Sylvia's Journal

Today was a walking test for the new and improved knee. First we took a taxi to a French bread and coffee place about 500 meters from our hotel. After an overpriced breakfast we walked back the long way. The crutch was superfluous but it helps as a sympathy factor so I keep taking it along.

We took our bathing suits and headed out to one of the few public beaches down the coast. For 35 cents we were admitted and for another 10 dollars we rented two plastic chaises and an umbrella that flopped around in the wind but gave us just enough respite from the sun that we could read in comfort.

The water was warm and a muddy blue and the beach was full of obese people from Russia and Germany save a few skinny local girls. There were also a few local women with their men and babies – they remained in their layers of black cloth, head covered, everything covered, while their men and babies took most of their clothes off. Life is not fair for some women here.

To prevent a sliding of morals picture taking is not allowed on the beach, along with a thousand other things for which you can be fined and expelled. Taking pictures would be kind of sick anyways, given the voluminous clientele.

We left in the middle of the afternoon to go back to City Hospital for Axel’s second PT session. His therapist uses needles and goes for pressure points. Not altogether pleasant, but effective, Axel claims. I waited downstairs massaging my tingling fingers and resting my tired leg while continuing the exciting read about the history of the Khyber Pass that Douglas lent me. There are no women in the story and it is all about fighting; this, I think, is no coincidence. Get with it, guys, what is so hard to get about living in peace?

I wrote to my two surgeon friends, one in Cambodia and one in Egypt about the tingling. Both replied that it will go away once the swelling goes down. I feel a little better now.

We stumbled on a new shopping mall, another gigantic shopping extravaganza with a boardwalk along a marina with larger than life yachts. We had been lured there by an advertisement for a Belgian mussel meal with a hop-based beverage but, to Axel’s great disappointment, Sunday night was a dry night. Our luck! We had to satisfy ourselves with faux beer, accompanying an Italian meal in a Japanese-Italian (‘dual experience’) restaurant – the placemats feature a bonsai tree and an olive tree, very clever.

We watched the movie RED, just about the only palatable movie in town so now that I have seen it I think we are done with movies here, or at least I am. I am not sure what we are going to do the next five evenings here, watching TV and movies probably (like watching Terminator 3 last night, imagine that, me watching our CA guv’nor like that, how desperate can one get. Kabul is more exciting!)