Sylvia's Journal

In Dari the place I am staying at is called hotel sifr (zero) or hotel yak (one), That is what the drivers call on their radio when they approach the house because the guards have to open the gate so there is no idling in front of the house; a security measure. I am still not sure which of the two houses in our compound is Guesthouse Zero and which is Guesthouse One. If I stayed in hotel zero last time I must now be staying in hotel one; or it is the other way around.

My evening and morning routines in the guesthouse are now well established – it took a while to do so as I was learning how to make best use of all that was available to me. After dinner I fill the rubber bladder that I brought from home with hot water and put it inside my bed. That way it has a few hours to warm the bottom of my bed where my toes will be.

I bring a thermos from the kitchen and some bags of green tea. The Thermos bottle is made in Japan; unlike the large and often garishly decorated and colored Chinese thermos flacons that are ubiquitous in developing countries, this one is reserved and subdued in its colors and decoration. According to the label at the bottom of the thermos, the color is ‘cacao herb,’ an undefined tan color. Three messages, written in very small print and thus easily overlooked bring the user some good advice. Nobody in the house had noticed them. Two of the messages, marked by a large letter G and F say that we should enjoy working in the garden and put fresh flowers in our house. The third has a stylized picture of a flower and sums up the other two: Live beautifully together with herbs. The two kinds of thermos flacons entirely capture the national character of these two different nations, as least as I have experienced them. The adjectives I have heard the Chinese use to describe the Japanese and vice versa could also describe these insulated bottles that keep our water warm.

I drink many cups of jasmine green tea at night. According to the package, this tea ‘reduces stress, depression and headaches and stimulates metabolism and the calorie burning process.’ I am also assured that the tea has no side effects. All this is good since I am eating here more and differently from what I am I used to. I leave enough hot water in the cacao herb bottle for the morning to warm my hands while blogging and checking mail. It helps with the increasingly unpleasant task of getting up in the morning. The cold invades my room during the night when there is nothing to hold it at bay other than my 25 pounds of Chinese blankets.

After writing and checking my mail I wrap myself in a warm blanket, put my slippers on and cross the yard to take a shower in the downstairs bathroom of the other house where the water is hotter, the pressure stronger and the tank bigger.

For breakfast, unless it is his day off, our housekeeper puts everything on the table that could possible be consumed during breakfast. Every day he puts things out that nobody touches. It is all about routines. We have a choice of jams and jellies that come from Greece, Turkey and Pakistan, peanut butter from America, honey from Australia and various Kellogg’s products, Familia Muesli, leftovers from last night’s desert, cookies, yoghurt, a bowl of fruit, a bowl of hard boiled eggs, brown European bread and naan (local bread), milk and a variety of juices from Europe. The Special K box reminds us that ‘Every woman wants to be admired in that special way’ and then gives us advice on how to get the shape that would have us admired. Of course this includes eating lots of Special K. Steve has been eating the stuff for months but it doesn’t work for him. You have to be a woman.