Afterward I joined Steve on Chicken Street. His being here temporarily resuscitates the micro economy of Chicken Street. The store owners have missed him badly. We went to see Mr. Khoshal which means Mr. Happy in Dari. He has an vast collection of Central Asian embroidery, ancient and modern pieces, on silk, wool, cotton and shiny nylon Chinese fabrics.
Unimaginable hours of embroidery by women all over the region have produced these master pieces. I wonder how they got to Kabul. Were they sold, bought or simply discarded and picked up someplace. Many are stained, mended a thousand times, parts of the fabric ripped, the silk disintegrated and all are dusty and marked by a hard life.
I am intrigued by these pieces and the histories they contain. How were they made, by whom, for what occasion? How did the girls or women produce such fine work in poorly lit homes, without eye glasses? And where did they come from? How did they get to Kabul? Was it a happy reason or a sad one?
After our shopping expedition we took the guards and drivers to lunch in the Herat restaurant where Axel can’t go anymore, he thinks, because of his missing gall bladder. He gets heartburn simply from my mentioning the kebabs that are interlaced with fried goat fat. Axel had stayed home and cooked his own, fat free lunch.
Sylvia's Journal 
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