Sylvia's Journal

We can no longer see clearly through our windows because winter plastic has been nailed to all of them, except the windows that we want to open – to let fresh air in and diesel fumes out. We can see whether it is nice or not but shapes are a little blurred.

We think it was Eid today but we are still not sure. Many shops were closed but then again, it is Friday, and they would have been anyways. We did go for our customary walk around the school tracks and then stopped for French pastries, for with the coffee, with lunch and after dinner. I spent about half of a low ranking government employee’s monthly salary on pastries. The only redeeming factor about this luxury purchase is that the money goes to educating Hazara kids, aside from tasting really good.

We had Douglas and Paul over for dinner. Paul just returned from France and brought a bottle of wine along, something we think normal back in Manchester, but here such a gesture is an indescribable treat.

Paul has been for ever in Afghanistan and knows about the various tribes, rulers, allegiances and what not; information that is hard to absorb for us newcomers. Everyone is embedded in these old tribal relationships which define one’s alliances, enemies, trustworthiness, etc. I listen to all this while trying to understand opinions I have heard about this one and that one in this new perspective. It is not entirely new because I have been reading about all this, but it is a tangle of names and geographies that are hard to retain.

We sat around the table for hours, making a good dent into the food-for-five-days that was prepared by our cook, as well as the French pastries and of course finishing the wine. For once we did not all sit in our respective rooms watching our computer screens, or the 300 channels of bad TV.