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What I said last week about not being devastated?

I was incorrect.



In other news, it is raining again here, a little early for the late rains, but too late for rainy season. It's pleasantly cool after the rain; the grey clouds, having wept themselves dry, slip into the distant and ever-present mountain mists, and the dusty earth drinks up the water like a promise. Half-naked kids run through the downpour screaming with laughter and in the office we shut our laptops with an air of finality as the internet crashes.

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Raj has taken the HIV line management load off me, leaving me free to concentrate on creating training content for clinical and managerial training. I miss the team but I am grateful for the extra time this frees up -incidentally for work that I find enjoyable and meaningful. I might muse about some of the learning points from this process along the way. 

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I might as well speak directly of it: Raj and I had a difficult conversation about our exit strategy with our team this week. I trust the topic itself was not surprising- every NGO and certainly every malae needs an exit plan- but it's never pleasant to discuss, and the team took the news with wisdom and maturity.

Looking at the organisation as a whole, I can understand why most of our team think Raj and I should be around a little longer. We've had the benefit of more years in healthcare and more technical knowledge in some areas than they have. 

But there are also definitely things they do better than us, initiatives they've already started, directions they will take the organisation in that are wiser and more fit for purpose than we can envision. Perhaps part of me knows that the true test of one's leadership is whether your mates will take up the work when you have to lay it down.


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