Sylvia's Journal

We started Friday with bacon and eggs at the French chaikhana in our neighborhood, served by a young boy in his pristine peach striped uniform, speaking in perfect English. We sat in the garden, surrounded by 6 feet tall cosmos. The only distraction from pure bliss came from the flies that tried to eat and drink everything we were consuming.

SCH and I headed for the spa in the center of town for a monalisa massage. I was welcomed, on this, my second visit, as if I was a regular. I think I will become one if the owners can manage to keep the place. Between the demands of other jobs and the headaches of private business in Kabul, one of the co-owners, a young Greek woman, is looking to sell the business. The male Afghan co-owner cannot come and help out as it is a ‘ladies’ spa and the third owner is helping to rebuild Port au Prince.

A massage table was brought in one of the treatment rooms so that we could receive our massages side by side; I got Mona Lisa and SCH got one of her students, an Afghan masseuse. I continued to extract the missing pieces of Monalisa’s life story and learned that she came to Kabul because she followed her man who was referred to as her fiancé last week but now was referred to both as husband and dad to her daughter.

I was glad that SCH was in the same room and thus hearing the same story as it was told because she would not have believed me. My masseuse runs a shop, her husband’s, on the (international military forces) base and lives there, while her kids live in town. She is not living with her husband. She could not tell us what he does so we assume he is CIA. They met in another part of the Arab world and she has followed him since, running his business (jewelry). I was wondering whether one day this too would be a Charlie Wilson’s War sort of story, first a book, then the movie. She has invited me onto the base to visit her store which also doubles as a guesthouse, furnished or unfurnished (‘as you wish ma’am’).

After our massage, all oily and slippery, we went to the handicraft and gift store that caters mostly to foreigners or well-heeled Afghans to buy a wedding present while SCH stocked up small gifts for back home.

And then it was time for lunch. We had our second meal of the day out rather than at home. Axel joined us in the lovely garden of the café once owned by Debbie of Kabul Beauty School fame. SCH had more bacon, inside a BLT.

Back home we all had naps while I listened to the last chapter of the Oyster book. According to our library’s lending policy, the audiobook goes poof after 2 weeks (tomorrow). I covered 2 hours of reading in half the time by increasing the speed of reading by a factor of 2; it left me breathless but I got to the end in time. When I was done I wished for a large platter of oysters on ice.

After our nap SCH cut our hair out on the terrace. She is a woman of many talents. She also taught Axel how to make chai, which we drank while playing scrabble. She had the longest word (telegram) and won the game. But when it came to facebook she was clueless, so I helped her accept or ignore the 67 friendship requests that were lined up in her unused facebook account.