How is it that all the tissue boxes are empty at the same time? A cosmic alignment of some sort? I have never been in a place where there are so many tissue boxes, one on every horizontal surface. How can they all be empty at the same time? These are the important matters with which I occupy myself after yet another 11 hour workday.
Working long days is easy when there is no one waiting at home and reading and thinking is pushed to the outer edges of the day because in between there are meetings and ceremonies to attend. Today there was another hajji vaccination photo op, this time with the minister and the US ambassador himself, the top man, as opposed to the other 3 ambassadors that our country has posted here.
On our way to the ministry I realized I had forgotten my ‘chadoor’ (or ‘doekje’ as we Dutch girls call it) – this of course was a problem given that I would be in the presence of excellencies, media and hajjis, and I don’t want to offend or distract from the importance of the photo op. And so we stopped by the side of the road and my boss jumped out and got me a small scarf, the one that gets knotted under one’s chin. It made me look like a Russian babouchka, but it did the trick and can now serve as a large handkerchief.
We listened to speeches while tea and cake was served by our own personnel that we had brought along for the occasion – an unusual form of technical assistance. When the ceremony was over the male and female vaccinators did their job (of vaccinating). I couldn’t see the poor hajjis, male and female, who had been carefully selected to get vaccinated in front of the excellencies with all the media in attendance, shooting (video) and snapping (pictures). All this news will appear in the invisible newspapers and on TV. It will bracket the not so heartwarming announcement from Karzai’s rival that he is pulling out of the race, leaving everyone wondering, what now?
In the meantime foreigners are being evacuated left and right as the aftershocks of the UN guesthouse attack ripple on. Unlike us, they are working and living in the area where the attacks took place and their headquarters are worried. These working and living spaces are far away from where we are ensconced in our ordinary looking houses that are blended into middle class neighborhoods. Our office complex is a good neighbor, not a magnet for dark forces as the downtown expat places are.
Our house is nearly fixed up, getting ready for Axel’s arrival. The wall to wall carpet has been installed, the walls painted (“Lemon Ice”), the security fortifications made, the blast film put on the windows, the new water heaters put in, wired for internet in every room, the wall in the back extended by another four feet and a safe haven under the stairs.
Today I had to select the material for the curtains and the tushaqs (the traditional mattresses that serve as couch, bed and dining room ‘chairs.’) The samples I was given to choose from were hideous, one even more than the other. I picked the least hideous two fabrics (still hideous in my book) that probably don’t go at all with the lemon ice paint on the wall, but I was in a hurry and the choice was presented as a life or death one. It is such a shame that in a place where the old furniture and textiles are beautiful beyond description I am to choose from such ugly things. At least it is not our permanent house for ever and we know there is a much more beautiful place waiting for our return.
Sylvia's Journal 
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