Sylvia's Journal

Our guard Rabbani took off the plastic from our windows. We can see outside again; the daylight can come in clear now. In Dari the word for light or clear is roshan, which is also the name of one of the cell phone providers. The plastic was covered with a thin layer of soot, on the outside, which tells me something about what gets in our lungs.

We had breakfast outside in our little garden plot, amidst the rose bushes, the apple trees, the pear tree and the grape vines that are just starting to sprout: tiny light green leaves coming out of what looks like dead wood, but isn’t.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have the same hopes about the deadwood that floats around the ministry.

I spent most of the day rebuilding the folders on my old computer, uploading all the non standard software that got lost in the computer hospital. All at a snail’s pace with frequent interruptions. One of the things that got lost is my Dari program with its memory of the 500 words I had learned, including fresh and stale ones.

My computer and the various external hard disks are a little bit like a linen closet: a mess. It takes much perseverance and patience to sort things out. It turned out to be an all day task.

We had decided not to go out today but stay in our enclosure – partially because it was lovely outside and partially because we want to keep our heads low in case Karzai’s antics produce a reaction against Americans.

Later in the day the weather turned bad (for us) or good (rain is always good here) and Axel went shopping while I packed for my trip to Mazar tomorrow.