worl lit cont.

A few more words about world lit: my student who I mentioned earlier Tamina along with her two sisters and mother came to Kabul to be near their father who is the head of one of the ministries- they never see him because he works from 5 AM to 1 Am but he is reassured by having them near; Tamina and her sisters can go nowhere but home and school..The family has lived most of the last 20 yrs in LA. Her father came because he could not stay away; could not keep from doing whatever he can to salvage Afghanistan.
On e of the stories on the reading list is Misfortune by Chekov, about a young woman who is happily married until a long time family friend comes on to her; she resists for awhile and then succumbs. Tamina and Hassan argued about the woman’s motive; Hassan said she left because of love. Tamina insisted it was desire. I didn’t ask them what the difference is (yet)
The students were not esp drawn to Gary Snyder’s poetry until they heard Kipchoge’s rendition of Äs For Poets”; they said the music helped them to feel’’ what it was about; they also loved a line he added: (the poet) “takes photographs of time.”
Today I am sitting in my solarium with it’s 360 circle of mountains, Kabul favelas in the North;’ snow solid Hindu Kush to the west; the turquoise dome of the enormous Iranian mosque in the south . . .
To be continued- my sojourn in the solarium interrupted.
3-1
Friday night there was a reading of my Afghan play and Sat AM my world lit class and other students interested in theater enjoyed a visit with the all-Afghan National Theater company before they head off for a 7 month residency in Paris. I will write about these events as soon as I can but for now, a pile of papers to correct.