Sylvia's Journal

Three of us entered through the unassuming metal blue door, into the massage place that looks nothing like it from the outside. In fact, its location between gray blast walls and barbed wire makes the business that gets conducted inside rather unlikely. I wonder what the men who walk from the highly protected US embassy to the highly protected military base, through highly protected streets, not accessible to anyone else, thought of us, three ladies, who slipped through that blue door.

M and I got our massages while P had her eyebrows done. While I was away in Holland and India Lisa fell on or against the woodburning stove and burned her arm badly. The German clinic took care of her and she is back in business with the ghastly burn still looking fresh. The massage, a relay kind of massage with different people working different parts of the body, was, as usual, blissful. M is coming back for more in a couple of days. I stick to my one-a-week routine.

We had planned to go for a long walk in Bagh-e-Bala but Axel is still sick and we canceled our plans. While he napped I took another stab at the complex sampler embroidery, doing and redoing the stitches over and over, counting the tiny threads until my eyes were all red and painful. At the massage place one of the girls is doing the traditional Afghan embroidery on regular fabric, picking up two threads that are tiny compared to the ones I try to pick up. She does it so fast and so perfect that I felt rather clumsy.

I stitched and knitted (babies are still being born everywhere) most of the afternoon, finished Anna Karenina (it gets a little boring towards the end) and starting Antony and Cleopatra – good for another couple of months of exercising and knitting.

I interrupted the craft work for a moment to prepare a presentation that is expected of our Afghan delegation to Egypt, a trip that is to start next week. I will come along if my visa-stamped passport comes back in time; otherwise I will stay behind.

M and P joined us for a wonderful dinner, coming with goodies for us and leaving with health related goodies for them. In between the coming and going we discussed hours worth of serious and not so serious topics including a good dose of gossip. We haven’t seen each other for a long time and there was much to catch up on.