Well, it's Monday evening in Kabul and it is suddenly evident how ridiculously brief this trip is-- I leave Kabul tomorrow evening! It has really been an eyeblink and I honestly wish I could stay for much longer. The students have been fun and responsive but I know the mark I leave as a horn teacher will be fleeting at best. I have worked especially hard with Mashal and also with a young and enthusiastic trumpet player, Qudrat, and they were as dismayed as I felt when I told them I was leaving. There is a big gala concert here on Wednesday and they had assumed I was participating, but my obligations in the US required that I leave sooner.
Yesterday was a standard day of teaching, punctuated by a somewhat impromptu recital where we once more played the Brahms trio, this time for the students, as well as the Mozart quintet movement that we practiced a few days ago. Both very well received by the students, and once more the excitement of playing this music for an audience that hears so little of this style was very moving.
Today I taught in the morning, but much of the rest of the day was a "hurry up and wait" kind of schedule as we tried to move instruments and equipment across town to the French cultural center for the gala concert. Kabul traffic, already abominable, is made even worse by the recent snowfall and freezing conditions. There are old traffic lights around the city, but none work, and there are no highways whatsoever so crossing town can easily take a couple hours. An interesting thing to note is that despite the everyone-for-himself ethos of driving in the streets, there are remarkably few fender benders (ie I have seen none and most cars are unscratched) and everyone seems surprisingly patient and good natured. None of the steer fights that were common in Shanghai!
The only time that I was really nervous here was when we got stuck behind a military convoy. They consist of huge tan armored vehicles with automated swiveling guns on top. Without a single person visible, the guns will quickly swivel and fix on a particular car, then move on to the next. Highly disconcerting to have that kind of firepower suddenly trained on you!
The soldiers here have a difficult relationship with the city. While everyone understands the threats that could erupt without their presence, the military environment is highly disruptive to commerce, and ironically, the soldiers with all their firepower are most fearful of the (generally extremely friendly) Kabulis. The Canadian soldiers who were unaware of a western supermarket less than a block away from their compound were an example of this.
I wish I had had more time to get a sense of Kabul as a metropolis. There seem to be many interesting neighborhoods and the city, for all the pollution and dust, is very scenic. A mountain range squeezes the city in two (the geography is very similar to El Paso, Texas), and neighborhoods creep up the sides of the steep hills. At night, even the poorest people on the hillsides light up their homes, and the effect is very pretty. Kabul is sometimes called the City of Lights.
Hopefully tomorrow I will have time for a few last shopping adventures before heading to the airport and facing my return to the West!
Monday, February 6, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Barf!
It's been a slow couple of days in Kabul between the regular Friday holiday and the Prophet's birthday (finally determined to be today by the Supreme Court), so I will catch up with myself and cover two days in one here.
I woke up yesterday (Friday) morning to a steady snow that had already dropped several white inches on Kabul, making even the concrete barriers and razor wire that characterize most of the landscape of Kabul a little bit less forbidding. The snow continued through midday today, eventually dropping around 10 inches-- I'm told the heaviest snowfall here in 20 years! The Dari word for "snow" is "barf" (برف). You can imagine the pleasure we English speakers get from telling each other "I love the look of newly fallen barf", or "Kabul looks so scenic covered in barf."
Kabul is not terribly well set up to handle snow, so the already chaotic streets are now icy and slippery. We did see one plow and sander hard at work although mostly the Kabulis were shoveling by hand, and building elaborate snowmen and other snow sculptures from the resulting mountains.
William Harvey kindly invited cellist Leo Eguchi and me to lunch with him at the Serena Hotel, one of the classier establishments in Kabul catering to foreigners and Afghans. They had an elaborate multi-ethnic lunch buffet including such exotics as Caesar salad with real romaine, barbecue chicken, French pastries and more. It was very tasty although Leo and I agreed that you shouldn't come to Kabul for the sushi. It was a nice treat and good company, but honestly part of me just wanted some of that hearty naan and shish kebab.
After lunch William took us on a shopping excursion to Chicken Street where shops sell quite a bit more than the name implies. We first went to a store selling handmade scarves. The workmanship and materials here are absolutely gorgeous and we each emerged with an armload. Then we went in search of lapis lazuli. Afghanistan is the only source of lapis in the Old World (it is also found in Chile) so all the lapis mentioned in the bible and the lapis artifacts found across the Middle East and Egypt had their origins here. I bargained hard for a few pairs of cufflinks, but I met my match when I found a beautiful plate made entirely of lapis. I tried my best, but the young English-speaking shopkeeper could see how much I wanted it and I paid a price! However, it is absolutely gorgeous and would cost far more anywhere else in the world, so I have few regrets.
After that trip to the markets (I hope not our last) we returned to the hotel and relaxed. I have taken to practicing horn in the bomb shelter in the basement. It is obviously pretty well soundproof, and it also doubles as an exercise room. Long tones--bench press. Etudes-- pull ups. A horn player's dream!
Today was another day of inactivity. Leo and I were getting stir crazy--and hungry-- at the hotel so we decided to brave the streets of Kabul on our own to find the Western supermarket that is supposed to be nearby. We remembered some verbal instructions from James, and I periodically tried out my basic Dari on passersby. We thought we were getting close but came on a group of Canadian soldiers as we passed near the secure areas. The Canadians told us there was no such market nearby, so back to the hotel we went to consult maps. The maps told us we had been correct so we retraced our steps and sure enough found the market. Lesson learned--never trust Canadians! (I jest, dear Canadian readers!) We loaded up on such goodies as ramen and fruit juice and treated ourselves back at the hotel.
This evening was supposed to be a welcome dinner with our director, Ahmad Sarmast, but unfortunately he had been stuck in Dubai for 2 days and needed to rest. Still, most of the crew went--the Boggess sisters, James, William, Leo, Norma Ferreira, the percussion instructor, and me. We were joined by other young expats working for various governments and NGOs. We had a pleasant meal at a restaurant called Table Talk, which served presentable pizza and fresh pomegranate juice, as well as Starbucks Coffee!
Tomorrow is very much back to work at the Institute and I am ready! Two days away from the kids is too long when my visit is so short. Already I'm almost half done!
I woke up yesterday (Friday) morning to a steady snow that had already dropped several white inches on Kabul, making even the concrete barriers and razor wire that characterize most of the landscape of Kabul a little bit less forbidding. The snow continued through midday today, eventually dropping around 10 inches-- I'm told the heaviest snowfall here in 20 years! The Dari word for "snow" is "barf" (برف). You can imagine the pleasure we English speakers get from telling each other "I love the look of newly fallen barf", or "Kabul looks so scenic covered in barf."
Kabul is not terribly well set up to handle snow, so the already chaotic streets are now icy and slippery. We did see one plow and sander hard at work although mostly the Kabulis were shoveling by hand, and building elaborate snowmen and other snow sculptures from the resulting mountains.
William Harvey kindly invited cellist Leo Eguchi and me to lunch with him at the Serena Hotel, one of the classier establishments in Kabul catering to foreigners and Afghans. They had an elaborate multi-ethnic lunch buffet including such exotics as Caesar salad with real romaine, barbecue chicken, French pastries and more. It was very tasty although Leo and I agreed that you shouldn't come to Kabul for the sushi. It was a nice treat and good company, but honestly part of me just wanted some of that hearty naan and shish kebab.
After lunch William took us on a shopping excursion to Chicken Street where shops sell quite a bit more than the name implies. We first went to a store selling handmade scarves. The workmanship and materials here are absolutely gorgeous and we each emerged with an armload. Then we went in search of lapis lazuli. Afghanistan is the only source of lapis in the Old World (it is also found in Chile) so all the lapis mentioned in the bible and the lapis artifacts found across the Middle East and Egypt had their origins here. I bargained hard for a few pairs of cufflinks, but I met my match when I found a beautiful plate made entirely of lapis. I tried my best, but the young English-speaking shopkeeper could see how much I wanted it and I paid a price! However, it is absolutely gorgeous and would cost far more anywhere else in the world, so I have few regrets.
After that trip to the markets (I hope not our last) we returned to the hotel and relaxed. I have taken to practicing horn in the bomb shelter in the basement. It is obviously pretty well soundproof, and it also doubles as an exercise room. Long tones--bench press. Etudes-- pull ups. A horn player's dream!
Today was another day of inactivity. Leo and I were getting stir crazy--and hungry-- at the hotel so we decided to brave the streets of Kabul on our own to find the Western supermarket that is supposed to be nearby. We remembered some verbal instructions from James, and I periodically tried out my basic Dari on passersby. We thought we were getting close but came on a group of Canadian soldiers as we passed near the secure areas. The Canadians told us there was no such market nearby, so back to the hotel we went to consult maps. The maps told us we had been correct so we retraced our steps and sure enough found the market. Lesson learned--never trust Canadians! (I jest, dear Canadian readers!) We loaded up on such goodies as ramen and fruit juice and treated ourselves back at the hotel.
This evening was supposed to be a welcome dinner with our director, Ahmad Sarmast, but unfortunately he had been stuck in Dubai for 2 days and needed to rest. Still, most of the crew went--the Boggess sisters, James, William, Leo, Norma Ferreira, the percussion instructor, and me. We were joined by other young expats working for various governments and NGOs. We had a pleasant meal at a restaurant called Table Talk, which served presentable pizza and fresh pomegranate juice, as well as Starbucks Coffee!
Tomorrow is very much back to work at the Institute and I am ready! Two days away from the kids is too long when my visit is so short. Already I'm almost half done!
Friday, February 3, 2012
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!
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!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
A Bumpy Arrival in Kabul
(written 2/1/12, posted 2/3/12)
This post comes to you from the Rosta guest house in Kabul! It also comes to you from the edge of utter exhaustion. I boarded the plane from Dubai to Kabul at 3:30AM Dubai time. At the departure gate I got to meet a fellow participant in the ANIM, Summer Boggess, a cellist from New York. Her sister Allegra is actually living in Kabul to work at ANIM so I knew that Summer would be on my flight. The flight itself was largely uneventful except for one massive air pocket that scared the heck out of all of us, jolted me awake, and ruined the meal service. The sun was rising as we approached Kabul, so I was able to get a glimpse of the terrain. It was spectacular and forbidding. The mountains are huge and jagged, and they seemed to be completely impassable. There was no sign of habitation until we actually reached the valley of the Kabul river. There was a recent snowstorm so everything was white. The outlines of fields, canals, and compounds were all that you could see of civilization until the city.
The first hitch-- and it was a frustrating one for me-- came as we collected our luggage in Kabul this morning. I had to gate check my rollerboard carryon bag when we boarded in Dubai. It came off the carousel in Kabul, and I opened it to check the contents-- and my laptop wasn't there. Normally I remember to take out my laptop when I gate check, but I forgot this time. The assumption is that it was stolen, and this is not unheard of here, but I'm hoping against hope that I never put it back into my bag in Dubai and it will miraculously find its way to the lost and found. It's an expensive and inconvenient loss, but fortunately a largely replaceable one. I would have been much sadder had any of the donated supplies I was bringing had gone missing! The result is that this post is being written to you on various computers in Kabul.
After filing the necessary paperwork at the airport, Summer and I met Allegra and our driver. A joyful reunion for the sisters, and I was so happy to meet Allegra, who has been a really helpful contact for me. Then we headed into Kabul to get to our guest houses.
It is cold in Kabul right now, and that means smog from all the homes being heated with coal and wood. The massive mountains around the city were just barely visible through the brown haze and everything has a layer of a dust on it. The streets were clogged with cars, and as is often the case in countries like this, the roads are a terrifying free-for-all. Our driver dove into intersections without the slightest pause and cars all seemed miss each other by inches. Everyone must know what they're doing though, because I saw almost no dents on the cars. Amusingly, I noticed a Jesus fish on a Toyota Corolla, and Allegra informed me that almost all cars here are foreign donations, so they often arrive with Christian or political insignia.
We briefly stopped at my guest house to drop off my stuff. The guesthouse is across the street from a major security zone so it is considered quite safe. I don't know if it is comforting or alarming to know that my hotel is protected by a two blast-proof security fences, has 24-hour multiple armed guards, and has a bomb-shelter/safe room in the basement!
Then it was on to the school. I immediately met two of my young students, Mashal and Najib. A crowd of brass students gathered in the classroom where I will be teaching and watched me warm up and start working some fundamentals with them. The level here is very basic; it will be a good challenge to lay solid groundwork for them to build on after I am gone.
In the late morning was a quick recital for the students. Since the performance space is very small, there are separate recitals for the students and the general public. A young Aghan girl played a very proper minuet and a traditional Afghan tune on the piano, and another girl zipped through the Suzuki Allegro. The new "Afghanistan String Quartet", four of the older boys, played an energetic Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The recital concluded with the teacher of Afghan native instruments performing a Hindi raga on a sirod--a sitar like Afghan instrument with many resonating strings and a metal fingerboard. Fascinating to watch and to hear!
My first meal was at a restaurant near the school that basically functions as a cafeteria. The staple food here is naan bread, which comes in huge elongated slabs and is delicious. There was a tasty soup of vegetables, potatoes and chicken, and beef shish kabob doused in cumin, which we ate wrapped in the naan. I will be eating well here!
Just before lunch, I received the unexpected news that, due to a potential Afghan holiday, the only chance I would have to perform for the general public would be this evening. Afghan holidays are a complicated business. They are determined by lunar observation, which means they are declared only a few days in advance and there is sometimes controversy even then about what day they will be! The upshot was, I HAD to perform the slow movement of the Brahms Trio tonight for the glitterati of Kabul's expat community. No, there would not be time to return to the guesthouse and change.
So after lunch I rehearsed the trio with William Harvey and Allegra, who fortunately are excellent readers and sensitive chamber musicians. I taught Mashal and Najib a little more, practiced some on my own, and at 6:00 performed in Kabul, wearing the same jeans, sweater, and sneakers that I was wearing when I left Miami two days ago! The crowd was understanding and appreciative and it was a thrill to produce (in a half-stupor of fatigue), the dark and expressive music of Brahms in a place that may have never heard it before.
After the concert we returned to the guest house, ate a very quick bite, and I began this post, first on the public computer, then on James's laptop, and finally on my iPhone. The lack of a laptop is going to delay writing and publishing these posts but I will try to get a report of each day that I'm here out.
This post comes to you from the Rosta guest house in Kabul! It also comes to you from the edge of utter exhaustion. I boarded the plane from Dubai to Kabul at 3:30AM Dubai time. At the departure gate I got to meet a fellow participant in the ANIM, Summer Boggess, a cellist from New York. Her sister Allegra is actually living in Kabul to work at ANIM so I knew that Summer would be on my flight. The flight itself was largely uneventful except for one massive air pocket that scared the heck out of all of us, jolted me awake, and ruined the meal service. The sun was rising as we approached Kabul, so I was able to get a glimpse of the terrain. It was spectacular and forbidding. The mountains are huge and jagged, and they seemed to be completely impassable. There was no sign of habitation until we actually reached the valley of the Kabul river. There was a recent snowstorm so everything was white. The outlines of fields, canals, and compounds were all that you could see of civilization until the city.
The first hitch-- and it was a frustrating one for me-- came as we collected our luggage in Kabul this morning. I had to gate check my rollerboard carryon bag when we boarded in Dubai. It came off the carousel in Kabul, and I opened it to check the contents-- and my laptop wasn't there. Normally I remember to take out my laptop when I gate check, but I forgot this time. The assumption is that it was stolen, and this is not unheard of here, but I'm hoping against hope that I never put it back into my bag in Dubai and it will miraculously find its way to the lost and found. It's an expensive and inconvenient loss, but fortunately a largely replaceable one. I would have been much sadder had any of the donated supplies I was bringing had gone missing! The result is that this post is being written to you on various computers in Kabul.
After filing the necessary paperwork at the airport, Summer and I met Allegra and our driver. A joyful reunion for the sisters, and I was so happy to meet Allegra, who has been a really helpful contact for me. Then we headed into Kabul to get to our guest houses.
It is cold in Kabul right now, and that means smog from all the homes being heated with coal and wood. The massive mountains around the city were just barely visible through the brown haze and everything has a layer of a dust on it. The streets were clogged with cars, and as is often the case in countries like this, the roads are a terrifying free-for-all. Our driver dove into intersections without the slightest pause and cars all seemed miss each other by inches. Everyone must know what they're doing though, because I saw almost no dents on the cars. Amusingly, I noticed a Jesus fish on a Toyota Corolla, and Allegra informed me that almost all cars here are foreign donations, so they often arrive with Christian or political insignia.
We briefly stopped at my guest house to drop off my stuff. The guesthouse is across the street from a major security zone so it is considered quite safe. I don't know if it is comforting or alarming to know that my hotel is protected by a two blast-proof security fences, has 24-hour multiple armed guards, and has a bomb-shelter/safe room in the basement!
Then it was on to the school. I immediately met two of my young students, Mashal and Najib. A crowd of brass students gathered in the classroom where I will be teaching and watched me warm up and start working some fundamentals with them. The level here is very basic; it will be a good challenge to lay solid groundwork for them to build on after I am gone.
In the late morning was a quick recital for the students. Since the performance space is very small, there are separate recitals for the students and the general public. A young Aghan girl played a very proper minuet and a traditional Afghan tune on the piano, and another girl zipped through the Suzuki Allegro. The new "Afghanistan String Quartet", four of the older boys, played an energetic Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The recital concluded with the teacher of Afghan native instruments performing a Hindi raga on a sirod--a sitar like Afghan instrument with many resonating strings and a metal fingerboard. Fascinating to watch and to hear!
My first meal was at a restaurant near the school that basically functions as a cafeteria. The staple food here is naan bread, which comes in huge elongated slabs and is delicious. There was a tasty soup of vegetables, potatoes and chicken, and beef shish kabob doused in cumin, which we ate wrapped in the naan. I will be eating well here!
Just before lunch, I received the unexpected news that, due to a potential Afghan holiday, the only chance I would have to perform for the general public would be this evening. Afghan holidays are a complicated business. They are determined by lunar observation, which means they are declared only a few days in advance and there is sometimes controversy even then about what day they will be! The upshot was, I HAD to perform the slow movement of the Brahms Trio tonight for the glitterati of Kabul's expat community. No, there would not be time to return to the guesthouse and change.
So after lunch I rehearsed the trio with William Harvey and Allegra, who fortunately are excellent readers and sensitive chamber musicians. I taught Mashal and Najib a little more, practiced some on my own, and at 6:00 performed in Kabul, wearing the same jeans, sweater, and sneakers that I was wearing when I left Miami two days ago! The crowd was understanding and appreciative and it was a thrill to produce (in a half-stupor of fatigue), the dark and expressive music of Brahms in a place that may have never heard it before.
After the concert we returned to the guest house, ate a very quick bite, and I began this post, first on the public computer, then on James's laptop, and finally on my iPhone. The lack of a laptop is going to delay writing and publishing these posts but I will try to get a report of each day that I'm here out.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
In transit to Kabul
Greetings, readers! Thank you for taking the time to check out this account of my experiences in Kabul, Afghanistan. Most of you will be friends, family, and colleagues, but I hope that you will share this with people who might be interested or have similar experiences of their own. I will welcome all comments, questions, critiques, and ideas!
So what will I be doing in Kabul? In short, I am participating in the Winter Festival of the Afghan National Institute of Music, teaching and performing chamber music. This trip came about with relatively little warning-- in mid-December, my good friend Karen Birch Blundell (who keeps a great vlog on the perils and pleasures of life as a professional musician), introduced me via facebook to William Harvey, who is teaching at ANIM. They were in need of a horn teacher for their winter festival, and Karen thought of me because of my previous experience teaching in Iraq (read about that trip here). I fortunately had some availability and the trip was arranged!
In typical musician fashion, this trip had to be squeezed between other performing and teaching obligations, so my schedule to travel here has been tight. I left my home in Tampa on the morning of Sunday the 29th, heard entry auditions for USF, where I am the horn instructor, dashed to Opera Tampa's last performance of Cav and Pag, and then to Clearwater for a concert with The Florida Orchestra. There, I loaded up my car with a final batch of donations from my colleagues at TFO (more on that later), and drove to Miami. Since I have performances in Miami immediately on my return to the US, it was simplest to depart from there and leave my car there. I had my last horn practice session in the US at the New World Symphony's spectacular new facility on Miami Beach. It seemed like an interesting juxtaposition to make use of one of the world's best facilities for music study before heading to a place which is undoubtedly one of the more challenged!
From Miami I flew to Washington Dulles, and from there to Dubai, a 12 hour flight. It was interesting to notice that our flight path took us over Moldova and Iraqi Kurdistan, two other places where I have engaged in this kind of work. We flew into Dubai over the Persian Gulf at night, speckled with the lights from offshore oil rigs and tankers, and ringed with cities punctuated by lights from the enormous flames of the oil facilities. The approach to Dubai took us right by the sparkling towers of downtown, where I could easily make out some of the more famous landmarks and the tallest building in the world!
This post comes to you from the airport at Dubai, a dizzying hub for Middle Eastern and African travel. A riot of languages and ethnicities are here, and the chaos (despite the modern facility) that comes from 10,000 strangers trying to negotiate complicated travel. Soon I will be checking into my flight to Kabul on Safi airways. So here are some last thoughts before I plunge into my Afghanistan experience.
I find myself coming in with quite a different mindset than what I had nearly four years ago as I headed to Iraq. Then, I viewed my trip as largely selfish in motivation: I wanted the excitement of traveling to a place that everyone was talking about but few had experience of, but I wasn't sure that I could make a worthwhile contribution or that this kind of work was important.
This time, I'm actually more starry-eyed than I was. My experiences there left me with the strong feeling that we were doing important, lasting work. I had the impression that the interactions not only with the students, but with their parents, and even our translators all went towards creating lasting goodwill, a sense of connection among nations, and hopefully the basis for more art and music in both places. I think the world was a slightly better place because of our work there. And I hope that the same will be true of my experiences here. The little I've been able to see of the work that ANIM is doing through facebook posts and news stories has deeply impressed me, and I'm excited to be part of it for even a short time!
Of course, the selfish reasons remain too. Afghanistan looks like a fascinating country with an amazing history. Kabul may be poor and war-torn, but it is still a cultural center and an international city. I have no doubt that I will meet amazing people, see surprising sites, and (important to me) eat interesting new foods. I am only there for 8 days, and I plan to savor it all!
I will make every effort to update this blog daily. As I said at the beginning, all comments are welcome! It's so nice to know that some people are taking an interest in what I write. My batteries are dying and the Safi check-in counter is opening, so farewell from Dubai, and soon greetings to Kabul!
So what will I be doing in Kabul? In short, I am participating in the Winter Festival of the Afghan National Institute of Music, teaching and performing chamber music. This trip came about with relatively little warning-- in mid-December, my good friend Karen Birch Blundell (who keeps a great vlog on the perils and pleasures of life as a professional musician), introduced me via facebook to William Harvey, who is teaching at ANIM. They were in need of a horn teacher for their winter festival, and Karen thought of me because of my previous experience teaching in Iraq (read about that trip here). I fortunately had some availability and the trip was arranged!
In typical musician fashion, this trip had to be squeezed between other performing and teaching obligations, so my schedule to travel here has been tight. I left my home in Tampa on the morning of Sunday the 29th, heard entry auditions for USF, where I am the horn instructor, dashed to Opera Tampa's last performance of Cav and Pag, and then to Clearwater for a concert with The Florida Orchestra. There, I loaded up my car with a final batch of donations from my colleagues at TFO (more on that later), and drove to Miami. Since I have performances in Miami immediately on my return to the US, it was simplest to depart from there and leave my car there. I had my last horn practice session in the US at the New World Symphony's spectacular new facility on Miami Beach. It seemed like an interesting juxtaposition to make use of one of the world's best facilities for music study before heading to a place which is undoubtedly one of the more challenged!
From Miami I flew to Washington Dulles, and from there to Dubai, a 12 hour flight. It was interesting to notice that our flight path took us over Moldova and Iraqi Kurdistan, two other places where I have engaged in this kind of work. We flew into Dubai over the Persian Gulf at night, speckled with the lights from offshore oil rigs and tankers, and ringed with cities punctuated by lights from the enormous flames of the oil facilities. The approach to Dubai took us right by the sparkling towers of downtown, where I could easily make out some of the more famous landmarks and the tallest building in the world!
This post comes to you from the airport at Dubai, a dizzying hub for Middle Eastern and African travel. A riot of languages and ethnicities are here, and the chaos (despite the modern facility) that comes from 10,000 strangers trying to negotiate complicated travel. Soon I will be checking into my flight to Kabul on Safi airways. So here are some last thoughts before I plunge into my Afghanistan experience.
I find myself coming in with quite a different mindset than what I had nearly four years ago as I headed to Iraq. Then, I viewed my trip as largely selfish in motivation: I wanted the excitement of traveling to a place that everyone was talking about but few had experience of, but I wasn't sure that I could make a worthwhile contribution or that this kind of work was important.
This time, I'm actually more starry-eyed than I was. My experiences there left me with the strong feeling that we were doing important, lasting work. I had the impression that the interactions not only with the students, but with their parents, and even our translators all went towards creating lasting goodwill, a sense of connection among nations, and hopefully the basis for more art and music in both places. I think the world was a slightly better place because of our work there. And I hope that the same will be true of my experiences here. The little I've been able to see of the work that ANIM is doing through facebook posts and news stories has deeply impressed me, and I'm excited to be part of it for even a short time!
Of course, the selfish reasons remain too. Afghanistan looks like a fascinating country with an amazing history. Kabul may be poor and war-torn, but it is still a cultural center and an international city. I have no doubt that I will meet amazing people, see surprising sites, and (important to me) eat interesting new foods. I am only there for 8 days, and I plan to savor it all!
I will make every effort to update this blog daily. As I said at the beginning, all comments are welcome! It's so nice to know that some people are taking an interest in what I write. My batteries are dying and the Safi check-in counter is opening, so farewell from Dubai, and soon greetings to Kabul!
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