Sylvia's Journal

Axel was not well enough to go to Dari school this morning so I took his place. The lessons are given in a nondescript house in our neighborhood, a low profile operation. It is within walking distance but we are not allowed to walk and instead drive there in a roundabout way because the car cannot cross all the open gutters between our house and the school.

Inside, the school is a well organized outfit with tiny class rooms, all heated by small diesel and wood stoves and pots of tea always available. After each hour the housekeeper rings a small bell and the students appear from behind closed doors to huddle around the stoves with a cup of tea in their hands.

There were Susan and Robert from the international school, an older couple. Susan lived here as a child and we discovered we have a common acquaintance, someone else who lived here as a child; a young woman from Canada who has worked for over a year with a women’s education organization where no English is spoken and has taken some time off to catch up on grammar. Another young woman from Colorado is doing the 6 week (daily) intensive.

I had two different female teachers, one hour with each. You can request various programs depending on why you are learning Dari. I choose conversation. We asked each other the kinds of questions women ask each other: married, children, house, work, etc. I tried to answer in my best Dari. I realized that I have entered a new level when I dreamed in Dari sentences and woke up with Dari words on my tongue. This was probably triggered by my dinner immersion from last night. I can now have a simple conversation, however imperfect, with an adult speaker who speaks slowly (not with a child). This was the goal I set for myself by December 31. It looks like I on track.

The rest of the day was catching up on work that I have been pushing ahead of me into the weekend. The weekend is nearly over and there is no room to push the work any further because of deadlines, especially since the week that starts tomorrow is the last full week before our departure.

One of the deadlines was a proposal for the Organization Behavior Teaching Conference in new Mexico, next June; the title of my proposal is ‘More than Money and Arms.’ The wish I sent along with that proposal is that it gets accepted and my boss and I attend together; this requires he gets a visa which, for older Afghan males, is a major stumbling block. Incha’allah, they say here, if God wants it, it will happen.