Sylvia's Journal

We had breakfast at the Pelican restaurant around the corner. I skipped the eggs and ordered a platter of French pastries.

We could still sit in the warm winter sun outside, and I munched on my pastries while watching the construction crew next door slap wet cement on the side of the house. Axel and I did not think it looked like a very trustworthy building technique, but Hans from Holland who is an architect told us that it is pretty common and not something to worry about. Still, we are glad it is not our house.

We walked around the Habibia athletic field until a police chief with a big gun in his hand chased us away. We don’t quite know what was going on but we understood the gesture. Everyone is still a bit jittery from the events of the last few weeks and our security people decided that we should not go to Chicken Street since it was too much of a routine.

We piled into the car, three Dutch and three Americans, and headed into Shari Nao. We visited two lovely places that sold exquisite Afghan handicraft: textiles, clothes, rugs, pillows, calligraphy, woodwork, blankets, scarves, etc. It was easy to drop a lot of money in no time. We came in with dollars and left with four large pillows that made piling back into the car a bit of a challenge.

Axel bought a signed copy of Nancy Dupree’s book ‘Afghanistan over a cup of tea,’ and then discovered that she was actually on the premises. I soon found her chatting with Axel in the store’s office about idealism, misguided actions and the marketing Afghan handicraft. Nancy, referred to as Afghanistan’s grandmother, and her husband Louis met in Afghanistan in 1960s. The book chronicles their lives against the backdrop of the wild history of Afghanistan’s last 50 years.

Lunch was Japanese Bento style with barley tea which made me think of Chris back in Cambridge and the barley tea she brought us after the accident. I am sure it was medicinal.

By the time lunch was finished the sun was setting and the cold returned. There are two climates here, a day time one that is pleasant and warm and a night time one that is cold and harsh. I am told that soon the two will merge and it will be cold all the time.

And now two-thirds of our long weekend is over and I am running out of time to do my Dari homework. I have to learn all the verbs that start with the letter A, about 30 of them. This include typing them out in a Dari word file which I am to send to my teacher as proof that I am studying.

The new pillows are a nice addition to our living room, inviting us to lounge around and not doing my homework.