Sylvia's Journal

I am progressing well in my Dari book. I have four more chapters to go which qualifies me for holding all sorts of conversations with Dari speakers about everything but specialized and technical matters. The drivers, guards, cook and housekeeper have stopped talking to me in their broken English. Now I am speaking with them in broken Dari – and we more or less understand each other. There’s nothing like total immersion.

Today I learned the names of the months. They are the names of the zodiac and so the seasons and months are aligned, unlike in our Gregorian calendar. We are now in the year 1389 and in the month of soar which means Taurus and my birthday is in the month of qaos, or Sagittarius. All morning I practiced them with the driver and I think I have mastered them now.

After my Dari class I joined Axel at the Flower Street cafe which was mostly occupied by young foreigners intently gazing at their laptops. The Flower Street Cafe has wireless internet as well as good cappuccino and sandwiches. This attracts a particular crowd that doesn’t include many Afghans.

After lunch we picked up our pretend beer that now tastes as good as the real thing, at the New Rose Supermarket in Shar-e-nao. Next and last stop was Ibrahim’s shop off Chicken Street to buy a wedding present for my nephew and his bride. Coming from Afghanistan what else but a carpet to bring as a gift? Ibrahim took down rug after rug from a pile of the most beautiful things, each more interesting than the previous one.

The beauty of the handicraft that are made in this part of the world never cease to amaze me. Axel and I don’t have exactly the same taste but we finally agreed on a Yomut (or Yamoud) rug that comes from Herat where this particular group of Turkmen settled. Back home we unfolded the rug on our terrace and Axel photographed it from the balcony. We will ask the mother of the groom whether we picked the right thing.