Sylvia's Journal

Despite being for an entire day cooped up in a windowless room refining our work plan for an eventual project extension and the dreariness of a drizzle that left lakes everywhere, today was a better day. The day before a weekend is always a little better than the other days of the week especially because it is my day at SOLA.

Only two girls showed up, both living in the dorm rooms upstairs. It is the only way I can have girls in the class because for those living far away it gets dark too early. This is how I lost a few, at least for the winter.

One of the girls is a breathless young lady whose tries to speak English faster than she can. We read a few paragraphs about an orphanage with too many unknown adjective and nouns in the text. The girl who is both my walking dictionary and assistant teacher did not show up (I had told them I would be in Egypt) so explaining the words was a little tricky, try to explain ‘cynical’ to people with a limited vocabulary; every word I use to explain it requires yet another explanation and this can spiral out of control pretty quickly.

I am starting to think about our next book now that we have come to the end of A Thousand Splendid Suns. I am sure that the book was miles above the reading level of some of the girls, but the familiarity with the context in which the story takes place helped us have a series of wonderful conversations.

Some of the girls want to read Greg Mortimer – they know who he is – but I don’t know the reading level. This is something that Axel and I miss, knowing what level is right for which girl (or boy). Next week we plan to have a Skype conversation with an English teacher from a private school in Connecticut to educate us about this.

We had long Skype conversations with Sita and Jim first and (sick) Tessa later and caught up on things happening in their lives. Sita let us peek at the enormous amounts of snow in Western Massachusetts. We are still trying to figure out how to get the girls here and attach it to a vacation with the entire family – work schedules, climate and Ramadan make this a bit of a challenge.

Tessa gave us the stern message that she doesn’t want us to extend our stay with another year – something that has lately become a real option, though not formally. Here I think people expect me to stay (why else the language learning effort?) but we are very conflicted about this choice. The Finest suicide bombing is still fresh in our minds and has changed the picture rather drastically.

Today was a bit of a dark day, lit up only by our monthly social gathering at the Dutch embassy. The dark matter comes at me from many sides, some minor some big. At home I can’t seem to get the letter Z right on my embroidery sampler and have started over several times (minor), at work I am struggling with strained relationships (big), in the city there are security chatter and rumors (could be big or nothing) and outside Afghanistan I watch the protest in Cairo turning ugly (huge).

The light matter comes, as usual, from people. The ones who went with me to the Dutch event (none are Dutch) and the people I met there, old friends and new acquaintances.

I spent some time with young M, a fluent Dutch speakers of Afghan descent and a student at one of Amsterdam’s universities. He had brought his wife (22) and baby boy (8 months). The wife and I could only smile at each other as our languages did not overlap. All we could do was repeat a few fragments of English and Dutch greeting words in the hi and bye category. I tried my limited Dari on her but as a Pashto speaker she understood little and kept begging her husband with her kohl-lined eyes to interpret my words. I am not quite ready to start learning Pashto though – she will master my mother tongue long before I will master hers (if ever).

These days, on my elliptical treadmill, I listen to Candide by Voltaire, also a dark and light theme, despite Pangloss’ mantra that all is for the best.