Sylvia's Journal

Axel came along this morning to the physical therapy place at the 400-bed hospital, aka the military hospital, built in pompous cement style that the Russians like so much. There are no Russians anymore but the hospital will last till the Judgment Day if the weeds in the extensive and once beautiful garden don’t overrun the place before that.

Axel final met my physical therapist, Fahima, as well as Leslie the US Navy PT who is stationed in Kabul for a few more months and building the capacity of physical therapists like Fahima. Lesllier is always accompanied by a doctor who serves as his translators. Sometimes that is the only job doctors can find; they earn more as translators to American than as a doctor in government employ.

Leslie reviewed with Axel his exercise regimen. Where would you have a PT session with an armed military? Only in Kabul. After Axel’s turn was over Leslie checked out the strength in my right arm (nil) and gave me a new set of exercises to build up strength.

I gave him my Beirut MRI report with a request for translation into plain English. I learned (no news really) that the large supra-spinatus tear that was only partially repaired will remain that way. I will probably forever have a hard time putting baggage in the overhead bin in the plane – that is exactly the kind of movement I cannot make.

After Physical Therapy we drove to an industrial park, a short ride out of town, where Tarsian & Blinkley has its factory. It is the company from which Sita bought a gift certificate, back at Christmas time. T&B used to have a small boutique in Shar-e-nao which we visited once in a while. I had waited for exactly the right piece of clothing when all of a sudden I found the small boutique gone. T&B is a wholesale only company now as the boutique approach was no longer viable. The company is now also producing military uniforms, probably a much better business than the one-of-kind hand-embroidered clothing it became famous for here.

It took me a long time to try out just about all the clothes that were my size, in the middle of an office with an ever increasing number of women. I think word had gotten around that a foreigner woman was trying on clothes in the director’s office, while I dressed and undressed in front of Axel and all these women, all scarved and veiled. I think the women were gasping. They finally asked me, is he your husband? Of course, I said, would you think I try on clothes in front of someone not my husband (they all nodded, but I don’t think they’d do what I was doing, even in front of their husbands). There was much giggling.

By the time I had made my selection we were too hungry to take the factory tour and we had asked for earlier and so we promised to be back. It was lunch time anyways and we would have seen all the four hundred women employed theire eating their beans and rice rather than at their sewing machines.

I took Axel for lunch to the Istanbul restaurant that is near the ministry and the enormous American compound. It is one of the few restaurants we go to that isn’t exclusively catering to foreigners. Thus, it has not barricades, armed guards, blast walls and razor wire. It is a regular restaurant that looks out on the street and anyone can walk in without searches or requests to leave arms in lockers. The place looks like a Mediterranean restaurant, with Turkish TV on (no sound) and the owner sitting in the middle of the restaurant behind a table with a cashbox on it. Everyone else is working but he just sits there, cashing in, ka-ching! The menu of the place is in Turkish English and brought back memories of my many visits to Turkey and the language I was once learning (and that is helping me with my Dari now).

At 3 PM we reported to our Dari teachers. I am trying to get to the end of the 300-page book so that I can move to the next challenge of reading and writing.

After Dari class we asked the guard and driver to take us to the shopping street near our house, looking for an S-cable, that connects the overhead projector to our TV. This was a challenge and a half because we had to explain what we needed in Dari (shopkeepers in our neighbourhood don’t speak English). After four shops we gave up. Too bad because we borrowed the overhead projector and the S-cable would have allowed us to watch the pirated copy of Avatar that we got in Beirut on a big screen. We are holding out for an S-cable and will forego our planned movie night tonight.