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.