Sylvia's Journal

My two birthday presents, one from M and the other from our housekeeper, were converted into Punjabi (tunic/loose pants/scarf) outfits. We picked them up at my new tailor, in between the satin-dressed bridal mannequins, apparently the tailor’s main business (photos to follow).

We met up with M who had just come back from a snow hike in Salang. It is hard to imagine that people go skiing and hiking in the winter, a little further north. There are foreigners (and Afghans) who go out every weekend to enjoy the breath taking beauty of the Afghan mountains that we only know from memory (and not in winter) or from pictures. They celebrated their successful ascent with French cheese and wine, she told us. Imagine that, here in Afghanistan. You can do these things when you don’t have a security chief, when you are on your own, or an Afghan, or may be more adventuresome than we are.

We joined her and another friend at the Rumi restaurant, a first time for us even though it has been around for several years. It is an Afghan restaurant in a lovely old house with a nice garden that will see us back when the temperature rises again in a couple of months. We feasted on various comfort/winter dishes before hurrying back to my Dari class. Axel is still in recovery mode and decided to skip classes and have a nap instead.

I am halfway through a chapter book about the history of Afghanistan. Reading Dari is difficult, not only because most vowels are not written but also because it is not clear where one word ends the the next begins; a space can either be a sign that a new word starts or simply be a space after a letter that never connects to the next (a,r,d,w).

Furthermore, unlike English, there is very little punctuation, no capital letters and sentences that go on for half a page with endless clauses and sub-clauses and passive tense verbs. By the time I get to the end of a sentence I have forgotten how it started. Reading and understanding is a very slow process require endless practice.

This is also the advice I give to my students who study English. They too have to read out aloud and I correct their pronunciation and help explain words that are not known just like my teacher does in my Dari class. My students, all Dari speakers, are used to long sentences and unaccustomed to punctuation. Not understanding many of the words, like me in their language, they too drone on.

But one thing is different; while I scan the Dari text for (non existing) periods and commas and places to take a breath, they ignore the countless periods and commas, and read on breathlessly, one sentence after another, until the paragraph is completed or I stop them.