Sylvia's Journal

His father is a shoemaker in Helmand. He helped his father fix shoes and at night he would count the money. His father then gave him part of it for his English language course. My mother, she is funny, she always wants to keep the money, he laughed, tenderly.

A year ago he rode a bike with is younger brother when shelling started. They were hit and knocked out. When he came to he saw that his brother’s head had been severed; his own eyes were all bloody.

This is the heart breaking story that one of the students of the leadership school where Axel works, told me. He had read it as a speech, in halting but very clear English in front of an audience of fellow students, teachers, well wishers and sponsors, just when we walked in at the restaurant where the fundraiser was held. A poster on the wall was entitled ‘Mr. Axel’s class.’ It an enlarged picture of Axel and his students around the table and sheets with poetry and prose pasted on it.

American eye surgeons have been working on the young man’s eye. The work is not done; he is waiting for a visa to go back to the surgeons in North Carolina. He doesn’t know if he will get the visa this time.

He talked lovingly about his parents and how he misses them while he lives in Kabul. They cannot read or write even their own language, let alone English. They are still in Helmand, a dangerous place as his story proves. It complements the other heartbreaking story of the girl without the nose, now of Time Magazine fame. Multiply these by tens of 1000s. This is Afghanistan – one long drawn out heart break in a place of stunning beauty, natural and manmade, and unspeakable violence.

A group of musicians called Sufi played and sang long mournful songs, intensely beautiful and sad as if to illustrate this juxtaposition of this country’s beauty and pain. I finally met Sabera, another student who Axel says reminds him of me because of the discipline with which she tackles life.

This was the second fundraiser we went to. The first one was to keep a school for girls going. I lounged most of the afternoon on a carpeted platform, leaning on cushions while watching Sisilia practice walking the catwalk for the fashion show of clothes made by Razia Jan.

It was an entire day of rest that started with coffee at Chris’ house, a badly needed massage at the spa, lunch with a new found friend and the fastest haircut I have ever had by a (male) Palestinian hair stylist, more artist than technician. Sisilia, watching me in the mirror, approved of my new style. She blew me little kisses while she watched in amazement how a foreigner (male) received a pedicure side by side with his female companion.

I sat in a restaurant realizing I needed to get to the airport and was already late. I called a taxi company and told them I had my own transport. The taxi dispatcher was friendly and said he would give me directions. With one hand on the phone and another busy scribbling instructions, I had no hands free to deal with an attacker who approached my table menacingly and started to take away foods. I ended up using my elbows to hurl plates towards him, in the hope of attracting attention through the clatter of dishes breaking. But the dishes fell down with a soft plop and no one came to the rescue. I was on my own and the attacker went on undisturbed. That’s when I woke up, with a great sense of loss in my heart.

The events of yesterday are recognizable in the dream. I haven’t had such a vivid dream in a long time; at least one I remember. The sense of assault is still present, so are the doubts about my presence here. Axel and I talked for a long time. He has been sensing that this was coming. We went to bed intensely sad.

Today should be better; it will be a girls’ day. First the massage, then, hopefully a lovely girls’ lunch outside with people I care deeply about. After that I will take one my colleagues’ young African wife to the fundraising party that went nowhere last week because of the ISAF vehicle accident and the drama that unfolded after that. She will be modeling clothes in a fundraising fashion show. Although I was also asked to model, I declined, having not quite the right body; but she does and she is excited about the prospect, having been sitting at home watching television the entire week with her husband on assignment outside the country. Her excitement is contagious. I think today I can forget about the dream.