afghan numbers

I just finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. The only sense I can make of the political situation in Afghanistan is that it most often doesn't make sense. Hosseini makes it clear that it doesn't make sense to the people there either. The Taliban were, for a season, a relief from the fighting between warlords. The women have no rights under the Taliban, but it may be better than not being able to go anywhere for fear of being hit by a rocket.
The two main characters in this book sit one evening and drink three cups of tea. Hosseini said nothing of the significance of three cups specifically, but I remembered lines from Mortenson's book regarding the significance of sharing three cups. I had to go back and search the book, but sharing three cups of tea is to become family. In Mortenson's book it is the third time you share a cup of tea, in Hosseini's the women sat into the evening and drank three cups of tea. Either way, it is time shared. Not just time, but relaxed, significant time.
My time with my tea cup (rather large mug really) is my time. It is my time away from whatever stress is in front of me. It is my time with my book. It is my hourglass for the amount of time I have left. Three cups of tea would be similar to my reheating my tea rather than gulping the last six ounces. I am so often pleased to find time remaining in my tea cup when I had momentarily wondered away from my book and then forgotten that I still had time. (I am more than a bit distractable.)
At the most surface level, the freedom to sit and drink three cups of tea - undisturbed by the war or children, or in this book, the shared husband, would be in-and-of-itself a gift.