We are getting one 10+ day after another, as if Mother Nature wants to apologize for the month of June when it was only summer in name. We are spending time at the beach, hanging out with our new neighbors, playing with Chicha, and reading. Axel attempted water color again but that got interrupted, a common occurrence. There is so much to do that it takes a lot of will power to just sit at the beach and relax.
The moment I step inside my office I am confronted with a jumble of stuff that divides roughly into three piles: ship to Kabul, move back into the living room, leave here but consolidate and pack up. In addition, a constant surge of emails from Kabul is spilling into my mailbox. There is no long weekend there; everyone is at work; the new week started on Sunday morning and Alain has arrived. This produces an additional flurry of activities and even more emails. I am not responding to any and tell myself that this is OK because it is Labor Day weekend.
I went to Quaker meeting by myself, in the car rather than on the bike. I suppose I could have tried biking with one arm but decided it would be too risky. Only 8 people showed up and so it was a rather still meeting. At the end I said goodbye to Gabrielle, one of our eldest members. She is getting increasingly frail and when I embraced her so say goodbye I suspected we both knew it might be the last time we see each other.
Gabrielle is from Germany and sometimes reminds me of my mom. She came to the US during the war when she was a young woman. Once or twice we have talked about that time but she mostly keeps that period of her life to herself. She never speaks in meeting because, as she told me once, if she were to speak she could only do it in German and that would be useless. I could not convince her that no one would mind and that I could then practice my German again, but she has remained still, except when she falls asleep; I gently touch her to bring her back.
Tessa, Steve and two of their friends showed up with all the requirements for a cook out on the beach. We have a pit that Axel dug out earlier next to a large granite uprising out of the sand. Over the years it has seen some big fires and it is cracked all over but it remains a great natural cooking place.
A campfire needs an instrument and so I had practiced my ukulele chords in the afternoon and was ready for some singing but no one joined in. I think it is because I play rather haltingly. I need more practice so I can slide from one chord to the next without changing tempo. Still, I can now play the chords of Oh Susanna, Goodbye Ladies and more; and I can certainly accompany myself. I will perfect it in Kabul with my house mate Steve who loves to sing, traveling there not with a banjo but with a ukulele on my back.
Axel and I switched from the outdoor fire to the indoor fire that we now light every evening and sometimes even in the morning. It’s lovely and heats the downstairs in no time thanks to an ingenuous fan system. We will miss it this coming winter.
Sylvia's Journal 
Hello to you Sylvia and Axel! I so hope you will look into the enclosed website of Luke Powell. He is a brilliant photographer and must love both the people and Afghanistan countryside (as his photos readily depict). i would love to have an email address to send you a series of his photos that I hold on to (taken in Kabul)they are so fine! – Deborah G.
Welcome to Luke Powell – Photographs
It is important for those living in the industrial world to develop an appreciation for cultures that are sustainable, to learn to see beauty and survival in a world where people walk, live in daily contact with animals, raise their own food, pray, and live in families. Such people have as much to teach us as we have to teach them.
On-Line Exhibitions:
Afghanistan, 1970s
The Afghan Folio (32)
Herat (33)
Kandahar (30)
The Dog Fights (9)
Kabul (25)
Maimana (64)
Afghanistan, 2000
Taliban Afghanistan (76)
Badakshan and the Panjsheer (63)
Afghanistan, 2001-2
Refugee Camps at Chaman (30)
Bamiyan (70)
Mazar (55)
Olak (8)
Returning IDPs (8)
Afghanistan, 2003
Pul-i-Kumri, Quail Fights (44)
Kunduz (28)
Khanabad (12)
Taliqan (15)
Faizabad (24)
Dara-i-Suf (9)
Sholgara (13)
Balkh (39)
Faryab (56)
Afghan Schools, 2003 (88)
Return to Bamiyan (56)
Folari (14)
Band-i-Amir (35)
Chaghcheran (73)
Adrascan (52)
Farah (31)
Return to Herat (65)
Around Herat (30)
Ghazni (14)
Jalalabad (20)
Return to Kabul (60)
Returning Afghans (32)
The previous chapters are photo essays.
Italics indicates more raw information,
less art, stories or groups of photographs
on a similar themes mounted so that people
who need pictures on that subject can easily
find what they need. Some pictures are repeated
from the earlier photo essays.
Demining 2000 (72)
Government Transition, 2001 (26)
UXO BLUes, 2001 (47)
Trips to the Grave of Masood (16)
Women in Afghanistan
Emma in Afghanistan (7)
International Women’s Day (22)
Wearing Burkas (26)
Refugees (32)
Internally Displaced Persons – IDPs (16)
Girls and Young Women (46)
School (25)
Bakery (20)
Pakistan (new, more chapters coming soon)
Peshawar (19)
The Vale of Swat (44)
Landscapes Exhibition
The Hills of Palestine (8 or 104)
Islands in the Nile (8)
Ceylon, In the Clouds (8)
The Way to Zanscar (8)
Vermont (18)
Museum Exhibit Schedule
Technical Notes
Links to Other Internet Sites
This site is now hosted by the University of Nebraska at Omaha, home of The Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Hi Deborah, thanks for this reference. I will look him up on the internet.