Sylvia's Journal

We are in Holland now. We just went for a walk in the dark around the neighbourhood. No blast walls, no barbed wire, no guns. Just ordinary Dutch people watching TV in their living rooms, curtains open so we can peek in. As we peek in we watch a reportage about Dutch soldiers in Uruzgan. We can’t escape Afghanistan.

We left Kabul at 10 AM in a half full plane. As soon as the doors of the plane closed all the women dropped their scarves and veils. It made me wonder, what is it about this society that forces women to cover their head, neck and hair until the doors of the plane close, after which all the hidden body parts are OK to be shared with total strangers.

I wondered how many future suicide bombers and Al Qaida operatives were in the plane with us, on their way to some assignment or another. I wouldn’t ask that question on the way back as I suppose none will be flying back. It’s an eerie thought.

We had four seats to ourselves which made for a pleasant 7 hour ride to Frankfurt. We picked up our rental car, added a navigation system to our bill and drove at breakneck speed to my brother’s house just over the border from Germany, in a little less than 4 hours. We thought Frankfurt was closer by, it’s only an inch on the map after all, but it was a few hundred kilometres.

Before dinner we had a Grolsch beer especially brewed for the new (and unlikely) soccer champions of Holland (F.C.Twente) who come from the same place that the beer comes from. Grolsch brewed a special congratulatory beer which was the first real beer we had, something Axel had looked forward to for days.

And now I am watching Dutch TV where people are chewing over the eventful 4th of May (Memorial) day where some loony man created a panic that landed several people in the hospital and brought back painful memories of last year when another loony killed several people. On this 5th of May, Liberation Day (65 years ago), everyone is talking about freedom. We have our own ideas about this right now.