Sylvia's Journal

It was nice to sleep in this morning. I had expected to be woken up by low flying helicopters but all was quiet, very quiet, in our neighborhood. Once of my staff members called me from the other side of town where there were gun fights, supposedly turf battles between the army and the police, nothing serious, given the rumors of AOG (armed opposition groups) threats that had been circulating.

It was a slow news days on our local TV station, with patriotic shots of bejewelled children in local dress and other traditional scenes filling the time between talk shows in Dari that we couldn’t follow, except for the occasional reference to words I do recognize, such as president, nation, country, and the equivalent of ‘so help me God.’

One of my staff came over to talk about his performance plan and his personal plans over the summer, after which I finished the other performance plans of people who report to me. It is an administrative activity that I have been spared most of my MSH career. In between all this I messed around with printers while the day slipped by and more emails messages slipped in from Boston which had a regular work day.

We had a nice outdoor lunch of leftovers and three kinds of pomegranate juice: made in Cyprus, made in UAE and made in Pakistan. Missing was the ‘made in Afghanistan’ which we think is because of the poppies that are more interesting to cultivate that these fruits. Such a shame.

We were sitting on the terrace soaking up the sun that was shining down from a perfectly blue sky. I would like to believe this to be symbolic for Karzai on his inauguration day – all clear – but I am afraid that the days and months ahead are more about opacity than clarity, no matter how hard Obama and Hillary are pushing.

To avoid a third meal of the same leftovers I had us invited at guesthouse zero that is currently occupied by two Americans, one Nepali and one Dutchman who lives in Namibia. The range of dishes in guesthouse zero is larger and the variety better. They even had pumpkin soup. Their cook makes the best soups and I want him to teach our cook how to make those, and the occasional cookies and pies. We don’t need much in terms of sweets because of the sweetest pomegranates that are abundant at this time of the year, even though they probably come from Pakistan.

In the evening I made Skype calls to KLM to get Axel on a plane with me when we fly from Boston to Amsterdam to Dubai and Kabul in the new year. For an astronomical number of miles and Euros I got him a seat next to me, and both of us confirmed to return on June 10, 2010. We assume that by then the project (and therefore my job) is not quite over and that this will be our second R&R, after our planned 30th wedding anniversary in the place where it all began, Beirut.