Sylvia's Journal

A 6.3 earthquake, several hundred kilometers northeast of Kabul, surprised us, ever so gently, as we were watching the news just minutes after midnight. I was thinking about the irony of an earthquake, not the Taliban, disrupting the elections.

The first movement of the window against which Axel was leaning made us think it was the explosion that we had been expecting for the last few days. But then the rattling continued and we got out of the house and saw the grape arbor that covers our terrace slightly swaying. We got out on the grass in the yard and I could feel the earth rippling beneath my bare feet. It is a weird and very unsettling sensation, when the one thing you assume stable is not.

We had come back late from a wonderful dinner at Razia jan where we met, as is always the case at her dinner parties, some very interesting people. All but one were Afghan Americans with impressive records of higher learning and degrees from European and American universities. Some of them had returned back more or less permanently. Others commute between the US and Afghanistan. Two women had left their husbands and kids in Fremont, CA, to investigate business opportunities here.

They recounted the endless frustrations of dealing with a government that provides no help at all to the Afghan diaspora that is ready and willing to pitch in. There is a deep mistrust in the government of the private sector and because of that, a series of lost opportunities to engage those whose are educated and can bridge the gap between the stone-age elements in this society and the modern world.

The stories over dinner about the olden days in Kabul were full of sadness and deep frustrations about those elements who have hijacked this society back to the Stone Ages and total chaos, corruption and unpunished criminal acts. “But,” said one very senior government official, “we have to be positive, we have to have hope that things can change.” Everyone nodded. When I asked whether anyone was going to vote (Afghan-Americans can if they have registered) only one admitted to be registered, none were going to vote.

On election morning we woke up to a beautiful day. We watched the election coverage on various local TV channels, surfing from one to the other. Although we still can’t understand much of what is being said, we do recognize words such as ‘quiet, peaceful, good, hope,’ and the like. We saw lines of men and women patiently waiting for their turn to enter the polling places, an act of courage given the many threats and actual killings perpetrated by the Taliban over the last few weeks of those who are ‘cooperating with the evil forces of the foreigners and the Afghan government.’ Would I vote under these circumstances?