Sylvia's Journal

We couldn’t tell whether they were practicing for rugby or football – Afghan men, some in traditional clothing, doing warm up exercises that I have only seen thick-necked Americans do.

After work, now that the weather is nice, some of the men (never women) play sports in the grassy field that belong to the office compound. There is a volleyball/badminton net. Or you can simply run around the perimeter, or shuffle as the case maybe in, in exercise clothes or suit and tie.

MP and I watched the action with one of our colleagues and our conversation veered off into other directions – there is so much to learn for me about this country and there are so many sources of information, expertise and then endless stories; about the time of the Russians, the Mujahideen, the Taliban and whoever is in charge now of one piece or another of the territory. I am reading Barnett Rubin’s The Fragmentation of Afghanistan and recognize Djengis Khan’s Y chromosomes busily at work propagating themselves in the region.

Last night Said and Wafa came to visit and say goodbye to us; another colleague, Douglas, from guesthouse 32, joined us and we had a good time sitting around the big table, telling stories. All the people here, whether they are Afghans or foreigners, have the most amazing collections of stories. The prize-winning story was from Douglas who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 60s in the Philippines and told us about the most bizarre burial rituals. He had to wait until everyone had finished eating. It involved oozing bodies that were tied  up into balls and thrown around by bare-chested young men as if it was a basket ball game.

MP and I finally secured appointments for a Thai massage, just in time before MP’s departure on Saturday. We also made plans to visit the poor Afghani pig that has been quarantined in the Kabul zoo but with the recent US-caused deaths in Western Afghanistan we think it is better to keep a low profile this weekend.

I have shifted the focus of my attention to internal matters in the project – mostly orchestrating conversations, here too, to connect the system to itself – it is a bit of a theme, everywhere.

The first rose is out and the grapes are growing like crazy.