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.
Sylvia's Journal 
Jeez. sook and I are sitting next to each other riding the commuter train into North Station. Boy do we feel as though we’re on another galaxy … far, far away.
What qualifies as so-called news for us? That we bought about ttwenty pounds of local shrimp (to which Axel introduced us), that we pigged out for a couple nights in a row with guests, and that we decided we liked sauteeing them with a blend of garlic, chili, and ginger?
A wet, sloppy snowstorm yesterday — Martin Luther King day, so a three day weekend. High point in our mild, safe lives, apart from shrimp recipes? Going birding, seeing buffleheads and black ducks and a great little screech owl (in the so-called red morph) who’s taken up residence in a hole in a tree branch overlooking Western Avenue in Essex, a few blocks from the causeway. Birdwatchers galore camped out across the street, with tripods, spotting scopes, cameras with yard-long telephonto lenses. Part of what I like about birding is that the people are every bit as esoteric and harmless as the birds themselves, like the old lady who came up from the south shore with her home-made owl calling device. She blew across it like a flute, the little screech owl opened its sleeply eyes, and the photographers pressed down on the switches for their motor drives.
Shrimp, screech owl, snow. And wi-fi on the commuter train. Roger and Sook
thanks for this piece of prose that captures for me goodness and loveliness. As you will shortly see, my new header, taken by Axel this morning from our bathroom window, captures well the beauty (snowy mountains bathing in early sun rays) and ugliness of this place (barbed wire, deep hatred, guns and diesel fumes)