Sylvia's Journal

A local mullah was abducted from a mosque somewhere in Nangarhar province two nights ago. People found his headless body the next morning. No one claimed responsibility. According to the security reports that show up frequently in our email box the motivation behind the assassination remains unclear but the use of beheading as a method of public coercion suggests that this incident was likely carried out by people who did not like the mullah’s former work affiliation with foreign military.

Reading about this after the giddy reports on all the major news networks about mullahs who hand out condoms and encourage family planning gave me pause. It is hard sometimes to grasp the courage it takes to take on the parts of the culture that are punishing for women.

Closer to home I am celebrating ordinary people, like my staff who are, in small ways, braving opinion and ingrained habits to change things that need changing. My cheering and their action bring about tiny movements, millimeters really, but I know in the end they will end up to significant advances.

One of our achievements is the opening of a daycare center on the premises – a small thing for some but a big thing for the nursing mom who needed to take the long ride across town to nurse her baby.

Today all of the women, including myself, had to sign a sheet with our names to acknowledge that we had received a present for women’s day – for the auditors maybe? And so I found out how much the gifts were worth. Now that is a taboo where I come from.

Our cook has started the preparations for a traditional new year’s treat (NaoRoz is on March 21); it is made of wheat grass. In the bottom of a cookie tin and a small plastic container wheat grains have been kept wet and grew into 6 inch tall grasses. They will be cooked, mixed with sugar (according to some, not to others) and then compressed into candies if I understand his Dari well. I missed a few words. I am very curious.

While I was at work Axel got both a job (after much trying) and an exercise machine (after some lobbying). The job is with a social marketing firm that needs help in producing marketing materials in proper English.

The elliptical machine is enormous, a behemoth that is taking up half the upstairs hallway. We thought that by ordering the elliptical rather than the treadmill we’d get the smaller of the two. It may be smaller but it certainly isn’t small.

Now, with Julie’s donated jump rope and stretch bands, are old rowing machine we are ready to get in shape. Tonight I ran a whopping 1 elliptical kilometer in nearly 4 minutes. I am so out of shape.