Days Nine and Ten

Sunday night after we returned, I sat in on another session of the Institute for Leadership Development. They had moved to a new permanent location, a large house where their offices, kitchen and bathrooms are on the main floor, and the lower level has one large classroom and two smaller "break-out" rooms. There is another floor or two above which will house single men, mostly PAC TEC pilots. It is located closer to the University and therefore closer to our guesthouse too.

This class was taught by two women and was a continuation of one the previous week. Participants had been asked to complete the Meyers-Briggs personality inventory online but they didn't deal with the results of it since not all had completed it. They discussed some gender issues, then spent the majority of the class debating the pros and cons of "I can only change myself" vs. "I can change others". Very lively discussion. Two women were in the class, one of which I had the opportunity to talk with during the break. She is here in country alone, her family is still all in Iran where she completed her university studies and she works in a civil service job. We were also celebrating a birthday during the break.

The next afternoon, Monday, Mae took me to the University of Kabul where we were met by an ex-pat Ben who teaches at the Engineering Department. The University has a goal of teaching completely in English by 2025 and he is working to get the curriculum and other materials ready. He introduced us to Kamiq, an English teacher in the Fine Arts Department and we all walked to the brand-new Fine Arts building which was just completed 2 months ago and is a gift from the government of Pakistan. We went round to a side entrance where the music students enter. All the floors are marble. There is a huge atrium which opens all the halls in the building to the elements. Curious construction.

We met with the Head of the Music Department, Islamuddin Faroz, in the office of two guitar teachers, one of which speaks English quite well. Dr. Faroz does pretty well himself, understands better than he speaks. We had a good talk, the result of which was an invitation to visit classes the next morning from 8:30 to 12:30. And we had tea. They found some nuts, raisins and candy and spread them out artistically on a couple of plates, apologizing for having to use a chair for a table.

So on Tuesday morning, our driver dropped me off at Puli Sorkh, the red bridge entrance after we brought the teenagers to school. Mae was unable to be with me because she had laryngitis. The Fine Arts building is the first one inside that entrance so I arrived by about 8:00. The doors were locked but a student knocked on the door for me and the chawkidor came and escorted me up to the office of the Head of Fine Arts. He was very gracious to me and after we talked for 20 minutes he called Dr. Faroz who then brought me upstairs to a large classroom with an old grand piano.

I had a delightful day with sometimes 21 students at a time. But I can't write any more now because Muhamed Gul is ready to take us to pick up Dr. Rafiq and head out to Jegdalek.