Capítulo 4
Teaching Music in a War Zone
I found four small cellos for my students, though one was damaged and unvarnished, sounding "like a tin can." Remembering my own dull first violin lesson forty-two years earlier, I was determined to make this introduction to music memorable despite language barriers. I quickly learned essential Dari words: "relax," "excellent," "hand," "left," "right," "shoulder," and purposely avoided negative words.
We began with bowing-not the bow that plays strings, but the graceful act of bending forward. This teaches balance, coordination, and self-confidence, as the first thing a musician learns brings applause. Next came proper sitting-the active, engaged posture between sitting and standing that engages the whole body. By breaking down the movements into smaller units, by lesson's end all four could bow, sit properly, hold their cellos, and pluck rhythms on each string. The cello population of Afghanistan had just doubled.
I'd learned from previous trips to be more patient with Afghan students, who carried profound intergenerational stress. Beyond the country's broader anxieties, many lived in crowded homes with little privacy, limited food, money, and parental attention-if they had parents at all. These lessons offered rare individual attention from an adult.
My workdays stretched from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. or later-harder than I'd ever worked before. Fridays offered our only day off, which included supermarket trips to Finest in the embassy area (a place previously attacked by Taliban, where eleven shoppers had been murdered). Shopping required passing armed militia, enduring thorough pat-downs, and navigating steel doors just to reach groceries.
Life in Kabul brings unexpected challenges. The simplest tasks become monumental-getting photocopies done could take all day due to lack of paper, wrong cartridges, no internet or power. Even getting a working phone takes three weeks, with no sign of a contract. Students appear for lessons then vanish for days, while the government randomly declares holidays without warning. Nothing runs predictably, which explains why a decade of foreign aid has yielded so little change in Afghanistan.
Capítulo 5
The Students Who Dared to Dream
Afghanistan's first-ever girls' ensemble started when Bibi Mina and friends approached Dr. Sarmast wanting their own space away from boys. It grew from just two violinists, a viola player, two cellists, a trumpeter, oboist and percussion into a festival of girl power, Afghan style. In rehearsals, the girls revealed their true natures while playing traditional pieces like "Laili Jan"-Afghanistan's version of Romeo and Juliet.
Despite cultural restrictions outside, here they found freedom through music. These young women faced immense challenges: Shaperai, an orphan whose mother died in childbirth; Cevinch, separated from family in Mazar-e-Sharif; Marjan, whose paralyzed father couldn't work; and girls like Tahmina who disappeared from school after being reported for talking to boys. Their fierce spirit while playing showed a passion that rivaled any Afghan freedom fighter-with violins instead of guns.
Laila, a tall viola student, was making significant progress in her playing but struggled to stand straight-men in her life didn't want her standing tall. As her sound opened up, she revealed her difficult life story: born to a 14-year-old mother and 60-year-old wealthy father who died before her birth, she endured family rejection, displacement to Pakistan, inheritance disputes, and the shocking discovery that the man she thought was her father was actually her stepfather.
Hafizah, one of the older cellists, was facing catastrophic family problems. Her father had Parkinson's-like symptoms, her brother injured his leg, her sister had kidney issues, and her mother suffered a head injury falling off their roof. As the only healthy family member, Hafizah collapsed from stress at school. She grew thinner, attended fewer lessons, and sometimes came just to sleep on my classroom floor, covered by my hijab. Despite everything, she remained determined to continue her studies.
Negin, the increasingly confident conductor of the girls' ensemble, came from a deeply conservative village near Jalalabad. Living at AFCECO orphanage, she'd fallen in love with music after hearing piano in 2010. Against her mother's wishes but with her father's blessing, she pursued music, learning rubab then piano before becoming conductor. Her relationship with pianist Elham caused her removal from school until Dr. Sarmast's diplomacy allowed her return.
Capítulo 6
Between Hope and Despair
As spring blossomed at our home (nicknamed the Mexican House after playfully teasing our Colombian percussion teacher Cami about being Mexican), we gradually adapted to Kabul's peculiar living conditions. The electricity followed its own mysterious schedule, cutting out for hours without warning. The water systems were a daily puzzle - sometimes gushing, sometimes trickling, sometimes completely dry. Our curious neighbors watched our every move, their faces appearing regularly at windows and doorways. Bibi, our next-door neighbor's matriarch, hobbled around with her wooden leg splint, eventually becoming a surrogate mother figure. She insisted on calling Jennifer her daughter and me her son, completely unfazed by my hijab, demonstrating the unexpected warmth we found in Kabul.
Teaching ear training to the grade twelves became my most challenging weekly endeavor. These eight boys, remnants from before Dr. Sarmast's leadership, struggled with basic solfege despite years of musical education. Their progress was more than just academic - they represented Afghanistan's musical future. If successful, they could become the country's first generation of locally-trained music teachers, finally breaking the reliance on foreign instructors. While their aural skills needed work, students like Mustaffah and Ahmad displayed remarkable instrumental prowess. Mustaffah's fingers danced across the rubab strings with hereditary ease, while Ahmad's tabla rhythms spoke of centuries of musical tradition.
Amruddin stood out among the students. As the senior bass player, his carefully styled rockabilly hairdo became his trademark, as distinctive as his rich, resonant playing. Despite only four years of experience, he produced a sound that would impress conservatory graduates. Though he lacked formal Western music theory, his dedication to practice was unwavering. When I introduced him to blues music and began explaining its roots in African-American slavery and oppression, his simple response - "Teacher, this is Afghanistan" - revealed a profound understanding born from his own country's struggles.
The orchestra was a remarkable fusion of East and West, both in instruments and culture. Forty young musicians from various ethnic backgrounds - Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, and others - created something entirely new. They performed not with the refined restraint of a Western orchestra, but with a raw, passionate energy that reflected their war-torn homeland. The combination of violins with rubabs, cellos with tablas, produced a sound that regularly moved audiences to tears.
Baset, our sixteen-year-old trumpeter, exemplified the school's spirit of determination. Despite having no regular trumpet instructor for two years, he practiced obsessively after classes ended. With his thick glasses and military-style haircut, he proudly claimed his position as Afghanistan's finest trumpeter - a title he'd earned through sheer persistence. Unlike many of his peers who dreamed of escape, Baset focused his ambitions on education, specifically at the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy. However, in this age of social media, students increasingly saw glimpses of life beyond Afghanistan's borders, leading some to contemplate "running" after performing abroad.
The exodus began subtly. Rameen's empty seat in grade eleven went unnoticed at first, then became conspicuous with each passing week. His friend's matter-of-fact response - "Gone, teacher. Turkey, teacher" - heralded the beginning of what would become a wave of departures, as students sought opportunities beyond Afghanistan's uncertain future.
Capítulo 7
The Cost of Music in Afghanistan
When the Taliban launched their spring offensive in late May, Jennifer and I countered with our own weapons-music. We gave a concert as the "Khyber Pass" in her Afghan friend's garden, playing Vivaldi under pomegranate trees as the audience of NGO workers and liberal Afghans reclined on cushions drinking Johnnie Walker. The surreal evening felt like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.
After two months, the babies were progressing beautifully in their music garden. Using the Kodaly method of rhythm words, we practiced different patterns: "Tikka tikka tee tee. Tee tikka tee tikka. Tikka tikka tikka tikka." They began using their left hands with harmonics, learning to hang off the fingerboard rather than press down.
Mohammad, Hashmatullah's older brother, was a true musician who worshipped his guitar with fine-boned, hairy fingers. Always practicing, he helped young players more than the actual guitar teacher. During Taliban rule, six-year-old Mohammad had risked everything for music, hiding in storm drains with a cassette player. When caught, the Taliban beat him and imprisoned his father for a year, yet Mohammad continued listening to his beloved music.
Professor Amruddin taught the ancient dilruba, a viol-like bowed instrument played against the chest while sitting on the ground. He walked slowly to his room each morning, permanently bent at right angles, wearing a white scarf and karakul hat. During the Taliban era, he'd owned a music shop in Mazar-e-Sharif. When they came, he buried and burned instruments but tried saving one dilruba given by his father-removing strings and decorations to disguise it. At a checkpoint, a young boy recognized it and smashed it against Amruddin's car.
News of ANIM's need for a small cello spread through my friends John and Liz, who rallied their networks. What began as a modest $1000 goal exploded into over $20,000 raised by generous Australians, with help from Musica Viva creating a fund. This windfall meant Jennifer and I could properly equip the string department with small cellos, violins, violas and even a half-sized double bass-enough instruments to last ANIM for years.
Capítulo 8
Finding Identity Amid Chaos
Summer heat soaked Kabul's foundations, melting the city from inside out. I wore loose shirts made by Shersha, grateful not to wear the layers Afghan women endured year-round. Afternoons brought dust storms from the Hindu Kush, canceling flights and sending everyone's moods swinging wildly.
Ramadan began during the hottest part of summer, requiring fasting from 3 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. I attempted to join my Afghan friends but lasted only three days, though I glimpsed the beauty of this practice-the deep self-assessment, the bonding with God and fellow Muslims, the entire city breaking fast together.
Atesh arrived like an Afghan puppy-short brown hair, green eyes, limbs not quite grown into his body. Having grown up in Pakistan where his impoverished parents placed him in an orphanage for four years, he'd returned to Afghanistan despite fearing his poor Dari and Pashtu. Dr. Sarmast fought for his admission to ANIM, where Atesh became valedictorian. Extraordinarily intelligent, he constantly sought explanations and connections. With his fluent English, our lessons covered everything from Mahler to John Cage, often with more conversation than cello playing.
Surrounded by men in Afghanistan, my long-dormant gender dysphoria resurfaced with devastating force. As I lost weight from stress, my female features diminished, but I still felt trapped in the wrong body. I envied Afghan men-their bodies, beards, friendships, and certainty of place. I felt like I was "banging on a thick window, looking in at the world of maleness, utterly distraught at not being able to get in." I began researching female-to-male transgender resources, feeling I was "preparing for a desperately dangerous journey that I would never, ever return from, but which I had no choice but to undertake."
Despite the constant danger, we found moments of joy. When Cami announced he needed black socks before dinner, Shabheer stopped in a busy intersection and returned seconds later with two pairs-leaving four foreigners sitting unprotected "ripe for kidnapping." Even amid music lessons, danger remained ever-present-as when a bomb at Parliament interrupted Amruddin's bass lesson, the sound of the explosion completely masked by our playing.
Capítulo 9
The Fragility of Hope
Living in Kabul meant enduring the constant, shrill call to prayer through poor-quality microphones while facing more existential concerns. The school buzzed with speculation about whether two teachers, Milad and Fayez, would return from a music festival in New York. Both had promising futures at ANIM but also opportunities abroad.
When the day finally came for Milad and Fayez's return, their absence devastated everyone, especially Dr. Sarmast, whose face showed defeat as "the country of his birth took another bite of faith from him." Dr. Sarmast looked utterly defeated after their defection, with only two junior staff remaining from the original five. The news of their decision to stay in America spread through the school instantly, devastating their students who wept openly.
Despite predictions of collapse after losing three staff members, the school thrived. We formed a chamber orchestra with the best players, performed at embassies, recorded for television, and composed an anthem for Save the Children that would be sung nationwide. The impact of ANIM now reverberated throughout Afghanistan. Those who remained were either too young to know different or genuinely committed to staying in their country.
During our recording of the children's anthem at a TV studio, one of the largest earthquakes to hit the Hindu Kush in decades struck. The 8.1 magnitude quake killed about four hundred people, including twelve schoolgirls crushed while escaping a building. Once again, Afghanistan delivered a ferocious reminder that "this land would never be calm... Afghanistan's fate was literally written in stone."
Our school concert marked the first public event in years since a suicide bomber had ended the last one. Students from every ensemble performed in a tent erected in the dusty playground. My "babies" played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in four-part harmony and my composition "Race to the Stars." Parents, mostly mothers with hijabs tilted back to hear better, watched with rare stress-free faces. Even the armed policemen stood with guns at their sides, hands free to clap.
Capítulo 10
Transformation and Farewell
During Eid, I escaped to Istanbul, where instead of sightseeing, I collapsed under crushing depression. I spent days researching female-to-male transition websites, watching videos of transgender men on testosterone and after chest surgery. I cried endlessly, feeling intensely alone yet knowing I could no longer live this unwilling lie. Upon returning to Kabul, I shared my truth with Jennifer and Cami who simply hugged me, offered help, and called me their brother.
As winter approached, Kabul's atmosphere transformed-swallows departed, wood smoke turned the air brown, obscuring mountain views, and street vendors shifted from ice cream to seasonal produce like pomegranates. After sharing my transgender identity with my "Kabul family," who embraced me as their brother, I returned to a temporarily quieter school while forty students visited Turkmenistan at the president's invitation.
I returned to Kabul on January 1, 2016, hopeful this would be the year I'd take control of my life and move closer to my deepest desire-to be male in body and mind-while completing one final year in Kabul. That afternoon, luck saved my life when I chose to nap rather than attend Le Jardin's new year dinner, where a car bomb killed two guards and a twelve-year-old boy.
When Dr. Sarmast returned to the school after medical treatment in Australia, a horrific incident unfolded. A female student, Yalda, had begun a relationship with Sameem, the junior tabla teacher, and had taken intimate photos that were stolen and circulated among male students. Devastated, Yalda threw herself from a bathroom window. Though she survived with a broken foot and damaged back discs, the aftermath revealed Afghanistan's brutal gender dynamics.
As my departure approached, I experienced my final moments in Kabul. At the Swedish embassy performance, diplomats talked through our concert, missing the brilliance of musicians like Samim Zafar on rubab, who had developed a remarkable style combining melody and harmony. For my final day, I traveled to Bamiyan with friends, wearing men's clothes and beginning my transition. The empty Buddha caves represented profound loss, while the clean streets and friendly people contrasted sharply with Kabul.
My last night in Kabul was sleepless, my head "rocking and plummeting with an Afghan rug of memories." Back home, I received my first testosterone injection, feeling reborn. Six months later, my voice had dropped an octave, my body had changed, and I found a "profound contentment." Despite ANIM's challenges with sustainability and Afghanistan's ongoing struggles, I realized I'd gained more than I gave during my time there-self-knowledge and acceptance. Despite dozens of attacks in Kabul that year, new musicians were born, proving that music's power was "worth any cost."
Everyone's lives continued to follow their own paths, as the earth continues to spin, the roses to bloom, soldiers to battle. The babies still play their instruments and new violin and cello teachers eventually came to ANIM. The girls' ensemble, renamed Ensemble Zohra, performed at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Afghanistan slowly fades for me now, glimpsed only in restaurants, news reports, or snatches of music. It showed me who I truly am. Leaving Kabul meant leaving behind the best parts of myself I had just discovered. When foreigners depart Afghanistan, they often leave possessions in silver aluminum boxes, hoping to return but knowing they never will. In my silver box, I left Emma.
