Sylvia's Journal

Karzai claims that it was not the Afghan people but the UN and Europeans under the leadership of Peter Gailbraith that stole the elections. The comment affected me more than I thought it would. We were saying to each other it must be a joke but we knew it was not. I was very discouraged. How can anything get better in the place if the top makes delusional statements like that? And when the highest authority in the country says it is the foreigners who are bad, in a place like this where a largely uneducated population easily swallows nonsense like this and then takes to the street, one does get a little worried.

Another long day ended this frantic week that started with a working Saturday, then three days of the annual health retreat and then the shadowing. But the shadowing is over now after Steve and I told the minister what we had observed and asked if these observations were on the mark (they were). We then proposed some ways to help her preserve her energy for her four public roles (symbolic, managerial, political and advocacy) and her private role as member of a family. She embraced some of our suggestions with great enthusiasm, judged by her conversation with her Afghan advisers who had joined us. Other ideas just sat on the table. After that we were dismissed. It was time for the weekend for all of us.

With that our brief opportunity of shadowing was over, which was exactly what Steve wanted but I would have prefered some more days. Still, not having to go to the ministry every morning and then coming back at 1 for another full day of work is welcome and more sustainable for my own sanity and my family life.

Axel had a guys-night out in a sportsbar-and-beer-and-meat kind of place (the Sizzler) on the other side of town. Places with TVs on the walls that serve large chunks of meat are not my cup of tea and so I stayed home and watched karzai say silly things while migrating my files from my loaner computer back to my resurrected new computer with its new hard drive that can hold 220 gigs.If Karzai was indeed serious then I passed this April Fool’s Day without any jokes.