Sylvia's Journal

After my weekly massage and replenishment of oil in my dry skin we drove to the far northwest corner of Kabul to see M and her family in their new house.

We were greeted outside by her husband and inside found her mom, two sisters, one fiancé, one brother, M herself and her two boys. I have become like an auntie to them. The oldest is particularly affectionate and I get big hugs from him as often as he can give them.

We sat down in the blue room – blue walls, blue curtains and a blue carpet with cartoon racing cars. On top of that was a big Winnie the Pooh carpet, not what people would expect in Afghanistan. In the corner were two small desks from which the oldest boy pulled his first grade reader. We read together the story of the ugly duckling, a favorite children’s story here too.

When we visited M and her family a year ago in their rental apartment the cooking was done on the floor of the kitchen. Now she has a big light and airy kitchen.

Lunch was served on the ground as is common in Afghan households, on top of the plastic sheet that we claim has pictures of marihuana leaves on it.

When we left Axel noted the Norwood pine in the hallway and asked for the Dari word, having some idea of finding one on the way home. He should have known better to admire it because it was immediately offered to us, as Afghans are wont to do. We both protested as hard as we could but we lost and M claimed it wasn’t because we admired it. It was their Christmas gift to us. We drove off with the Christmas tree between us in the back side, tickling the neck of our guard. Bystanders smiled as they watched the two foreigners with their Christmas tree. It was the best gift we could have gotten.

On the way home we educated our driver and guard about Christmas. People have odd ideas about Christmas and New Year. We tell them it is our prophet’s birthday, just like they have theirs sometime in Spring and that new year is the beginning of 2011 and has nothing to do with Christmas other than that it is always one week later and also a holiday.

Axel has suffered from Christmas withdrawal in the biggest way, to the point of being a bit teary. The Norwood pine helped a bit. It now stands in our living room decorated with various stringed tchotchkies that I have collected over the year, two tiny Afghan mules on a keyring and one string of very brittle popcorn that took me forever to complete.

Axel was going to go out again for his usual last minute Christmas shopping but an explosion somewhere in town grounded the cars. It bothered him (not being able to get out and also the explosion) but for me Christmas has never been about gifts. The gift we are giving each other is our trip to Holland and India.

I had planned to make a buche the noel for our Australian Christmas lunch tomorrow. Maybe because I was too intently listening to Anna Karenina but it came out all wrong. The jelly roll fell apart and the chocolate and cream separated. I smooched the crumpled cake and the chocolate mixture into a bowl and will pretend it is a traditional Dutch Christmas concoction. It still tastes good but the look leaves something to be desired.

Since I has actually promised to bring a pumpkin cheese cake (the buche was a spontaneous addition to the menu) I tried to come up with at least one presentable desert. It did come out OK. There is more we have to prepare, all the winter vegetable dishes, since Australians celebrate Christmas in the summer and are used to light summer fare. It will be a trip tomorrow to see how the northern and southern hemispheres combine into one Christmas lunch.