Sylvia's Journal

MP left before I woke up and the house is a little empty without her. I had breakfast with Janneke who decided to move into guesthouse across the yard in the large and airy room that MP just vacated. Although it is our weekend, everyone is planning to spend most of the day working. Only Steve and I have planned an interruption: he for a haircut and I for a lunch with two young Afghan women I met in Dhaka in December.

Sabera has invited me for lunch to her house. She is employed as a midwife by a sister organization of MSH and also in charge of communication of the Afghan Midwifery Association. There are about 2000 or so midwives in this country where men cannot assist in births and so the numbers need to increase a lot.

Sabera says she doesn’t like to do clinical work because basic supplies are lacking and babies and mothers die because of that – so it can be a very sad profession. Instead she works on policy and programmatic aspects of midwifery education in Afghanistan. Sabera’s fellow midwife Victoria, who was also in Dhaka and who I thought resembled Nuha (Nuha disagreed) is a practicing midwife at one of the hospitals in Kabul – she’s joining us for lunch as well.

Although Sabera’s house is not that far from ours, the MSH driver could not find it. There are no street names (and even if there were, they tend not to be used). As a result it took awhile to get there, with the driver calling Sabera on my cell phone every few hundred yards for progressive instructions.

I loved being lost in the popular neighborhood with its one-storied houses and tiny shops. I would have liked to get out and walk around and poke my nose around the high mud-brick walls to see the gardens hidden behind them but all that is forbidden by our security men, so I feast my eyes and hope we stay lost a bit longer.

Sabera’s house is enormous. Scaffolding surrounds the front of the house where workmen are redoing the brickwork on the façade. Apparently this is the third time in three years this is done and each time, in spite of having bought the most expensive materials, the bricks disintegrate or fall down. It had not occurred to me that you could be killed in Kabul because of bricks falling from a house rather than a gunshot or a bomb. Everyone thinks this is very funny.

We talk about (what else) what it is like to be a young woman in Afghanistan (frustrating) and what they are doing to change this. Sabera’s older sister, also in public health, joins us. She is doing research about traditional practices in rural areas that harm women and children. She has some gruesome tales about wife abuse – all in the name of honor – that can only be classified as torture in my book, even more legal than water boarding.

The law that the President has signed into law is a big step back for Afghan women. Although there is some confusion about the exact wording of the law, it is believed to contain articles that force a woman to obtain her husbands’ permission to leave the house, prohibit work, education or visits to the doctor without him, and essentially legalize rape within marriage. Despite much protest from around the world it seems like it’s a done deal. My hostesses are outraged about it; but when even the female parliamentarians feel powerless to stop this, what can you do?

To cheer them out of their depression at this prospect I talk about the fading Y chromosome and that its days are counted. It makes us all feel good for a moment even though 100.000 years has a lot of days in it and a lot of mischief can be done to women during that time.

Lunch is served on the ground on top of a plastic tablecloth that is spread out over thick carpets. We sit on carpeted cushions that line the walls and enjoy dishes of saffron rice, Kabuli pilau, salad, vegetables and a delicious Iranian dish with tender meat and cooked greens and beans. And while we eat everyone is helping me expand my Dari vocabulary.

The trip back to the guesthouse is short and straight. Time to go back to work and cross more tasks off my list until Maureen from Canada shows up. We were here together last November and we have some catching up to do. She is joining me in guesthouse 0. For dinner we are four again as MP’s place is now taken by Maureen.