Sylvia's Journal

I spent about 3 hours in the office, more than I had intended and less than was needed, but it was the start of my vacation and I had reached that point where I was too exhausted to be of any use to anyone.

I wonder whether my tiredness was exacerbated by Dexter Filkins’ reports in the New York Times about the tangled mess us foreigners have gotten ourselves in. It creates an uncomfortable frame for our work and our belief that we may be making a difference for ordinary Afghans.

We boarded the Safi flight to Dubai without Captain Courtney – we are on different schedules, unfortunately. Across the aisle a woman with a bag that said ‘Statistics Changing Society.’ I thought of Katie and her eye for good and bad statistics. I wondered what a member of the Royal Statistical Society was doing in Afghanistan but never asked. She looked as tired and exhausted as I felt.

The flight was among the most uncomfortable we remember – seats so closely together that even my knees touched the seats in front; all seats leaning backwards against the instructions of the flight attendant, whether you had touched the recline button or not and the heat from Dubai that went all the way to Kabul and back.

We are now in Dubai in an inexpensive hotel we found on the internet which, to our surprise, has an Irish pub with ice cold beer. We ordered fish and chips and ate them, under the eyes of multiple TV screens, watching white robed Arabs play pool. We could have been in London, or Dublin; and we definitely were not in Kabul anymore.