Sylvia's Journal

The attack on the center of Kabul was chilling and ineffective. It did create much chaos, traffic jams and few dead and wounded. Still, any death is one too many. There had been signals that something big was coming. My subconscious had registered these cues and, in the form of a hunch, started to surface yesterday as I was on my way to the ministry and then back after meetings there.

I ignore these hunches because what can you do? There is chatter about imminent attacks all the time and if I were to listen I better stay home which would make living here rather useless. So we continue to do what we are tasked to do, despite the absence of our minister and attacks like this.

Steve and I were the office top dogs in the absence of our Operations Manager and Chief of Party and so we received the security briefings, alerted our staff using phone messages and then returned to the work of the day. Life does go on.

I missed the first hour of my class because I couldn’t cross the main drag from the center to the parliament where more attacks were expected since there were still four of the 6 stolen armored vehicles missing. Darulaman avenue was lined once again with police but this time side streets were blocked and no one could get in our out of our compound.

One hour later the block was lifted and I was able to get to my Dari class for its second hour to concentrate on imperatives and sentences that begin with please and thank you.

For the evening we are told to stay at home. Not a great sacrifice given how comfy we are here with meals waiting and good company.

We are all tired and realize that the day has been full of stress. Axel cooked a great curry to make up for the stress and fright. Bedtime is early tonight. We hope we have put everyone’s mind at ease about our well being and now it’s time to put our own minds to rest.