Sylvia's Journal

We skipped the weekly walk around the Habibia high school in order to meet with Pia and Margaret at the Kabul coffee house on the other side of town. The place reminded both of us of the Green Street hotel that we stayed in 31 years ago. If it was the same, they had gotten rid of the marihuana plants in front of the rooms.

We had real lattes and chocolate croissants, sitting outside on the terrace in the warm sun as if it was early September rather than the middle of November. Margaret helped Axel network into another community of expats with more names and places for his increasingly crowded mindmap.

At noontime we made our way to the apartment of our administrative coordinator, her husband and their two young sons. The husband is very senior in the ministry of health but you wouldn’t be able to tell from their very simple living arrangement – a fifth floor walk up in a rundown apartment complex that is only stone’s throw away from the US embassy compound.

We found our hostess in a glittery red shalwar kameez, as if dressed for a wedding, on her haunches in the kitchen, cooking a meal on the floor as I have seen people cooking at their village homes in Bangladesh and Nepal. It is amazing what wonderful meals emerge out of such kitchens. We were received in the salon with western furniture before taking our places in the dining room Afghan style with mattresses lining the wall and a plastic table cloth on the carpet that served as our table.

On our way back we shopped at one of the international supermarkets which is already selling christmas stuff (Rudolph ears and battery-operated nose), right next to the Fourth of July supplies.

The rest of this rest day was spent finishing writing my chapter for the Third Culture Kids book in order to meet the November 15 dropdeadline. We celebrated the accomplishment of this and other good things with colleagues and friends from guesthouse zero in a Thai restaurant. It was filled with the fumes but not the heat of diesel stoves, a minor annoyance for which we compensated with a real Heineken and wine and some good hot food.

I could use another weekend day but I have meetings all day at the ministry tomorrow, which means the weekend is already over.