Impressions of Afghanistan
a country listening to music again after 33 years of war.
Passing a decorated Pakistani truck in a tunnel through snow covered mountains
on a dirt and ice filled Russian highway, bells on the back of the truck jangled in
the darkness. On the road from Kabul to legendary Mazar e Sharif, the apricot
trees in blossom add a touch of pink to the green of the small irrigated fields and
the brown of the hills with the white of snow and ice above. From a crowded
car on the highway full of celebrants going to New Years in Mazar, five
wide-eyed children peer out from the trunk; one of them holds the lid open with a
stick.
a country listening to music again after 33 years of war.
Passing a decorated Pakistani truck in a tunnel through snow covered mountains
on a dirt and ice filled Russian highway, bells on the back of the truck jangled in
the darkness. On the road from Kabul to legendary Mazar e Sharif, the apricot
trees in blossom add a touch of pink to the green of the small irrigated fields and
the brown of the hills with the white of snow and ice above. From a crowded
car on the highway full of celebrants going to New Years in Mazar, five
wide-eyed children peer out from the trunk; one of them holds the lid open with a
stick.
At night in Mazar, after a day in which torrential rain filled the city with mud, the now dried
out dirt hangs in the air swirling 20 feet above the streets making the tiny colored lights
outlining tulips and stars hanging above seem like decorations in an ethereal fog. In the
auditorium of the University of Balkh the 700 or so mostly young men crammed into the
500 hundred seat theater, excited to a delirium of cheering and clapping in rhythm and
dancing by Quaweli musicians from India and Pakistan, to listen to me play Bach;
screaming their approval after every phrase, cheering every sentence I say in Dari and
loving that old fifties song “Since I Don¹t Have You” that I sing to my long lost turtle.
Walking though the streets of Kabul with an Estonian journalist though ankle deep mud and
garbage left by another rain, we climb a barren hill surrounded by city and on top find an
abandoned swimming pool from the fifties with three diving platforms that look like Calvary
in the dust, and photograph children playing in an abandoned Russian tank.
out dirt hangs in the air swirling 20 feet above the streets making the tiny colored lights
outlining tulips and stars hanging above seem like decorations in an ethereal fog. In the
auditorium of the University of Balkh the 700 or so mostly young men crammed into the
500 hundred seat theater, excited to a delirium of cheering and clapping in rhythm and
dancing by Quaweli musicians from India and Pakistan, to listen to me play Bach;
screaming their approval after every phrase, cheering every sentence I say in Dari and
loving that old fifties song “Since I Don¹t Have You” that I sing to my long lost turtle.
Walking though the streets of Kabul with an Estonian journalist though ankle deep mud and
garbage left by another rain, we climb a barren hill surrounded by city and on top find an
abandoned swimming pool from the fifties with three diving platforms that look like Calvary
in the dust, and photograph children playing in an abandoned Russian tank.
In the Ministry of Culture and
Information with TV cameras blazing I
play four songs with the orchestra of
the only High School for the Arts in
Afghanistan: 4 violins, trumpet,
saxophone, two classical guitars, flute,
2 accordions, keyboard, bass guitar,
drum set and tablas. As we play
important people answer their cell
phones while students from the school
hang on every note. Boys and girls
together in a school and orphans listen
silently and attentively to the Sarabande
of the 2nd Bach Cello Suite. A boy says
“That is a sorrowful melody and it
made me feel happy.” A girl asks what
my story is about; “Love,” I say.
Another boy says, “Beavers and trees
cannot feel love, only humans.”
“Maybe, maybe not," I say.
Information with TV cameras blazing I
play four songs with the orchestra of
the only High School for the Arts in
Afghanistan: 4 violins, trumpet,
saxophone, two classical guitars, flute,
2 accordions, keyboard, bass guitar,
drum set and tablas. As we play
important people answer their cell
phones while students from the school
hang on every note. Boys and girls
together in a school and orphans listen
silently and attentively to the Sarabande
of the 2nd Bach Cello Suite. A boy says
“That is a sorrowful melody and it
made me feel happy.” A girl asks what
my story is about; “Love,” I say.
Another boy says, “Beavers and trees
cannot feel love, only humans.”
“Maybe, maybe not," I say.
The Tour
For thousands of years, the New Years celebrations in Mazar (beginning March 21st) have
attracted visitors from all over Afghanistan. It is said that passing the New Year in Mazar e
Sherif brings luck for the whole year. This year something like 2 million people poured into
a city of one and a half million inhabitants. Three years ago my host organization, FCCS
(Foundation for Culture and a Civil Society) started a music festival to enhance the New
Years celebration. (There was no music of any kind allowed under the Taliban.) It is the
biggest musical event of the year in Afghanistan.
For thousands of years, the New Years celebrations in Mazar (beginning March 21st) have
attracted visitors from all over Afghanistan. It is said that passing the New Year in Mazar e
Sherif brings luck for the whole year. This year something like 2 million people poured into
a city of one and a half million inhabitants. Three years ago my host organization, FCCS
(Foundation for Culture and a Civil Society) started a music festival to enhance the New
Years celebration. (There was no music of any kind allowed under the Taliban.) It is the
biggest musical event of the year in Afghanistan.
Invited groups from India, Pakistan, and Iran and I met in Kabul and performed for each other
and invited sponsors. The Indian and Pakistani groups play Qaweli, a sufi based ecstatic, very
rhythmic music. The Indians were more traditional; a father and two sons all playing small hand
pumped organs and singing with Sitar and tabla accompanying. The Pakistanis played the same
sort of music, but they were younger and hipper and the lead singer was more of a rock star,
dancing suggestively and inciting the audience. The Iranians were a folk rock group: flute (from
the Teheran Symphony), acoustic guitar, bass guitar, keyboard with sequenced drum machine,
and two female vocalists. In Mazar the two women were to become the first female singers to
sing publicly in 35 years. I played Bach and told one of the three stories in Dari that I had
learned.
and invited sponsors. The Indian and Pakistani groups play Qaweli, a sufi based ecstatic, very
rhythmic music. The Indians were more traditional; a father and two sons all playing small hand
pumped organs and singing with Sitar and tabla accompanying. The Pakistanis played the same
sort of music, but they were younger and hipper and the lead singer was more of a rock star,
dancing suggestively and inciting the audience. The Iranians were a folk rock group: flute (from
the Teheran Symphony), acoustic guitar, bass guitar, keyboard with sequenced drum machine,
and two female vocalists. In Mazar the two women were to become the first female singers to
sing publicly in 35 years. I played Bach and told one of the three stories in Dari that I had
learned.
The other musicians loved me. In Mazar we met a group of traditional musicians from Tajikistan; a
wild, strange, atonal music in complex rhythms with flutes and drums and weird stringed instruments.
The 22 of us, plus a large contingent of staff from FCCS, lived together for nearly a week: performed
together, listened to each other, ate together, did some sightseeing together, celebrated New Years
together and on the last night danced together. There was another huge group of Afghan musicians,
but they were at another hotel and they played mainly in two of the other venues, so we had little
contact with them. There were four theaters in all. Music started in the morning and changed groups
hourly. Again in the afternoon and then again at night. This for three days. In our hotel the languages
used to communicate were Farsi for the Afghans, Tajiks, and Iranians, Pushtu for the Afghans and
Pakistanis, and Urdu for the Pakistanis and Indians. English was not spoken except to tell me, “I love
your music,” “I love you,” “I want to be your son,” “Please come to Peshawar” or “Tajikistan.”
Watching the bonding that took place and included me (somewhat non verbally) among all these
musicians from different countries whose governments, including my own, have difficult and
sometimes outright unfriendly relations with each other was fascinating and inspiring. I represented
the US ----rather well I think.
wild, strange, atonal music in complex rhythms with flutes and drums and weird stringed instruments.
The 22 of us, plus a large contingent of staff from FCCS, lived together for nearly a week: performed
together, listened to each other, ate together, did some sightseeing together, celebrated New Years
together and on the last night danced together. There was another huge group of Afghan musicians,
but they were at another hotel and they played mainly in two of the other venues, so we had little
contact with them. There were four theaters in all. Music started in the morning and changed groups
hourly. Again in the afternoon and then again at night. This for three days. In our hotel the languages
used to communicate were Farsi for the Afghans, Tajiks, and Iranians, Pushtu for the Afghans and
Pakistanis, and Urdu for the Pakistanis and Indians. English was not spoken except to tell me, “I love
your music,” “I love you,” “I want to be your son,” “Please come to Peshawar” or “Tajikistan.”
Watching the bonding that took place and included me (somewhat non verbally) among all these
musicians from different countries whose governments, including my own, have difficult and
sometimes outright unfriendly relations with each other was fascinating and inspiring. I represented
the US ----rather well I think.
Back in Kabul I played for orphans and discovered,
through FCCS, the High School of the Artists in
Afghanistan. The Director of the school begged me
through a translator. "Please help us." We have one
piano, no music, almost no instruments, there is no
money to give the students lunch, the teachers make 40
dollars a month, we have no concert hall, the visual arts
students have no chairs and must draw standing up. To
give me music for the concert we would do together the
next day, one of the teachers copied out the part by hand
from a hand copied original. They have no copier. I
promised that even though I could not personally give
them money, I would tell people in “America” of their
plight: forgotten by their own ministry and not supported
by any foreign government. All two hundred of the
students and their teachers gathered in the cement
corridor of the building. They listened silently to the Bach
Suite and then two stories. Afterwards they stood and
cheered. I hope to gather music and instruments to send
to them.
through FCCS, the High School of the Artists in
Afghanistan. The Director of the school begged me
through a translator. "Please help us." We have one
piano, no music, almost no instruments, there is no
money to give the students lunch, the teachers make 40
dollars a month, we have no concert hall, the visual arts
students have no chairs and must draw standing up. To
give me music for the concert we would do together the
next day, one of the teachers copied out the part by hand
from a hand copied original. They have no copier. I
promised that even though I could not personally give
them money, I would tell people in “America” of their
plight: forgotten by their own ministry and not supported
by any foreign government. All two hundred of the
students and their teachers gathered in the cement
corridor of the building. They listened silently to the Bach
Suite and then two stories. Afterwards they stood and
cheered. I hope to gather music and instruments to send
to them.
On my last night in Kabul, I performed in the guest house where I was staying
for a group of foreign aid workers form Italy, Holland, Germany, Nepal, Nigeria,
Japan, France, Estonia, Poland etc. etc. They work in ground water, micro
finance, poultry, livestock, IT, you name it. It’s intense, rewarding, frustrating,
important, exasperating, bang your head against the wall, exhausting work. They
have one goal; work with the Afghans to get their country back on it’s feet after
being completely destroyed by war. My friend of 36 years, Joyce Lehman from
Keene, New Hampshire introduced me and said, “This is Dobbs, he plays for
under served audiences. That’s us.” Sitting in the ASSA 2 Guest House in the
dining room with candles shining on open wine bottles and fresh flower vases on
the tables, the foreigners and the Afghan staff sat silently during the Bach. I felt
as if the music were being sopped up greedily before it could reach the floor,
something I’d felt everywhere in Afghanistan. Then as I told them stories they
laughed 'til tears were running down their cheeks and asked for more.
Afterwards several of them said to me, “You get the music and instruments,
we'll figure out how to get it all here.”
for a group of foreign aid workers form Italy, Holland, Germany, Nepal, Nigeria,
Japan, France, Estonia, Poland etc. etc. They work in ground water, micro
finance, poultry, livestock, IT, you name it. It’s intense, rewarding, frustrating,
important, exasperating, bang your head against the wall, exhausting work. They
have one goal; work with the Afghans to get their country back on it’s feet after
being completely destroyed by war. My friend of 36 years, Joyce Lehman from
Keene, New Hampshire introduced me and said, “This is Dobbs, he plays for
under served audiences. That’s us.” Sitting in the ASSA 2 Guest House in the
dining room with candles shining on open wine bottles and fresh flower vases on
the tables, the foreigners and the Afghan staff sat silently during the Bach. I felt
as if the music were being sopped up greedily before it could reach the floor,
something I’d felt everywhere in Afghanistan. Then as I told them stories they
laughed 'til tears were running down their cheeks and asked for more.
Afterwards several of them said to me, “You get the music and instruments,
we'll figure out how to get it all here.”
The faces of the people are hard and dramatic until they smile. The
traffic is more chaotic than anything I’ve ever seen. The streets
alternate between mud and dust. There are almost no two story
buildings. Nevertheless everywhere I walked people were uniformly
respectful and often greeted me and offered me tea or bread or said
come to my house. People are people everywhere but in Afghanistan
they need more music and they definitely need more laughter.
Dobbs, Nelson, April 3rd, 2006 (1385 on the Afghan calendar )
traffic is more chaotic than anything I’ve ever seen. The streets
alternate between mud and dust. There are almost no two story
buildings. Nevertheless everywhere I walked people were uniformly
respectful and often greeted me and offered me tea or bread or said
come to my house. People are people everywhere but in Afghanistan
they need more music and they definitely need more laughter.
Dobbs, Nelson, April 3rd, 2006 (1385 on the Afghan calendar )
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