Sylvia's Journal

Axel and I started our day fasting for the lab test portion of our physical. We need to have a certificate of good health for our new post. This is a good idea when you move to Kabul. For serious healthcare, if you can afford it, you fly to Dubai or Bangkok; for lesser ailments you go to India or Pakistan. You try not to get care in Kabul.

The excitement of the day was having our septic system pumped out for the umpteenth time this year; now we can go to the bathroom, take showers, and wash our clothes again without guilt. The system fills up with water from higher up neighbors which flows down to us. The horrendous rains this spring and summer don’t help. No one could have imagined this situation when some hundred years ago the pipes were laid on this estate. As it got cut up and increasingly large septic systems were installed the drainage system was damaged. Everyone is doing his own thing and things don’t add up anymore.

All through the day I was calculating time differences to try to pinpoint Maria Pia, Said and Wafa on the world map as they are making their way to her old and their new home in Cambridge. I am trying to imagine what it must be like for Wafa and Said to fly further and further away from everything they have always known to this fantasy world that is called America. I picture diminutive Wafa sitting in the wide business class seat, being served food that he cannot recognize, offered wine and treated like royalty by sollicitous flight attendants. About Said I have no doubt that he has stolen everyone’s heart. A few of us have already fallen for his charms.

Andrew came by in the evening to catch up on our news and press us to find a small opening in our busy schedule to come to Small Point before we leave. There is another request from San Diego. I am not making any commitments until I know how the shoulder surgery next week will turn out and once I know the dates for my trip to Ghana that has to happen before the end of August.

We showed our captive audience (Andrew, Tessa and some of her friends) pictures Axel had taken from a moving car with dirty windows, showing, quite literally, glimpses of Kabul. Everyone was quite patient with us. In the middle of the show our new neighbors Stephen and Isabella showed up, out for a late evening stroll from the other side of Masconomo Street. We met them at Quaker meeting on Sunday – imagine that, two couples from Masconomo Street in our tiny meeting.

Between the five of us there were only 1 or 2 degrees of separation with several other people with whom they share one connection or another. They are musicians and artists who moved up from Washington. Isabella teaches meditation, chanting and also happens to be a Reiki Master. She offered to accompany me to surgery for a pre- and post Reiki session to help jumpstart my recovery. I think I will take her up on that.