touch base

I haven't had any blog posts aching to be written lately.

I was supposed to go to Kabul last week for Fay's memorial service. I was physically at the airport twice, and three of four days, weather prevented or there weren't flights. On my fourth day, four planes were supposed to come, three did, and it was mine that didn't.

I had a sleepover at the house one of my staff ladies last week. She's lovely but speaks no English, so I'd been girding myself to go spend my precious weekend sleeping with nine people and speaking Dari for the entire time, waking up at 6:30 am on a Fake Sunday morning.

When I first arrived, I think her husband was giving me a passive bad time for having been to the house of my other staff lady more often. He said his wife was sad I hadn't stayed the night in six months, but after a few interactions over the evening hours where I understood 30% of what he said, maybe he got the idea of why I'm not over every weekend. His wife is the reason my language has improved as much as it has and she's very good at explaining things to me in a way as I can understand, but he wasn't up to it.

International Women's Day came and went on 8 March. I bought scarves for our two lady staff, forgetting the lady cook we recently hired. I narrowly avoided disaster by checking with the guys if we could give to some but not others. The answer was No. Someone was sent to the bazaar and the day was saved.

In my shared yard, it's been a lot of fun to watch the almost two-year-old start speaking three languages. His family speaks German, the rest of us speak English, and his best friend, the uncle day guard, constantly speaks to him in Dari. His German words are Wasser - water, Bär - bear, essen - eat, Tschüss - bye. Dari words are biya - come, burro - go, kaka - uncle. He knows my name, "Anna," says the occasional "See you," but the best is when he calls the cat like I do, "Perc," standing on the porch yelling just how he's seen it modeled.

This week my Grandpa Ken became very ill and went to the brink of death. He is improving daily after turning a corner on Monday; my entire family will be home this weekend visiting. My nurse cousin Kapri said, "So apparently I should not doubt the strength of an 89 yr old cowboy." It will also be brother Charlie's 20th birthday tomorrow.