Sylvia's Journal

Respiratory disease is a big problem in Afghanistan. Although mine is not acute it feels like my lungs are filled with dust. It reminds we of the period in Senegal when the Harmattan winds blow and everything is covered with a fine layer of dust all the time, no matter how much you clean. I wake up coughing several times a night and am struggling with something like a cold for the first time in many months. I hope the H1N1 flu has run its course because if it hasn’t, we are in trouble here.

The government resumes its work today but we have another day off (unless one works in the government or on something together, as some of my colleagues do). We went to the high school tracks which are not as well maintained as those at the German school. The uneven and over-watered terrain and the lack of shade trees made it less enjoyable. I think I got a mild case of sun stroke and it took me the rest of the day to recover. It was probably 35 degrees Celsius, much too hot for doing anything in the sun.

I showed Axel around on Chicken Street, taking him to my favorite places. We stayed away from buying, except for a birthday present for Tessa. We walked around a furniture place with exquisitely carved tables and chairs that took our breath away; figuratively because of the beauty and craftmanship of the traditional pieces and literally because of the Central Asia dust that is in and on everything. With this kind of furniture available it is hard to understand why people furnish their places with the large and ugly stuffed furniture that is so popular here. Modernity!

We returned home for a late lunch, leaving the others to buy more stuff on Chicken Street. I napped until it was time to go for our Thai massage. I don’t think Axel had ever had such a massage. The diminutive Thai masseuses use the leverage of their bodyweight to massage the various muscle groups. It can be a bit intense at times but it was exactly what the doctor prescribed. I think we are going to be frequent customers in that place.

In the evening we drove to Razia Jan’s place down the street. Razia is from the South Shore in Massachusetts and lives here in Kabul part of the time. She has founded a girl school in a village some 15 km outside Kabul which we hope to visit some time. She is also on staff of an NGO that supports women rug weavers and their families in Bamiyan, paying them fair market price for their rugs and marketing them in Kabul and in the US.

Razia told us her extraordinary life story which took a significant turn after 9/11. That event, in all its tragic consequences, also mobilized an unknown number of people, Afghan and non Afghan alike, into spectacular altruistic action that continues up to this day. In our short time here we have heard several such stories already.

Razia told us about her encounters with the men of the village where the school is located and her efforts to keep them from elbowing out the girls. This is a common problem all over Afghanistan. Men are used to serve themselves first, leaving the scraps for their women. When the men told her that boys needed to go to school rather than girls, they argued that boys are the backbone of the country. Razia answered that girls are the eyesight of the country and without the girls the men are blind. There is ample evidence for that all around us.

Razia had invited another Afghan-American woman, Wazmah, from New York. She is here for her doctoral thesis research on media, culture and communication. Wazmah’s film, Postcards from Tora-Bora, was shown during last year’s Afghan film festival. This annual event, now in its fourth year, happens to start today. Although Axel had spotted the website it contained no information about where; meeting Wazmah was fortuitous. It’s on our program for today, and maybe on Axel’s for the next few days.