Sylvia's Journal

One of our current house guest’s ancestors survived battle in Afghanistan, a long time ago. She wanted to see the British cemetery where some of his comrades were laid to rest. Originally established for British military dead in the Second Afghan War, in 1879, the British cemetery is now a place where people are laid to rest who tried to do good deeds here.

As it happened today was a volunteer cleanup day organized by the Friends of the British Cemetery. We had signed up and took her along.

We hacked at the toughest weeds that had cracked open marble slabs. With a pick axe I cleaned up the grave of a young couple, he Dutch, she Finnish. I learned later that they died on December 30, 1980. Their mutilated bodies were found on their bedroom floor. Their two children, age five and age three, were found unhurt, having sat in the blood of their dead parents for almost a day. They had been mistaken for Russian spies.

The only graves that the weeds had not found yet were those marking the final resting place of several members of the medical expedition that had been ambushed in Nooristan in July this year.

One of the volunteers was tasked to map the graves, both the marked and the unmarked ones. The latter were simple mounds covered with the spiky grass. No one knew whether there had once been marble that had been stolen, or whether these were hastily dug graves, with no time or money to mark them.