Kabul, day 2

As you can imagine, I was out like a light and slept VERY solidly my first night in Kabul. Sometimes total exhaustion can crowd out jet lag, at least for a bit. Today was a relatively light day at the school--Thursdays are sometimes days off (the weekend consisting of Thursday and Friday) although students did come today. However, I did have an hour free and so James Herzog, the trumpet teacher, and I began the process of cataloging the large amount of donations I was able to bring with me.

I want to take a moment here to recognize the incredible generosity of people in my field and especially the musicians of The Florida Orchestra. I sent out an email in the week before I left asking for donations of music supplies to the orchestra, thinking I'd get a few spare items. Instead, I received a deluge of supplies; people went to music stores and picked up supplies new, or found treasured vintage items. I ended up buying another suitcase to pack the dozens of books, hundreds of reeds, violin strings, metronomes, tuners, rosin, and other instrument equipment that I was given. James is meticulously recording the donations and finding their dollar value. I'm kicking myself for not having recorded all the individual donations, but in aggregate, the musicians of the Florida Orchestra are now a major donor to the Afghan National Institute of Music.

In the morning, I taught Mashal and also Farhad, who had not been there the day before. Some words about my students. One of ANIM's goals is reaching
Afghanistan's most underprivileged, which of course means girls, but also children from the underbelly of Kabul. They take children from the orphanages, and Najib is one of these. Mashal is a street child, and the institute compensates the family a small amount for month to compensate for the income lost from begging or selling junk. That is little mashal's background. ANIM provides a complete education for the kids, not just in music, but enough to bring the kids to a full associate degree level by the time they graduate. What an honor to play a small role in an institution accomplishing such an important task.

Mashal was very patient with me as I tried to modify his setup and we did very basic fundamental work. My students are all very young and small for the horn, so I had to reach back to when I was a tiny horn player myself to remember how I managed the instrument! Farhad was next. All my students are adorably cute, but I found myself particularly taken with little Farhad. He is from an ethnic group that claims to be descended from Genghis Khan (and probably is), and he has dark red hair and lighter eyes, but otherwise Asian features, and is built like a little fire plug. He had been absent the day before because he was undergoing a ceremonial procedure that little Jewish boys have at 8 days, but Muslim kids must endure at age 10. OUCH! For all that, he was very good-spirited and was so far the most natural player.

After teaching Mashal and Farhad, I taught two of the older (probably 12 and 15) trumpet students their first horn lessons. Their goal is to be band directors so James thought it would be good for them to learn some of the specifics of horn vs trumpet playing. They were eager and attentive, and if I may say so, quite successful! I don't often get to start students, but it was somehow thrilling to think that I was possibly laying a small part of the groundwork for future generations of brass players in Afghanistan.

After all the lessons was band rehearsal. James led the band through some warmups and then a special arrangement of an afghan tune that they are preparing for the gala concert. The playing was as raucous as any junior high band, but James has the patience of a saint, and the performance is beginning to take shape.

After band was lunch, and then my only responsibility was rehearsing the Mozart horn quintet. William played violin, the newly arrived Leo Eguchi from Boston and Summer Boggess covered the first viola and cello parts, and an afghan student covered the second viola part, in what was clearly an exciting challenge for him. The group sounds great and we will be playing for the afghan students in a few days.

After that, there was time to relax, practice and then head back to the hotel. Tomorrow is Friday and there is no school. Time to explore the city a little. This is certainly an easier schedule than the madness that was the Unity Academy in Iraq!