Sylvia's Journal

We celebrated our 2nd re-birthday as Sallie Craig calls it with a dinner at a lovely Afghan restaurant. Eight people came along to celebrate with us, all of them lodged in MSH guesthouses, most of them colleagues from Boston and DC. We toasted with real beer and wine – a treat – and were served a sequence of small courses with several Afghan delicacies. We were sitting outside in a lovely garden, walled off from the busy town center by high walls. We could have been in the country side. Wood fires in large braziers both lit and warmed us as night fell. In back of me large and well manicured bushes of weed separated the garden from the restaurant’s veranda.

Earlier in the day we had paid a visit to the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, an organization that commissions and publishes research about all aspects of Afghanistan’s society and reconstruction. We were like kids in a candy store and helped ourselves to all sorts of publications to deepen our understanding of what is happening here.

On our way back we stopped at one of the supermarkets that cater to foreigners and paid about 50 dollars for a small shopping basket with essentials such as shampoo, toothpaste, a Japanese tea kettle, some tissues, a kilo of dried mulberries, chai and tissues. For that amount of money we could have bought some exquisite old jewelry, rugs or wall hangings on Chicken Street. Now we know that we should stay away from imported goods if we can (or import them ourselves).

Back in the office, still empty because of all the travelers, we settled in for real work. For Axel that meant sorting out how to survive in an office (and electronic) environment that is dominated by Windows users. Connecting to the internet at our guesthouse requires some special software (or a new computer). As a Macintosh user he is a minority here.

I had my first meeting as a member of the senior management team; unofficially, because I am not yet approved in my new position by the US government powers that be. Those powers are extremely busy sorting out the on-the-ground implications of the revamped US strategy in Afghanistan, led by powerful figures in the Obama administration. Things are definitely going to change here and people are gearing up. We are not sure what to gear up for, except for an enormous influx of people coming to implement this strategy, accompanied by the necessary cash. For some Afghans this will mean employment and survival; for others it will be the opposite.