Sylvia's Journal

The weekend raced by so much faster than I had wanted. On Friday we went for our walk in Ghazi stadium because the snow and rain had turned the paths in the parks into mud. After our walk we made a quick visit to our furniture man on Chicken Street for some very focused shopping: a small table and a tray. I also discovered some lovely hand-woven upholstery fabric from Mazar-e-Sharif that I think I can turn into a a shalwar kameez.

We had lunch at the Wakhan café among a crowd of foreigners. I heard Dutch spoken in a corner and introduced myself to a young couple checking out various producers of the woolen wraps that men use as coats here. They think there is a market for those in Holland. For people with a nose for business there is a profit to be made by trading with Afghanistan.

Sara and I had ourselves dropped off at the Thai Spa in the Wazir Akbar Khan section of town for a delicious oil massage. We were oiled and pounded and stretched by two diminutive Thai ladies who explained their presence in cold and war-torn Kabul with the words ‘good money.’ A massage here pays about 4 times the price of a massage in Bangkok; yet for us it is a good deal: half the price of a US massage. Shiny from the baby oil we re-appeared one hour later and were taken home.

We tried out the new pasta maker which is much more fun to use with someone else than alone. We produced a great egg noodle which we consumed right away but also a bowl full for vermicelli-like pasta which we dried in the shape of bird’s nests.

On Saturday we all slept in late, had a chili omelet and went to work on a presentation that Sara will do on Sunday.

At noon time I accompanied Sara into town and dropped her off at a pricy French bistro for lunch with of friend of hers who escaped the US compound. I didn’t join them because I was looking for kapok and buttons for which I needed to go to the bazaar. I cannot do this alone but with a guard it is OK.

The guard took me deep into the bowels of the large Kabul bazaar in Jaday Maiwand which is the commercial center of Kabul. It was a treat beyond description to walk around the bazaar, practice my Dari and feast my eyes on all the stuff that is piled up in tiny little stalls for miles on end. I wished I could just amble around the enormous market without having to rush behind a guard who wanted to have his lunch break. Everything is for sale in the market if you search long enough. I could have spent the entire afternoon there.

I found one salesman who was willing to sell me a small plastic bag of cotton stuffing rather than the enormous bales of cotton that are used to make the traditional sitting/sleeping mattresses you find in Afghan homes. We had to go into a dark and clammy basement to find a pile of loose cotton stuffing that he was willing to sell to a stranger for a nice profit: a good deal for both of us.

Both Axel and I had our Dari classes in the afternoon which left very little time to relax and enjoy the final part of our weekend. Especially since at 6 PM the container that the movers had packed on the 30th of December in Manchester arrived on our doorstep and flooded our already full house with more stuff, some of which we missed and some we could probably have done well without: Axel’s new printers so we can print out pictures we take of people to give to them, coffee, winter boots, our wok and some other kitchen stuff that we now know could have been purchased here, and a good supply of books and videos. We are now officially settled with nothing left to be desired.