Afghan Voices, Eugene

A small but very engaged audience with four actor friends who read the works of my Afghan students. These are the stories that will never be heard on the news: How many Americans even know there's a very depressed minority (Hazara) in Afghanistan.

Tamina's monologue of the Protester at the Shia Law demonstration on Darulaman Rd near the Iranian mosque, March, 2009, already two years ago. But the law is still in place, the story (of legal rape) relevant as ever.

Hasan's monologue of the old woman who has just lost her whole family in a Nato AIRSTRIKE! What's new.

Nematullah's monologue of the Pashtun man talking about the history of Afghanistan, singing the famous couplet attributed to Malalai inthe 1880's war with the British; also his monologue of the young Hazara.

These monologue were the result of using as a text, Anna Deveare Smith's FIRES IN THE MIRROR, about the battle between Hasids and blacks in Brooklyn

One of the pleasures of sharing my experience is the comments from the audience who see things in the photos I never have as in this painting by a young orphan in Kabul- it is the tent of a Kuchi family, the nomads of Afghanistan (was the child who painted it a Kuchi?) The person in the audience marveled at how integral the animals are to this family . . .and how beautifully rendered

One audience member sent an email suggesting this be a staged production which has been my thought all along . .

I drove the 60 miles home with only one headlite under the fall of giant snowflakes (April28!) happy to arrive at my cozy home in the Oregon forest plenty wood to keep me warm.

Swedish Military camp

Our final days in Mazar were spent at the Swedish military camp (for our safety during the expected New Year's crush). I shared a tent with my four male colleagues, bedding from Ikea. The camp was immaculate and the food was prepared fresh daily: filet mignon and ice cream by candle light on Saturday night. Quite different fom the American camp nearby where we went once for breakfast -this was the only good meal the Americans got: bacon, eggs, etc-all other meals were TV dinners. Another difference: many more soldiers of color at the American camp. Also, there were probably no felons in the Swedish camp.

All but one of my colleagues on our tour were gay, but it was a few days before they drppped their guard, before I heard about visits to Radical Fairies Weekend, before Michael talked non-stop about his desire to get layed, not unlike any other guy his age, though he was also the focus of female translator crushes.

Teenage Girls, Kabul style

These two girls came from Kabul with their mother, a veteran TV actress. She said she came all the way from Kabul for our theater workshop. Actually she was hoping we would pay for her trip to Mazar where she had come to spend the holiday, and picnic at the Blue Mosque, according to the daughters. Sultan, the young man in the center was one of our translators, and clearly on the make but it was the younger daughter on the left who asked if I would take a photo with him. Before she left she passed him a note with her phone number, he told me later.

Orphans

The orphans in Mazar as in most orphanages in Afghanistan are collections of sibling groups. Also true of these and most Afghan orphans, their mothers are in prison for misdeeds I have described earlier.

More Mazar

Why would it even matter to be confined to one's hotel in this city of wind and sand at the top of the desert steppe?
Because I did not get to see the Blue Mosque, surely one of the fabled wonders of the world. it is not just a place of prayer but a small world unto itself where families spend their holidays packing picnics. It managed to survive the Soviets and the Taliban. Legend says that any dove landing in its courtyard will turn white.

Mazar

Before I forget. Mazar was hard. But the hotel we were locked down in was way more plush than the one in Herat with sequin- flecked gauzy curtains lining all the walls, my own cazbah. (But when I turned out all the lights, the room was still fully lit- one wall was actually a huge poorly disguised window that faced onto the lobby.) The interior of this hotel was all I would see for the remainder of the week. Suddenly, Mazar, which had been safe for the last decade had its first suicide bomber a few days before our arrival adding to the biggest celebration of the year, Naroz, the Afghan New Year. .

Many many theater students had signed up ranging in age from near toddlers to adults. Michael and I split them up- I took those up to 15, he took the rest. We also had to share the hotel's one large room.

My women's writing group would meet in the afternoon in a smaller room (we were always making the whole show up hour by hour). After several false starts the 14 very enthusiastic young women revealed they could only meet outside the hotel; this was arranged with a little fear on my part but Kim from the consulate had offered to drive me (I asked this of Kim with mixed feelings: she looked at the portfolio I'd prepared -the women had requested focus on poetry so I'd printed up a collection including one by Nikki Giovanni about missing (her lover) in bed; Kim said I had to remove it; actually the word “lover' is never used and it more likely here in Afghanistan could have been read as a missed parent or sibling; when I pointed this out to Kim, she agreed-after everything had already gone to hell. The day we planned to meet, the international forces were conducting 'exercises' in the center of town in preparation for the weekend holiday. Suhrab, head of Mazar's writing group who had arranged for the women, called to say they had all canceled! They were afraid to go out on the street because of all the soldiers! International do gooders shooting themselves in the foot.

All was not lost. Mazar's only orphanage would be happily bringing 15 girls in the afternoons. Except they too were caught up for an hour in the logjam created by the 'exercises' and eventually turned back on the first day.

Out of all this we would come up with some kind of performance for the Friday before the holiday. I did physical theater and puppetry with the morning kids, combining sound with movement. About ten kids really nailed it and came up with a forest of beautifully imagined animals from sweet birds to growling bears; others made up the animals' stories. The forest was so evocative the large almost totally male audience actually gave a standing cheer in the middle.

Though I gave all the orphan girls puppets, I hadn't had enough time with them to plan anything so I was happy they would get to see the performance by the other children. Not to be. Just as the performance of the 'forest' was beginning, all the orphan girls were suddenly filing up the stairs. When it was over I ran up the stairs to find out what had happened! They were all gathered in the hotels's parking lot where Kim was handing out notebooks, pencils and other gifts so generously donated by Americans.

3 cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer

Byliner.com
Krakauer, himself once a big financial supporter of alleged Afghan hero Greg Mortenson, presents another view that shows Mortenson's collection of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the name of building schools for Afghan children to be a sham. (Also reported on 60 minutes, March 17, 2011.) This has all been known for some time in country. It's frustrating that our celebrity cult places such trust and funds in the hands of self-aggrandizers like Mortenson; that so much of what we know about Afghanistan is filtered through their salacious stories. Mortenson isn't alone. Also on every talk show, etc this month is Jere Van Dyke, a journalist abducted by the Taliban and who was honored this week by the University of Oregon's School of Journalism during a day of celebrating ethics. What would the truly honorable journalist Robert Ruhl, for whom the lecture is named, have to say about honoring this particular journalist? Sure, he has a good story to tell but what exactly has Mr Van Dyke contributed to the Afghan dilemma besides a compelling story of abduction? In the end the story is all about him. What happened to the Afghans?

chador, Herati style

in case you think Afghanistan is a democracy

just because the international community underwrote the last election to the tune of 120 million,

Read "Disappearing Ink: Letter from Kabul" Harper's, January, 2011

After Karzai was 'elected', many in the international community hoped at least the Parliament would provide a check. From report on Parliament's great accomplishments:1. "ordering stickers with the names of members for their desks; 2. bill gving immunity to those accused of war crimes.

Hazara

I dont think I mentioned that Simorgh Theater Co is Hazara, the beleagured minority of Afghanistan, the ' blacks'. They live in the Hazara ghetto outside of Herat. The only option for trained actors in Afghanistan is TV but there are no Hazaras on TV. One of Simorgh's major complaints is that they spend a few years training good actors who must eventually give it up. There is a plan to teach the company to become self sufficient by performing short plays about social issues out in the community -to Pashtuns and Tajiks at the local women's shelter?

In Kabul, the Hazaras are the beasts of burden on the street, the men you see pulling carts loaded with construction materials, etc They were also among the best and most serious students at American U., the least likely to act entitled. Bamyian is their province and during the time of Taliban rule, they were those most victimized and massacred. Susana told me that when she and her family were fleeing to Iran, their car would repeatedly be stopped and searched for Hazara who would have been summarily murdered if found.

Zuri's Afghan Eggplant

Ingredients:
1. Aubergines – long thin ones 1 per person
2. Fresh green chillies – long thin ones 3 per person
3. Garlic – 2 clove per person
4. Cooking oil – 10 table spoons
5. Onions – one for every two aubergines
6. Fresh tomatoes – one for every 2 aubergines
7. Tomato paste a small tea spoon
8. Salt to taste
9. Yoghurt and coriander for garnish

Method:
1. Crash garlic and chillies in a pestle and morter. You can use sea salt or just plain salt to help with crashing. Crash until a paste is created
2. Wash the aubergines thoroughly. Made a lengthwise slit all the way from the bottom to the top of the aubergine.
3. Using a spoon smear an even layer of the paste into the slit you have made in the aubergines
4. In frying pan warm the cooking oil
5. Fry finely chopped onions in the oil until brown
6. Pour 100ml of water on the browned onion
7. Once the water starts to boils off and the onions turn into a brown mash pour in the finely chopped tomatoes in
8. Cook until all the moisture evaporates and a nice even sauce is created

9. Pour the sauce in an oven safe dish which must have a cover - a shallow casserole dish is best
10. Place the aubergines over the sauce
11. Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degree - half way through the baking it may be a good ideas to turn the aubergines around so they are cooked evenly
12. Serve on a bed of yoghurt and garnish with coriander

Malalai Joya

from Ed:

I thought of you when I saw this interview with Malalai Joya, who was just allowed, after much protest in her favor, to come to the US. She quite convincingly talks to all the points anyone would raise in favor of continued occupation of Afghanistan. The woman is so intense, it is quite something to see/hear her.


www.commondreams.org/malalai-joya

Interview by friend and fellow playwright Beverly Andrews in The Middle East, March, 2011

www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action...574...

"We're all sitting around on a blanket on the grass as the sun goes down. AZ is reading one of the submissions for the short story contest sponsored by a German NGO. He's reading it in Dari and translating into English. His translation is exquisitely detailed--he explains all the many layers of metaphor. One of the more beautiful is the explanation of a mother pulling at the shirt of the man who is about to killher daughter, his wife. This part of the shirt, the lower portion ofthe shalwar kameez, is sacred on both men and women but especially women, because this is the part of the body from which humans are born. When you make a plea to someone in this way, the person is bound tohonour the supplicant.
"The story is only two pages long and yet it tells so much-- There are other evocative metaphors: the writer hears a dog giving birthinside a house he is observing. He imagines the dog is mourning the birth of her pup because of the terrible life it is bound to lead, and he compares this new life of a dog to that of a human being born atthis this time."

Afghan Voices 2011, Eugene Public Library

10th and Olive St, Thursday, April 28, 6 PM

Al Ansari (Orphanage) Theater Co?

Using some of the puppets I brought from Alaska, the older girls came up with a wonderful piece of theater; my translators, Susana and Fatemah taught the four year olds the stick dance and costumed everyone. And then as I reported earlier, none of them got to perform. Susan and Fatemah planned to continue after I left; Monique offered to provide an opportunity to perform at the consulate.

Why are these children here? One parent I met, a 25 year old with a two month old infant left her 5 other children here because her husband is in prison and she can't afford to keep them. Many of these girls are here because their mothers are in jail for various deeds ranging from convictions for (forced) drug dealing to leaving abusive husbands. The US builds some of the prisons that house them.

There is no adoption in Afghanistan. What is the future for these girls when the future for girls with parents in Afghanistan leaves a lot to be desired.

Who benefits from cultural diplomacy?

The intention of American Voices theater projects is to work with already established theater groups; thus in Herat, Simorgh is usually the recipient of any country bringing in cultural diplomacy workers. Norway, for example, paid the recipients skewing their expectations. I was supposed to work with the National Theater in the afternoons but they wanted to be paid. I liked the idea of spreading the opportunity and proposed working at an orphanage which is how I came to spend my afternoons with these girls. Whatever these girls may have lacked in acting ability, they more than made up for in imagination.

The interior of the orphanage was heated by diesel, seriously toxic fumes adding to the long ledger of things these intrepid girls have to survive so the following day with great weather I proposed we gather outside. Since they'd be expected to participate in the weekend's performance, in addition to theater games and improv, we worked on the traditional stick dance (and also because they loved doing it-PE there was not). I beat the cheap plastic drum while the girls worked up a frenzy of dance moves and stick pounding. When I returned the following day, I was informed there would be no dancing outside and no dancing of older girls inside or outside. (We would be able to teach the four-year olds the stick dance, Inside. The appalled (!?) neighbors had complained.

What's political?

Sometimes when I've been invited to present Afghan Voices, the parties have worried that the presentation is not political enough. My friend Rich Moniak of Juneau Peace and Justice has this to say in response:

"I think your efforts are more than political
acts because it's rooted in the heart. People to people conversation will
always do more than loud voices of idealism. The understandings rising out
of such efforts is enduring. The politics convinced are apt to forget why it
matters."

What could be more political than these four-year old girls wearing turbans!

Grandmother's Memory

The same girls performed this original, clever and funny play on the final evening to much acclaim from a large audience of peers, parents, Consulate and Afghan dignateries; it is the story of an old woman telling her grandaughter about her youth and going back in time to change it so that she was the best musician, singer, chosen by the handsome shepherd.

Simorgh Theater Co Herat

This is a photo of the young girls who perform in their original work: Stones and Mirrors. They recently performed at a festival in India. When you see the photos from this link you might wonder as I did what new I could teach them.

www.nsdtheatrefest.com/stones.php

They are between the ages of 12 and 16 and very very skilled perfomers. The most startling thing to me whenever I saw it performed were the masks with their mustaches-young Afghan girls performing on stage very convincingly as men and soldiers (male gestures,body language, etc). This maybe one of the most significant phenomena I observed during this recent visit. Girls performing as boys and men from the four-year olds at the orphanage who turned their head scarves into turbans to the fourteen year old orphanage girl, Fausia, who said, "all Afghan women want to be men."

Afghan Fashionistas

Afghanistan hasn't always been an Islamic Republic, hasn't always been the enclave of the buqua-clad ( neither was it Taliban who initiated this.) In the 1970's women in Kabul wore mini-skirts and bouffant hairdos similar to their western counterparts. The King ordered women to remove the veil.

Most Afghan smaller airports have a section reserved for women so when the guys from American Voices and I traveled from Herat back to Kabul, I knew we we're in for the long haul (average wait time can be 5 hrs). So as not to draw attention to myself, I go sit with the women. Plus it's more fun. At first I draw as much attention from the women (western women still a curiosity in most places outside Kabul). I can usually get a conversation going if I pull out my knitting. By the time the plane finally arrived we'd all shared chicken lunch brought by three older women.

I've long appreciated Afghan women's fashion efforts in spite of the burka. From knitting I progress to requesting photos of footwear which they find curious, slightly charming and are happy to oblige. Forget unpaved muddy roads. Most women wear spike heels. If they're not in high heels , they still have some kind of flashy footwear and it doesn't stop with the shoes. The long white hand made lace fringed pants above the high heels are their version of underpants and are required (no bare legs!). Underneath the burqua there is almost always at least a sequined skirt.

My first visit to Herat I didn't notice that ALL women on the street wear hijab (the long black cloak worn by Iranians (this is only true of Herat where Iran maintains a heavy hand) though Heratis do have their own unique patterned version. Herat is way more conservative than Kabul where women are almost modern in comparison, where many only wear a scarf to cover their hair. (In other ways Herat allows more freedom, at least for western women, where Embassy women drive their own cars alone!)

Eyebrows. Khaled our main translator told me my translator, Fatemah is married when I knew for certain she is not. If you've plucked your brows it means your married! Turns out she intentionally plucked her brows so men would not harass her.

Afghan Voices 2011, Willow Springs, North San Juan, CA March 30, 7:30 PM

One of the highlights of my work with the Simorgh Theater Company in Herat was Dancing! It began with my playing some songs from my Itunes to accompany warm-ups and it progressed to asking the boys to leave so the girls would feel free to Rock Out! I'm not sure they have access to YouTube (their electricity is off for weeks at a time) but these girls in the photo who form the core of the company asked to show me something they themselves choreographed to a popular hip hop song. They never had a class with Michael but he saw them and was surprised to find he thought they were better than the boys

Michael's class, Mazar

YES Academy Thailand 2010 Hip Hop 2

This is Michael's hip hop class in Thailand. I'm the only woman in the one in Mazar.

Simorgh Theater Co (me and Monireh center)

Grama, sheep and wolf (some things never change)

Al Ansari orphanage girls and their puppets

Dance/NO (continued)

I fell asleep writing the last post.

At that point the dominoes began falling. The consulate person in charge was saying the last (and best) play couldn't go on and I should cut the piece that was at that moment on stage (Women in Black) and Monira, Simorgh's fabulous director rightly threatened to take the whole company and leave. The orphanage girls with their puppet play were totally nixed-because by then it was getting dark and girls need to be home by dark.

Michael's hiphop guys and the 4 year-old stick dancers had already been shut down earlier by the Council of Mullahs who wrote to the Minister of Culture declaring that if there were any dancing onstage all cultural events would be banned for a year. They said it was because the time coincided with the departure of the Soviets and it would be wrong to dance on this occasion. ( and also, Iran runs the ship in this town).

Ironically, there was plenty of dancing onstage by all of the ensembles that managed to perform: The boys showed off whatever hiphop skills they had learned in their school play; Women in Black is kind of a tone poem with women in black veils swirling around and Grandmother's Memory has girls showing off their dancing skills.

I managed to get the last play on before they shut us down. Grandmother's Memory is a brilliant little tour de force created by its teenage cast about an old woman recalling her youth to her grandaughter and going back in time to intervene to insure she was the prettiest, smartest, best dancer, flute player, rubab player and got the cutest guy.

The event seemed to be more than a little about what good works the US is doing; culture for the Afghans but the US better approve by their own standards. It was all in Dari (except for brief descriptions from me) and so the Americans missed some of the jokes, all of which the Afghans seemed to love. The disappointment of the orphanage girls was heartbreaking but it may yet be pulled from the ruins.

Back at the hotel the hip hop boys performed for us and two people from the consulate including Monique, the Political Affairs Officer – she's great and gets what I was trying to do. She and I topped off the evening by doing the stick dance with 2 hip hop boys (their idea)! And I've hooked her up with my translators Susan and Fatimah (so taken with the orphanage kids and our time there that they have planned to go there regularly) to bring the orphanage girls to the consulate for a private performance.

Dancing/NO

Me and my two exceptional translators, Susan and Fatimah, taught these four year olds to do the traditonal Afghan stick dance (I wrote about the inspiration for this a few days ago-one of the many serendipitous occasions of my time here). The girls worked very hard for the Friday performance that was to be attended by all the other orphanage girls ( also scheduled to perform), Simorgh students and their families, and the US consulate members with big hair (our funders)-about two or three hundred people.

Not much went according to plan. Susan and Fatimah went early to the market on Friday morning to buy dresses and costumes for the older girls who were going to perform an original puppet play they had created. The program was set to begin at 3Pm with the bands Gene tutored -they were about an hour late. Next up was the Simorgh Theater Company, the group of young actors I worked with primarily for the ten days we were in Herat. The core group is brilliant, about 5 twelve and fourteen year olds and a few older girls. The whole group numbers about 30 with ten boys. The boys created their own play, a slapstick scene in a classroom in which they got to try out the hip hop they had learned from Michael. The scene created entirely by the boys opens with two of the younger ones, Jafar voicing a moose marionette and Mustafa, the voice for the brown bear hand puppet arguiing who is the better dancer the Moose or the Bear. They were suddenly up first because the music for the first play hit a snafu Jafar got his moose (thank you, Alaska) marionette tangled up
(to be continued)


(Note: for good photos of Herat, check my blog post March, 2009)

Al Ansari orphanage girls, Herat

Diana, filmmaker and Shia Law protest organizer

Mazar

March 15
After spending two days in Afghan airports, we arrive in Mazar on Sunday on the second try. Baggage claim vies with Herat for most primitive-all rock and sand and one must walk at least a mile to reach the taxis though there is a sidewalk for part of the way! (imagine a sidewalk in the middle of a moonscape)

Mazar is like an armed camp. I haven't left the hotel since I arrived (most of you know this isn't like me). This week is the Afghan New Year and here is where all Afghans like to spend it: the city of 300,000 becomes one million.

Yesterday was the first day of my women's writing workshop. Diana and Malik accompany one of the writers, Sada, a famous Afghan poet. They are making a film about remarkable women in Afghanistan. I am teaching the students to write a monologue and as an example, I read one written by my American University student, T, about the protest of the Shia Law signed by Karzai (see blog entry for March 2009). Diana, the filmmaker, is the one who organized the protest.

Eight more women come to today's workshop but only to tell me they cannot continue; people will speak disapprovingly of women entering a hotel. They ask me to come to them. But I had decided I wouldn't leave the hotel for above reason. I tell them yes.

They are mostly poets and ask me to read one of mine. Only one coincidentally comes to mind that I have memorized. (If Afghanistan has a national fruit , it is pomegranates):

Maria Elena Cruz Varela (a Cuban poet jailed by Castro)

Boxes of fruit hoarded away.
How can fruit be hoarded?
It will rot.

I have never eaten pomegranates.
I don’t know if I like their taste but
Yes I like their ripe red color ,
their seeds enfolded in slippery purple.

How do I know this Maria Elena Cruz Varela?
Your name is like pomegranates
Ruby ripe red
Your words are seeds of life
hoarded away, allowed to rot
My tears are purple envelopes
holding the seeds of dreams slipping away.

When my grandma was alive,
we didn't hoard fruit.
We gave it away.

Mazar i Sharif -children's theater

Recurring Themes

Since returning to the land of my imagination to teach theater to young women and boys I've noticed that no matter the improv, exercize or game, the little and larger heads turn up turbaned. These four very little girls live at a girl's orphanage in Herat on the Iranian border of Afghanistan. We were playing a game where you create a scene using a scarf; it can be a magic carpet or superwoman's cape or dog leash. It became all those and about 15 four year olds in the audience began wrapping their heads with their head scarves turban style. One of their 14 year old sister orphans: "All women in Afghanistan want to be men." So much for International Women's Day. I'm teaching a professional theater group in the morning and at the orphanage in the afternoon and many many of the scenes and skits they've created since I've been here have included at least one turbaned character and often a whole cast to of them.

My first especially thrilling day here was with the morning theater group. I turned on some rock and roll and reggae, etc. I had to send the boys out (there are about ten boys and 25 girls) and then these young Afghan girls really got down and rocked out ((recalling one of my own greatest experiences as a teen - discovering R&B). Years ago I studied Hula and remembered we used bamboo sticks to provide rhythm so I went to the bazaar (market) to buy some. Turns out there is a traditional wedding dance by women using sticks and it was more than easy to find them. Days earlier I had bought a drum in the bazaar. Between the drum and the sticks both the girls in my morning theater group and the orphanage girls went wild and provided my second thrilling day. Only problem of course:. Herati Islamic tradition doesn't approve. The neighborhood, even the Government (it's a small town of a million or so ) came down hard on the Director of the orphanage and she was forced to disallow the drum and sticks. Says she: "Afghanistan, it's like a prison sentence for life."

Imagistan Redux