Sylvia's Journal

The office car took me to the neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan where MSH used to be housed when I was here 6 years ago. At that time you could walk up the hill, visit shops and restaurants pretty much as you pleased. Mirwais and I talked about the sadness of it all; how each time you hope it gets better and then it gets worse. We did this over a wonderful creamy pistacchio desert with a name I forgot, that was left for us by the invisible chef, at the end of a rainy and cold day. We started to work ourselves up into a depressed state as we got to discuss the arms industry and how there seems to always be money for arms but never for economic development, health or education. In Dubai, on my way to the airport, I had passed a large office building that proudly told the world it was from the ARMS group ltd. I don’t think it was an abbreviation. I sort of expected arms dealers to congregrate in Dubai but I didn’t expect to see a proud advertisement like that. Shouldn’t those people be ashamed?

My Thai massage experience was exquisite. I was led into the house, marked with a small sign that said Thai Salon, by a small Irishman who I could hardly understand, but better than any of the Thai women who worked and lived there. Over the phone she had told me to go to street 15 in Wazir Akbar Khan and then look for, what I understood to be Lin Fai Lev. I had expected this to be a landmark, may be a Chinese-Jewish restaurant . The Irish man later repeated to me the exact same instructions: Lane 5, left.

I was led into a small basement room closed by curtains, made by the same manufacturer, I think, as the one who made our curtains in Guest House Zero. The massage table was large and sturdy and later I found out why. Not those elegant lightwood tables with headrests I am familiar with. One curtain further a British gentleman gets his weekly fix.

The background music to my massage is not the New Age stuff I associate with massage places in the US. No, here it is music from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Hollies (all I need is the air that I breathe), R.E.M, Sonny & Cher and other great music from my younger years; the second time today.

The two women talked to each other through the curtains, in incomprehensible Thai. There was lots of laughing, interspersed by the occasional slap-slap of a large muscle group. I had the daughter while my neighbor had the mother.

When she climbs on the table and begins to lean onto me with increasing pressure I am grateful I am with the daughter and I pity the Brit. I have to temper her enthusiasm when she gets to my bad foot, but otherwise it was a most wonderful massage. I never had a Thai massage done by a Thai, only by Abi. It is a little different but I’d have another one, either type, anytime.

When I walked out on the street I had the same dilemma again of not knowing which car is there for me. I approached the wrong car, again. I went back inside and waited for a signal that my car had arrived and killed the time by reading more of Fred Hartman’s book and some of his very touching stories about Afghan women needing but not getting proper healthcare. Ten minutes later my driver and body guard showed up and took me home.

The massage was sandwiched in between about 6 hours of work; not quite the weekend experience I had hoped. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go rowing at Guest House 26 and then have a beer for a treat.