Sylvia's Journal

Sonia’s and my life intersected less than a year ago. After months of trying Steve and I finally managed to visit her in her uncle’s apartment to determine, on request of a private Connecticut all girls school, whether Sonia would be able to enter 9th grade and whether her family supported her.

At the time we said yes to both questions but months later, when her attendance at the school and the coverage of all fees was secured, relatives of her father made it clear that if he were to send his daughter to America, they would excommunicate him from the family. I don’t know how that works but it was apparently enough of a threat that he withdraw his permission for her to go. That would have been this September. Everyone but Sonia was devastated; Sonia on the other hand was very pragmatic: if not this year then next.

We suspect that she sent her brother (who also goes to school in the US) as a messenger/missionary to the relatives in Ghazni and he turned them around. So now Sonia has received everyone’s blessing to go next September. The school was encouraged by this new twist and, I have been told, wove Sonia’s story in the speeches at the opening of the new school year. They also collected money and bought her a Kindle which they loaded with some 60 books.

Alison from DC carried the Kindle to Kabul and it is now sitting, all juiced up, in its bright blue leather case on my table. I have checked out its content. It is the candy store equivalent for books – the old classics, new fiction, probably a whole school year of reading, five Kindle pages of titles. The idea is that Sonia will be behind in some subjects, especially reading. Axel and I carried about 12 pounds of text books with us in June – math, French, algebra, science – for her to check out to see whether she is behind, on par or ahead. But in English and American literature the school assumed she is far behind. Hence the Kindle.

Of course Sonia has no idea what a Kindle is. I called her to tell her the gift had arrived. I asked if she knew what a Kindle was. “Sorry?” she asked, “could you repeat?” I then tried to explain what it is. The conversation went something like this.

Me: “It is an electronic book reader.”
She: “What? Come again?”
Me: “It is like a kind of computer that has at least 60 books inside it”
She: “Huh?” “There are 60 books, where?”
Me: “The books are electronic and inside the thing.”
She: …[Silence]. “Should I come to your house?”
Me: “No, I will come to your house and explain how it works.”
She: “Oh.”

The girl has no idea indeed and I have no idea on how to explain a Kindle. For many people in Afghanistan it is still hard, in spite of familiarity with computers, to grasp what the adjective ‘electronic’ does to the familiar things made of matter.

Sonia will SMS me when I can see her over the weekend. I can’t wait to see the reaction of the rest of the household. This kid is leapfrogging a whole family into the digital age.