Sylvia's Journal

Last night we had a long Skype chat with the newlyweds who had returned from their honeymoon. They were right there on our computer screen in our living room. Amazing!

This morning we played scrabble for nearly two hours, under blue skies and after our ritual Saturday morning green chili eggs. The game moved so slowly because we could only make very short and cheap words and so it took a long time before the letters were used up.

Axel is still trying to arrange his surgery in Dubai. That is going slowly as well. There are many pieces that have to fall in the right place: insurance, doctor’s visits, hotel, ticket, and getting permission from various people on this end to leave for a week or two.

I finished my Dari book about a pigeon and crow learning to live together with other birds (of a feather) in the forest. I learned a vocabulary that is quite relevant to Afghanistan: honesty, partisan, representative, judge, making a racket/noise/arguments (the crow) and peacefully teaching the next generation (the pigeon).

The black crow was the bad character in the story and the white pigeon the honest and ethical one. At the end of the book there are questions, like, whose side are you on? Of course you are supposed to say you are on the pigeon’s side because the pigeon is white (=good) and the crow is black (=bad). It is only because I didn’t know how to say pigeon poop (the reason I would opt for the crow) that I gave the right answer and the teacher nodded approvingly.

I met my new colleague Sally who joined our project for the last year to produce our stories, reports, and other writing pieces. We took her out for dinner at the Korean restaurant, one of the few eating establishments in our neighborhood. She is just what I hoped she would be and I am thrilled to have another woman on our senior team