The sandals off his feet

At a female student's lesson, I complimented her on her henna tattoos. Afghan girls seem to love applying these temporary orange curlicues to their hands. Reluctantly, I had to ask her to refrain from applying them to her fingertips in the future, so that the dye does not rub off on the violin. She agreed, and also mastered good posture, though her wrist remains tense. My Dari is slowly improving as I find myself teaching entire lessons in it.

My next student, a boy, proved to be one of my quickest learners yet. He began by playing the theme from Love Story with some twists straight out of the Indian violin tradition. I didn't really know how to proceed from that point, so I asked if we could start from the beginning of Western music, assuring him that he would probably progress rapidly at first. He humbly agreed, and in the first lesson, he sailed through two of the pre-Twinkle songs, I taught him the difference between a 5th and an octave, and wrapped his fingers around a small yellow ball to teach him a relaxed bowhold.

If I'm pleased to be able to give what I can, I'm occasionally embarrassed by the extraordinary displays of generosity here. I used to think that the phrase "he would give you the shirt off his back" was an expression. The friendly librarian saw that my sandals were damp, and so he took off his beautiful hand-woven Afghan sandals and wanted me to take them. I refused and could not believe he was actually willing to go home barefoot for me.