Khodetan

The clattering mass of horses and men careened closer and closer to the wall just beneath me. Strong men in T-shirts and helmets, teenage boys, and old men in shalwar kameez grimly kept their places on saddles and colorful blankets. Whips flew right and left, urging the horses to greater speed, commanding them to crush each other into the wall just above which the several hundred men of the audience squatted. But the man most pressed broke free, triumphantly carrying the decapitated limbless goat carcass away from the other riders. As he galloped furiously around the faraway pole, the riders rushed towards him, the din of hooves echoing around the giant’s amphitheater created by the mountains surrounding on the other side of the valley from our high perch. We burst into applause as one rider appeared to be on the brink of dropping the goat carcass into the white circle hastily drawn on the ground by an anxious assistant sprinkling flour from a bag. Yet our applause faded as it became clear that his scrum of competitors had thwarted him, and once again the sound of peacocks plaintively calling to one another in the garden behind us imbued the stunning, awe-inspiring vista with a sad beauty.

This, then, is buzkashi, the ancient Afghan game in which men on horseback compete to see who can grab a decapitated limbless goat and ride free of the other men to carry it around a pole and drop it inside the white circle in front of a grandstand in which the game’s sponsor typically sits. I had the rare opportunity to view a game of buzkashi four weeks ago, just hours before a team of Navy Seals converged on the compound of Osama bin Laden, some 230 miles to my east in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Since bin Laden thrust this region of the world into the American consciousness, many journalists have lazily adopted buzkashi as a metaphor for Afghan politics. That the metaphor is less than apt can be illustrated by the nonplussed reactions of the Afghans who learned I would attend the game. None of them seemed to know or care much about this ancient sport, exciting though I found it.

No single anecdote can stand for an entire culture, but if you would like to join the legion of babblers prognosticating Afghanistan's future, I humbly suggest an inspiring moment that soared above the rush of getting ready for my departure from Afghanistan for a two-week trip to Mexico and the USA.

I was very busy preparing my students at Afghanistan National Institute of Music for my two-week absence. In the evenings, I was practicing furiously for my Mexican concerto debut. I even gave an interview to Ask the Violinist about Cultures in Harmony and the importance of outreach programs.

Just before leaving, some of my little girl students requested that I bring them a doll from Mexico. The adorable red-headed rascal whom I coached daily on the ghichak solo in The Four Seasons of Afghanistan asked me to bring him a present. "What do you want me to bring back?" I asked in Dari.

He thought for a moment and grinned. "Khodetan," he said and scampered off. A lump formed in my throat.

I thought fondly of this little guy during the long flights to New York City two weeks ago. During one day in New York, I met with Susan Schindehette, founder of MiWorld, an extraordinary website devoted to deeply affecting human interest stories. The site allows readers to take a positive involvement in the lives of people they read about. I also got my violin repaired at Gradoux-Matt and enjoyed a productive Cultures in Harmony board meeting.

The next day, I flew to the spectacularly beautiful city of Guadalajara, where I would be privileged to perform the Violin Concerto by Behzad Ranjbaran at the Festival de Mayo, with the Orquesta de Jalisco conducted by Toshiyuki Shimada. The performance, which I advertised in Spanish, received some good reviews and is excerpted in this video.

It was a great honor to perform at such a prestigious festival. One very emotional experience came immediately after the concert, when I found myself mobbed by small children wanting autographs. To my delight, I learned that they are from the Casa Hogar, an organization that cares for underprivileged, orphaned, and abandoned children. Cultures in Harmony had worked with children from the Casa Hogar in Pátzcuaro from 2007-2009, so it was wonderful to meet children from the Guadalajara location.

The next day, in Dallas, Texas, I visited my brother, noted monarchist Theodore Harvey, and got to hear him give an engrossing, compelling, informative, and entertaining lecture called "Choirs and the Crown," about the relationship of Anglican choral music and the British monarchy. The following day, in Indianapolis, Indiana, I visited my parents and was formally inducted into the Hall of Fame of my alma mater, North Central High School. This honor acknowledged my achievements in cultural diplomacy since graduating from the school in 2001. I thanked the school for nurturing my curiosity about the world as well as my parents, Jay Harvey and Susan Raccoli, without whom none of this would have been possible.

The following day, back in New York, I met with Cultures in Harmony volunteers as we discussed the organization's direction. I also purchased music and other supplies for Afghanistan National Institute of Music. And now I am back in Kabul, severely jet lagged (as you can tell from the time stamp on this entry) yet very happy to see my students again.

I gave the little girls the small, colorful Mexican dolls they requested, but if you don't speak Dari, you may wonder what I got the red-headed ghichak player, who is a far more inspiring exemplar of Afghanistan's future promise than the buzkashi games typically thrust forward as an easy metaphor.

I simply gave him a hug, because when I had asked what present he wanted, he responded, "Khodetan." You see, "Khodetan" is Dari for "yourself," meaning the only present he wanted is for me to be in Kabul once more.