Sylvia's Journal

We celebrated the Queen (mother’s) birthday today, three days ahead of the real day because the embassy get-togethers are always on Wednesdays. We had lots of haring, paling (eel), old Dutch cheese, bitterballen and other traditional and fattening Dutch goodies. We had extra stuff because the Eupol and ISAF folks of Dutch descent were in lock down. Probably because of the heightened security alerts of Mujahideen Day (tomorrow) and maybe even because the Taliban commanders who emerged out of the tunnel and who are still at large.

We spent much time talking with Afghan/Dutchmen who are here either temporarily or have reestablished themselves doing business in jewelry, traditional law advice and graphic design. All have stories about moving, fleeing, and endless paperwork nightmares, and all spoke much better Dutch than I speak Dari.

We are back home now for a long weekend. I need it as I am very tired. It was an intense week of aligning a thousand small pieces and putting all this on paper plus some significant staff changes. All in all a rather stressful and difficult though short week.

This morning we had a meeting at the American Embassy of Kabul – across the place where we usually have meetings with our donors because USAID is running out of meeting space – that is what happens when you have civilian surges.

Within the span of 30 minutes we travelled from Afghanistan to America, crossing a few checkpoints and seeing many people with guns who are following their very strict SOPs that know no exceptions. Once we emerged at the embassy proper we felt indeed far from Afghanistan. As we walked up to our meeting room we passed gaggles of men in dark suits with wires coming out of their ears. It is dangerous here.

We met in a container room off the Kabul Community Center, populated by one very tired soldier stretching out on a barkalounger –and trunks with Mexican blankets that revealed it is also a yoga studio. Outside many uniformed men and women were busy taking pictures of each other against the backdrop of the majestic and ochre colored Embassy building. Photos are a no-no for most of us civilians but not for those in uniform.

With too little time to return back to our office in between meetings I had lunch by myself in the courtyard of the ministry. It was a very unhealthy lunch consisting of 35 cents worth of cookies and cakes – it was all the Afghan money I carried with me and I did not want to embarrass myself by ordering a real lunch for 50 cents that I couldn’t pay for.

I had pulled out my Dari homework to kill more time but was interrupted every few minutes. Afghans cannot simply pass by someone they know without greeting and talking – and by now I know a lot of people here. And so I socialized more than I studied.

After my meeting I returned to the office for our biweekly phone call with Boston before dressing up in orange for the Dutch party. It made for one very long day, made more difficult by a series of dust storms that, except for the lack of snow and cold air, would qualify as blizzards and are really bad for our lungs. They left a layer of fine dust on every surface in our home and offices.