Sylvia's Journal

We watched Hillary deliver her speech at the opening of the Kabul Conference. We all noticed it: no scarf draped over her head. It is consistent with her earlier appearance at Karzai’s inauguration. It is a statement. I have long thought about what my statement should be but it is not so simple. I asked colleagues and they suggested I wear a scarf when in public but take it off when in the office or in the ministry, where Afghans are used to interact with foreign women like me.

Anything you do can have a symbolic meaning. But unlike Hillary, I have to work here and don’t want to have small irritations about whether I wear a scarf or not get in the way of my day-to-day work relationships. I am one of the people with a notebook (as opposed to a gun) that Hillary referred to.

Today was our second day at home, a lock-down ‘work-at-home’ day. It allowed me to get to the bottom (not quite, but nearly) of my inbox and dredge up old requests and provide answers if they were still relevant. One good thing about an overflowing mailbox that some things just expire all by themselves.

It was hot again and each of us parked him or herself in front of a fan, and plowed through a long list of to dos. Axel left the house in the afternoon to see his students. He learned about the gruesome consequences of outsiders meddling with internal family matters such as marring bright young women to older and illiterate uncles, for lots of money. From to optimism of Hillary’s words that women are important and the world is not forgetting about the plight of Afghan women my spirits sunk quickly to the depressing reality that there is very little we outsiders can do, even if we think we do.

It’s cocktail hour now and the temperature is becoming more bearable. We can sit outside again and re-surface from our computer work.