance much was Ethiopia - it was too difficult to try any of their body moves without risking serious neck and back injuries ! My comfort zone was obviously in India, singing and dancing to Bollywood tunes !!!


(To be concluded....)

THE NEXT STATION IS OVAL - Part 1

'The next station is Oval' - the announcement on the tube was the one that I was used to for several years now. And as was my habit, I opened my bag to put back my copy of The Economist. Nothing unusual about that - but that, it was rather unusual. Though I had my copy of The Economist and even as I read articles and flipped the pages, my mind was elsewhere. There was a sense of surrealism about that day, that travel, that announcement - which, on that day, seemed to have a ring of finality about it, a definiteness, a finiteness. And it had to be - that was my last day with WaterAid after over a decade working and operating out of itsVauxhall office. 

As I got out of the tube, that one last time when I would go up on the escalator as a WaterAid employee and out of the tube station, I glanced at the 'Thought of the Day' at the Oval station, the plants, the books and stepped out to a rather bright and warm summer day. And as I started making my way, slowly, and a tad reluctantly to my last day with WaterAid, I thought of that rather cold and grim February morning of 2005 when I landed at Heathrow to join the London office of WaterAid after my one month induction with the Delhi office. I had a small temporary accommodation arranged by my colleague Oliver Jones at Wimbledon. By that afternoon, I was making my way to Vauxhall, having boarded the Waterloo bound South West trains to Vauxhall, walked up to the Prince Consort House to report. And what a journey it had been since then !

Crossing the pedestrian crossing at the main entrance to the historic Oval cricket stadium, I walked past it, and glanced to peer through the gates to see the lush outfield and the pitch, which was covered - again, a routine that I had got used to. And today, I knew I will be missing this walk past the iconic cricket stadium !

There was so much that I did during this decade that I had not done before. With a canvas stretching across sub Saharan Africa and South Asia, I had the remit of 22 countries, all of which I had the privilege of visiting (except Lesotho) at least once, and in some cases, 4-5 times. I had travelled to our offices in America, Australia and Sweden. I had also visited Timor Leste which was managed by our Australian office. In addition, work had taken me to Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland and Portugal. I was travelling to most of these countries for the first time, but more importantly, I had the opportunity to travelling to the interiors of many of those countries and see the real country, going beyond the state capital, a true lesson in culture and people and history. I had probably logged over a million miles in the air during this period and thousands of miles on road and some miles even by boats, not to forget the unique experience of travelling by a sea plane in Bangladesh  !

I had done some extra ordinary things - meeting the Presidents of Mali and Liberia, senior ministers in most of the African and Asian countries I had visited, civil society leaders, heads of international organisations, senior corporate leaders. I had the opportunity of meeting Prince Charles on three occasions, and seated next to him for a dinner on one occasion. I had met the Queen in the Buckingham Palace, and been to a garden party as well at the Palace. I had spoken at the UN on two occasions and on one of them, I had shared the panel with the Secretary General himself. I had met several tribal chiefs in some African countries. I also had some interactions with some celebrities and sports stars. All these were part of my regular work. 

Never before had I done a TV interview and here I was, being interviewed by CNN in their studios, live, during prime time news. And then there were others with BBC World and Sky as well to follow (one with Al Jazeera did not materialise !). There were many others, including an interview in Johnnesburg in the studios of SABC TV and a live radio show in Liberia. 

(To be concluded......)