Sylvia's Journal

We watched The Message (with Anthony Quinn) last night, about the birth of Islam. We had seen it earlier, dubbed in Dari, on the Prophet’s birthday in March but now I have it in the original English version. I had not understood then that the Afghans would play a movie produced by sinful Hollywood about their prophet but this time I saw the opening credits and an announcement that the film had been certified as authentic by religious scholars from Al Azhar University in Cairo and that Hollywood had agreed not to actually show Mohammed.

It is a long movie with much fighting and preaching. One by one Axel and Katie peeled off to go to sleep and although I tried to, I finally gave up to before the movie was over. This didn’t matter since we already knew the ending. In the centuries that have passed since then many things have not changed much in this part of the world, except maybe that the unveiled women in the movie are now veiled.

After being cooped up all day today in the house we escaped to a local Korean restaurant where they serve beer and great food. A few colleagues joined us, including Pascal who just arrived from Haiti in a very roundabout way, only hours after the rockets landed near the jirga tent. What a start! Pascal is a young doctor who won an award last year that he competed for with many other young MSH professionals in memory of our three MSH colleagues who died here in Afghanistan when their plane hit the mountains on a wintry day early 2005.

This year one of my young female staff applied after much goading from my side and pleas with her husband to let her try. When we returned from dinner I found out she was awarded the fellowship. Now we have to figure out how to make her trip out of Afghanistan work. It is not obvious but I am convinced we’ll find a way. I like these kinds of challenges.

After dinner we settled in front of the TV and watched ‘It’s Complicated,’ which was just what I needed after a long day in front of my computer.