Sylvia's Journal

My representational duties took me to the Serena hotel, only my third time there in five years. A sister (sometimes competing, sometimes collaborating) American organization was helping the ministry to launch its strategy to improve quality of health services.

Organizing a conference or workshop during Ramazan is in some ways easier as you don’t have to deal with tea breaks and lunches and the factor of people disappearing after lunch is not an issue to be considered when designing the program. On the other hand the energy levels dip deep down quickly, not to get up until after the sun sets.

When we left the conference room each one of us was presented with a lunch box that included two sandwiches, a small packet of ketchup, a juice drink, a handful of the chips that fit together like spoons and come in a tube and some dates. I was so hungry that I had eaten everything by the time we reached our office.

The rest of the day, at work and then at home, I edited what I hope will be blog posts about how the leadership program has changed things in the lives of people who have participated at one time or another.

For dinner Steve and I we went to the Gandamack Lodge, a lovely guesthouse in the middle of town with a beautiful garden where I have been dining a lot lately. Although the food is overpriced and not spectacular the setting is lovely and they serve wine. We picked a spot with a corner bench below a grape arbor with bunches of nearly ripe grapes dangling above our heads.

Arranging dinner with friends is complicated here and now more so than ever. First there is the checking whether the friends are allowed to go to the selected eating establishment (everyone has their own allowed and non allowed lists it seems with only very few that overlap). And then there is the timing of the outing. Our dispatcher told us we would have to be picked up at 5:45 to make sure the driver and guard would not be stuck in a traffic jam and miss the breaking of the fast exactly at the time of sunset.

But by the time our friends arrived, two dropped off by a very grumpy driver who was going to miss the breaking of the fast, the entire restaurant staff disappeared to break their fast – leaving all of us diners to our own devices for nearly an hour. As it turned out, by coming early we had secured ourselves drinks and appetizers before everything shut down. With this regime a dinner takes a few more hours than usual.

Sabina and Andrea showed up from Delhi to investigate maternal health in Badakshan while Connie and Frank, co-teaching volunteers at SOLA, came from their Eupol barracks. All four of them are native German speakers even though they stuck to English for Steve’s sake (I can understand them fine but the speaking is a little rusty).

I returned to Connie the English vocabulary books she had gotten for Axel to teach from when he was still here. I suggested she try to use them and eventually leave them at SOLA. I also gave her the Cat in the Hat, a book Axel had ordered for the girls to practice their short and long vowels. She promised she will take over that task. But for now the cat is either out of the bag (an expression our Afghan colleagues love) or in a Eupol bullet proof vest.