Thoughts on my two weeks in Kabul, Afghanistan

The faculty (including the volunteers) at Shanti Bhavan had a two-week vacation September 19th – October 3rd and I decided to spend my break volunteering at a music school in Kabul, Afghanistan. For those of you who don’t know this about me, I’ve been itching to go to Afghanistan for years. To state it simply, I’ve read book after book about the country and the conflicts there and have always felt inexplicably fascinated by it and drawn to it. And now that I’m back in India, I’m finding it hard to write about. I could write about what I did there each day, the people I met, the food I ate, the places I saw…but what I’m most interested in conveying to you is how it felt to be there. And that’s much more daunting of a task…and one that I’m not sure I’ll be able to succeed at. But I’ll try.

I have two favorite quotes that perfectly supplement my philosophy on life (if I’m old enough to have one already)…

“Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort.” - From a fortune cookie I got last year

“Nothing in life is to be feared – it is only to be understood.” - Marie Curie

In anticipation of what certain people (namely, my parents ☺) might retort to that second quote, let me just clarify why I think it applies to Afghanistan. Saying that there’s nothing to fear doesn’t mean that I think there are only wonderful people in Afghanistan and only good things happening. Clearly, that’s not the case. But instead of reacting with fear, I believe we should try to understand the whole situation and its various parts.

When most people think of Afghanistan, they think of extremists, oppressed women, AK-47s, IEDs, landmines, poppies, and dust. Am I right? Did I miss anything? While all of these are definitely a part of Afghanistan, the other side of the coin is hardly ever depicted in the news. When I remember my two-weeks’ time in Afghanistan, I think of roses, kites, and the way people greet each other – with the right hand over the heart…try it – you’ll instantly feel a genuine connection with who you're greeting.

I did not know what to expect from my trip to Afghanistan, but I could not have imagined a more amazing experience. From learning Dari to receiving a compliment from Hamid Karzai on my oboe playing…it all was way better than any dream I could have had. And yes, I got to play oboe for the president. More on that later. For now, I’m going to do my best to break down my experience into a few parts:

First: The People
The Afghan people I had the privilege of working with were some of the kindest, friendliest, and most gentle people while also being incredibly funny and quick-witted. And of the vast international community in Kabul, I’ll say this: you will never meet a boring person. Ever. Everyone you meet has a fascinating reason to be there, be they government workers, NGO workers, journalists, aid-workers, or music teachers!

Second: The Music School
Dr. Sarmast, the founder, has done an incredible job of creating this first-ever music school. I highly recommend you check out the website and read more about his project: www.afghanistannationalinstituteofmusic.org. In addition, I was collaborating with the organization Cultures in Harmony (www.culturesinharmony.org) which invited me to ANIM to observe the music students practicing and make recommendations on how to develop a better practice methodology. With this task at hand, I was able to work with students on a variety of instruments instead of the usual pianists I come across (being a pianist, myself). With the language barrier, I had to immediately learn the music-practicing-basics in Dari such as “good!”, “do that three times in a row”, “listen!”, “beautiful!”, “do that again from this measure”, and “This is very difficult.” And - of course - counting the beats in Dari: yak, du, se, char!

The music students at ANIM are dedicated, hard working, and always eager to learn. Ever respectful, my favorite time of day was walking into the guitar students’ practice room and seeing them stand, put their hand on their heart and say “Welcome, Teacher.” I’m not even a guitar teacher! But their respect for any type of teacher is astounding.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but one day I mentioned that I could play the oboe. Turns out, there were two oboes in the music closet and no one knew how to play them. One thing led to another, and I ended up playing oboe in the school orchestra, which in turn had the opportunity to play for President Karzai at a Literacy Day celebration. The oboe is a new instrument to the musical landscape of Afghanistan, and I had the honor of introducing it. The students around me in orchestra commented on how “sad” the instrument’s tone was and got our their cell phones to record me playing. They were enthralled at the oboe’s sound and its capacity for emotion. Mr. Shefta, the clarinet teacher at ANIM had arranged a beautiful and touching Afghan song for choir, piano, violin, cello, oboe, and tabla – and it was this arrangement that we played for the president, after the whole orchestra performed the National Anthem which was arranged by William Harvey, the American violin teacher at ANIM. After we performed, President Karzai came over to the orchestra and thanked us in Dari, and then he pointed at me and said in Dari “That girl played very well.” Then he said “very good” in English and went up on stage for his speech. True story.

Third: Kabul Itself
On the days off from school – Fridays – the founder of the music school was so kind to show us (myself and the foreign faculty members) around Kabul. What we were able to see still boggles my mind. From smelling the roses in Babur Gardens to witnessing the war scars on Darul Aman Palace – a palace completely destroyed by war and still standing, from driving up one of the mountains which frame Kabul, to walking around the side streets of the musician’s neighborhood…we were SO lucky. One of my favorite experiences was walking around the top of a particular hill whose name escapes me – a hill with two scars remaining from Kabul’s tortured past. One scar is a set of deserted tanks that was used in the civil war in the 1990s. From the hills surrounding Kabul, the mujahedin would fire at each other, destroying the city and killing tens of thousands of people in the crossfire. The second scar is an empty Olympic-sized swimming pool originally built by the soviets. The Taliban, I have read, used to throw blindfolded criminal-offenders off the diving boards to the concrete below. Despite these scars and what they remind us of – or more appropriately – in spite of these scars and what they remind us of - this hill has now been turned into a public park by USAID. We arrived there right as the sun was beginning to make its descent through the dusty sky into a beautiful sunset. Families were out with their children, kids were flying kites, and friends were sitting together enjoying the peaceful view from the hill. It was a striking moment when I truly felt how resilient Afghanistan is and how much hope it really has. And while there’s a lot in Afghanistan to be “afraid” of, we have so much more to understand.

I need to end this blog post, as a long week of teaching at Shanti Bhavan lies ahead of me. So while I don’t have any brilliant way of tying my thoughts together, I’ll conclude by saying that if you encourage yourself to expand your comfort zones every day and exchange fear for a studious heart, you never know when you might end up playing oboe for the president of Afghanistan.