Sylvia's Journal

This morning I am taking two pills that match my clothes: a yellow one with multiple vitamins for general maintenance. It matches the color of my Afghan shalwar kameez. The other one is exactly the same color blue as the tiny embroidery stitches on my dress. That one is to fight the inflammation in my recovering arm and shoulder. I am so very fashionable!

I was woken up in the middle of the night by a sound I did not recognize. It turned out to be my 2nd cellphone that very few people call. I had our New York based pension fund institution on the line with a chipper lady who had not made the calculation of the time difference, despite multiple emails. Something has gone awry in the transfer of my 403(b) fund into our new 401(k) company sponsored pension fund and the monies, a significant amount saved up over years, had gone missing. Setting this right from Afghanistan is hard. I spent the hours from midnight to 1:30 AM trying to do this. Because of a different kind of security concerns than the ones I have here, both institutions refuse to deal with anyone else but me. It is infuriating, especially since the stock market has been climbing, which otherwise would have been a good thing. I am not sure the issue has been resolved and there may be more midnight interruptions I fear.

I am now being quoted on an eco-tourism website that talks about Afghanistan. Imagine that! Reading it filled my heart with longing, the kind of longing I am sure many people here have. Looking at the pictures of Bandi Amir and Bamiyan, I remember those spots and wished I could invite people to come and visit us and go see these places. Actually, people here do, but I wouldn’t invite anyone to come from afar. Axel and I certainly hope to go there ourselves when spring comes around.