So if there's one thing that I could say

Read about the main lesson I have learned from facilitating a writeshop to synthesize mountains of data and reports into a 50-p report involving multiple authors: identify the key messages.

One thing
Stan Walker, From the inside out, Sony music entertainment

Photo: LSE Library

'S marvelous! 'S awful nice! 'S paradise!

The Nairobi Music Society gave its Christmas concert beginning of December with the Nairobi Orchestra. I was singing in the choir. Here are my three highlights from the concert:

Marvelous

In the Ceremony of carols by Britten there is an interlude for solo harp when the choir was allowed to sit down to rest. I sat in a choir pulpit right in front of the harpist and was enthralled by the graceful movement of her hands on the instrument.

Awfully nice

In the Benedicite by Carter we were all charmed by the excellent diction of the children’s choir that sang with us. Despite standing from behind, we still managed to understand the delightful story of all the terrapins, dromedaries, ferrets, squirrels, badgers and hedgehogs that bless the Lord.

Paradise
Throughout most of the concert a small girl kept dancing at the other end of the church from us, framed by the main West door. It was a very poetical and danced interpretation of our live singing.

These are some of the wonderful things that can happen at a concert by the Nairobi Music Society.

'S wonderful

Sarah Vaughan, Gershwin brothers, 'S marvelous - the Gershwin songbook (Disk 2), Universal music division classics jazz

Photo: Garry Wilmore

Said goodbye, turned around, and you were gone, gone, gone

I was thrilled last Sunday when I bumped into an old friend completely by chance.

I was in Hanoi for work and my collaborator Nguyen Thi Tan Loc from the Fruit and Vegetable Research Institute took me out for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant. She probably wanted to give a rest to her stomach in preparation for the straining eating bonanza of the lunar new year next week.

And there in that very small restaurant of the Vietnamese capital was Marilyn Wang, having lunch with a friend of hers. I had lost track of Marilyn four years ago.

I had met Marilyn in 2002 when I was doing research in Ho Chi Minh City. Marilyn was a great food and music companion of mine: we regularly went out to restaurants, concerts, salsa dancing and had karaoke evenings to sing together. We used to have lots of fun. The last text message I got from her in 2010 was a bit surreal. I was on the top of a mountain peak on her family's ancestral Hainan province of China with my brother so I texted her to announce our climbing feat. She replied informing me that she was leaving Vietnam. I asked her to keep in touch but no more news since then...


So we were both overjoyed to find each other again. Unfortunately, we did not get the chance to speak much this time because we were both busy with others but I really look forward to my next trip to Hanoi for great food and music together with her.

See you again
Carrie Underwood, Blown away, Arista

Photo: Dave 77459

Bring me flesh and bring me wine

I am ending a week spent in Oxford. It has been chilly but very fulfilling intellectually, musically and for my tummy.
 

I have interacted with many experts of participatory agricultural research.





I have listened to rowdy caroling in the streets of town, wonderful choir music during evensong at Christ Church Cathedral and a festive delight of early Western music by Poeticall Musicke.

I have enjoyed cooked breakfast and enormous puddings at the dining hall of Saint Anne's College.

Good King Wenceslas
Various artists, Carols from Oxford, The gift of music

Photo: Tejvan Pettinger

It's gonna take patience and time ... to do it right child

I was invited by my colleague Keith Child (pictured) to facilitate the monitoring, evaluation and learning planning meeting of a large research-for-development program. Read what I took out of it here.

Got my mind set on you
George Harrison, Cloud nine, EMI UK Beatles

I can hardly express my mixed emotions and my thoughtlessness

To read about three lessons I have learned from participating in a gender workshop, click here.

Woman
John Lennon, Double fantasy stripped down, Capital records

Photo: United Nations Photo

If you've got no place to go...

... for a long week end, consider Stockholm.

I have just spent three wonderful days discovering the capital of Sweden. I have come here for work but managed to come early so as to visit some of the city's landmarks, partake of some typical Swedish food and listen to music.

I arrived last Sunday morning and had already booked my ticket beforehand to go to the Royal Opera for Wagner's Parsifal: 5 hours and 30 minutes long! I was not sure I would actually be able to sit through the whole show having flown in from Nairobi the preceding night. I did yawn quite a few times but the show was riveting: singers' emotions were intense, the music equally so. I have to admit that I was lost in the first act: I had not studied the plot beforehand and my German was not good enough to follow everything that was being sung onstage. Wagner's lyrics are not meant for aria with da capo, so one only gets one chance to get the meaning of words. Subtitles in Swedish were unhelpful for me. But I still managed to receive the very intense emotions from the singers despite not knowing what was happening. I nonetheless went to buy the programme at the first interval and discovered an extremely complicated and mystical storyline.

The next day I enjoyed more music but in a completely different style. I spent two very gratifying hours in the brand new Abba museum. Lots of songs, lots of glitter: all the memorabilia of the Swedish pop group has been assembled in one place to understand what went on behind the scenes to deliver the Abba songs we love so much. I was definitely singing Abba tunes when leaving the premises.

As for the food, I concentrated on sampling fish because that is rather sparse in Nairobi. Cod, herring and salmon, usually in a butter sauce with a touch of egg, or mustard, or cream, and always some kind of fresh herbs as garnish. That's what I take away from Swedish cuisine after just three days. And of course, there is always a great selection of cakes on the buffet table. At Café Blå Porten next to the Abba museum, there was even a whole vat of home-made vanilla-flavoured whipped cream to scoop from...

Take a chance on me
Abba, Gold greatest hits, Polydor