AFGHAN STORY: A FORT OF NINE TOWERS

By Humaira

Just when the market is flooded with books written about Afghanistan then a new and interesting book appears on the scene.  This summer it happens to be A Fort of Nine Towers, written by an Afghan author, Qais Akbar Omar who mastered English by watching television and reading books while running his carpet factory in Kabul.

The Afghan diaspora is full of amazing, heartbreaking and tragic stories.  When I picked up A Fort of Nine Towers it was with an element of jadedness.  Qais starts his memoir in 1992, just when the Mujahideen take over Kabul and he walks us through his family’s ten-year struggle to leave  war-ravaged Afghanistan for the safety of another country. He shares his family's astonishing and harrowing adventures with grace, frankness and resilience, which kept me turning the pages late into the night. 

At times, after several unbelievably horrific scenes I put the book down thinking I couldn't go on reading.  After a day of reprieve, I reminded myself that the characters in the book are real people and the author has personally endured these horrors.  If he survived these experiences then I can continue on, which I am glad I did.

Qais is a brave and poignant storyteller who takes us on a journey that should not be missed.  If you have an ungrateful teenager on your hands get them copy of A Fort of Nine Towers.  I guarantee that their view of life will change for the better after reading this book. Qais has been on a multi-city book tour with many speaking engagements. I am pleased that he took the time to answer my questions which I hope will help you get to know this remarkable young man.

Humaira Ghilzai of Afghan Cultured Unveiled interviews Afghan author, Qais Akbar Omar

Humaira:  Did you collaborate with your family members in order to remember the vivid details of your family's adventures?

Qais: Yes, of course.  I was not intending to publish A FORT OF NINE TOWERS.  It all started when 9/11 happened, and foreigners from all over the world poured into Afghanistan.   They often asked me questions about what it was like to live during the years of civil war and the Taliban.  When I talked about the past -- the things we have gone through -- I stopped having nightmares that haunted me in my sleep and left me shattered for days.   But I could not find enough people to tell my stories and ease the pain on my soul.  Some foreign friends suggested that I should write them down. Once I tried to write them in Dari, but I could not do it.  I have a lot of sentimental attachment to Dari.  

In 2006, I tried to write it in English.  It was not so hard. I used English language as a tool, a language that I do not have a lot in common with. In the translation process in my head, the level of anguish decreases, which makes it easier for me to write about these things in English. I wrote the whole book in two months, during which I hardly walked out of the house.  My mother often came to my bedroom at two or three in the morning, sat on the edge of my bed while I could not stop the tears rolling out of my eyes.  She often asked me what I was writing about.  I would tell her. Then she would remind me of a sweet moment.  All the beautiful and happy parts are her contribution to A FORT OF NINE TOWERS.  She helped me a great deal.

Humaira: In A Fort of Nine Towers you have a little bit of a sibling rivalry with your older sister. How does she feel about your portrayal of her in your book?

Qais: She is an architect with a handsome son, and she is my best friend.  We had our fights as kids, like kids everywhere.  She often teased me and still does whenever she has her chance. I told her about what I have written about her before A FORT OF NINE TOWERS getting published.  She laughed and told me I was silly, and then she gave me a big kiss on my forehead.  Even though she is less than two years older than me, but she is like a second mother to me, and my best friend in the world.

Humaira: Would you be able to shed light on how the lives of Afghan Kochis have been affected by 34 years of war in Afghanistan?  

Qais: Not very much.  They still have the same culture, customs, family values, and their code of Pushtoonwali (a code of conducted practiced by some Afghan Pashtun tribes), which are respect, honor and hospitality.  The only thing that has changed about them, is, that they don't travel as much as they used to. Mines all over Afghanistan limited that for them.  I hope one day we get rid of the mines all over Afghanistan, so they can walk back on the footsteps of their ancestors again.  

Humaira: Where is your family's carpet shop in Kabul? Do you have some tips on how someone like me can pick a good carpet?

Qais: My family carpet shop is in Kabul's, Shar-e-now district.  As

for the tips, here are three things to consider:

1. See the back of the

2. carpet for the knot density. The higher the density of knots, the

3. better.

4. Vegetable

5. dyes. The colors are softer and can go with everything; the

6. color of sofa, curtains, and walls.

7. Bargain to a point to

8. make the carpet-seller sweat.

(Note: Qais couldn’t disclose the exact location of his family’s carpet shop due to safety precautions.)

Humaira: What are your favorite Afghan dishes?  

Qais: Lamb kebab of course.  Qabili palau, sabzi and naan.  But most of all, I love the delicious Afghan fruits such as, pomegranate, apple, apricot, cherry, melon and watermelon.  You can't find the taste of Afghan fruits anywhere in the world. 

Humaira: Do you cook Afghan food?

Qais: Yes, I can, but I don't like my cooking.  I have five sisters, who learned how to cook from our mother.  They are the best cooks. So, I have very high expectation of myself when I cook.   My cooking never tastes as good as my mother's and sisters'.  So, I eat a lot outside since I came to the US.  I miss home meals a lot.  If you are as a good cook as my mother or one of my sisters, maybe you can cook me some Afghan food when I come to your city, San Francisco.

(Note: Of course I agreed to make Qais an Afghan meal if he comes to San Francisco but I am sure I am not as good a cook as his mother.)

Except where otherwise noted, all content on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.

UNSUNG HERO - AFGHANISTAN'S INDIANA JANE

By Humaira

Once in a while we meet someone who makes a lasting impression. For me that person is Dr. Laura Tedesco who I met in Kabul during a 2011 US State Department Cultural Diplomacy trip. At that time she was at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul working on preservation of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage.

I count Laura as an “unsung hero” working tirelessly and compassionately on preserving Afghanistan’s cultural heritage sites such as Ghazni’s Victory Towers, Mes Aynak, Citadel of Herat and many more.

Our delegation in front of Kabul Museu

There are many pressing issues such as lack of infrastructure, lack of clean water, lack of good education and lack of women’s rights, topping the needs of Afghanistan. Why bother with cultural heritage preservation?

It is clear that after 33 year of war there are two generations of Afghans who know more about their differences than their commonalities. Through cultural awareness, pride in their heritage and love of their country’s history, there is hope for Afghans to unify under a shared national identity.

Below is an interview with Laura Tedesco by George Gavrilis of The Heritage Center which not only outlines all the cultural heritage work accomplished in the past 10 years but it also outlines plans for the future of Afghanistan’s national artifacts.

The Hollings Center for International Dialogue:

Interview by George Gavrilis

Archaeology and the preservation of Afghanistan’s heritage is a subject that is generally absent from popular knowledge in the United States, even after more than a decade of deep U.S. involvement in the country. What knowledge exists in the public sphere tends to be rooted in the memory of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001.

Despite the scars that years of war and economic scarcity have left on Afghanistan’s historical landscape, the country is chock full of rich and impressive archaeological sites and standing monuments. And while few people outside of Afghanistan know much about the country’s historic monuments, even fewer know that the US has worked closely with Afghan officials and cultural experts to preserve these sites.

Dr. Laura Tedesco visits Tepe Kafiriat in Mes Aynak, Logar Province, Afghanistan

To discuss these initiatives and Afghanistan’s archaeological scene, I sat down for an interview with Dr. Laura Tedesco, the State Department’s resident archaeologist and cultural heritage specialist who has spent the past three years working intimately on cultural heritage projects both in Afghanistan and from Washington, D.C.

A plaque by Kabul Museum

Her interview sheds light on Afghanistan’s archaeological wealth, as well as the successes and challenges of preserving the country’s monuments. The stakes are high.

Gavrilis: What is known popularly about archaeology in Afghanistan tends to be confined to the Mes Aynak site or to the ill-fated Bamiyan Buddhas. Could you tell us about some of the country’s other monuments and U.S.-Afghan initiatives to restore and protect them?

Tedesco: The United States has worked intensively with Afghan authorities to preserve many sites and monuments across Afghanistan. We’ve partnered with the Afghan Government and preservation NGOs based in Afghanistan to support projects in Herat, Lashkar Gah (the capital of Helmand province), Ghazni, at Mes Aynak in Logar, in Balkh province and in Kabul—namely at the National Museum of Afghanistan.

In Herat, the United States contributed over a million dollars towards the restoration of the famous Qala Ikhtyaruddin, also known as the Herat Citadel. In Balkh, we are supporting archaeological investigations at Noh Gunbad, the oldest mosque in Afghanistan and possibly all of Central Asia.

In Helmand, we are engaged with an Afghan owned and operated NGO to restore an 11th century mausoleum that was once linked with the Ghaznavid Empire and today serves a gathering place for local residents.

At Mes Aynak, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul supported a team of French specialists in the preservation of rare Buddhist wall paintings, and at the National Museum in Kabul we are working towards the long-term preservation of the museum’s collections and expansion of its facilities so that it can house the nation’s patrimony for generations to come.

But these projects are not just limited to work on the monuments themselves. It is also necessary to raise awareness of these historical sites all over Afghanistan. For example, we funded a billboard campaign in four major cities and the major airports featuring photographs of prominent Afghan monuments with texts in Dari and Pashto. We also did a great children’s book for schools in Ghazni about the province’s historical heritage, which dates back thousands of years. Ghazni was a center of learning and art, and many early advances in Islamic science were made there.

The idea behind all these initiatives was to work with the Afghan government to restore the monuments and to link Afghans all over the country to their rich history. And we were eager to show Afghans that Americans are respectful of the nation’s past and cultural diversity. These efforts are projects that celebrate Afghanistan as a nation.

Gavrilis:   You mentioned Ghazni. Ghazni’s historic towers were part of an elaborate documentation initiative. At the same time, the security situation in Ghazni is not encouraging. What was it like to work in Ghazni?

AfghanArcheologist

A local archaeologist from Afghanistan holds two bricks molded with Kufic script from the Towers of Ghazni. 

Tedesco: The Ghazni Victory Towers, as they are sometimes called, were constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries to commemorate the power and wealth of the Ghaznavid Empire which stretched from Persia across into India during the height of the Empire’s power. The towers stand in isolation today, and their condition has been deteriorating due a lack of resources for preservation.

Before any serious preservation project can begin, international standards of preservation encourage a thorough documentation be conducted. This had never been done previously for the Ghazni Towers. So we decided to enlist the expertise of the U.S. National Park Service to conduct high-tech laser scans of the towers which create accurate drawings of the 20m-tall towers down to the millimeter (the towers once stood more than 44 meters in height but an earthquake in the early 20th century caused the top portions of each tower to collapse).

The National Park Service specialists who came to conduct this work had never been to Afghanistan before, and they were doing this in July in extreme heat. It was so hot that the scanning equipment would shut down. So we had to start very early in the morning, just as the sun was coming up while the temperatures were bearable. But Ghazni is considered unstable, and so we worked under the care of the local Afghan Police authorities and under the protection of the U.S. military.

We wanted to do this project for a number of reasons. One is that Ghazni is an earthquake zone. We wanted to map the towers to the last detail in case they are ever destroyed by an earthquake or in conflict, then the outcome of the scanning could at least provide the information required in the event that the Afghan government wanted the towers reconstructed.

Two young Afghan architecture students recently came to Washington to participate in the arduous task of rendering the detailed data collected from the laser scanning project. These architects worked side by side with the National Park Service specialists who had conducted the original field work in Ghazni. Although these data were gathered in a few days, it has taken two years to process it because it is incredibly intricate and labor intensive and required powerful computers. When it is finished, we will hand over the results of this work to the Afghan government’s Department of Historic Monuments and to Kabul University’s architecture faculty so they can study and archive the information.

Gavrilis:  The Herat citadel was also part of a major restoration project. How did that differ from the work at Ghazni?

Citadel-of-Herat

Citadel of Herat

Tedesco:   The Citadel of Herat, or Qala Ikhtyaruddin, is one of the most visible landmarks in Herat, and is central to the history of the city. It is truly one of the most impressive of the surviving citadels, or hisars, in the region. From its foundation before 500 BC as the ancient Artacoana/Aria, the town was re-built after its capture by Alexander in 300 BC during his campaign against the Achaemenids, when a citadel was probably constructed.

The site witnessed the changing fortunes of various empires before being laid waste by Genghis Khan in 1225. Again destroyed by Timur in 1381, his son Shah Rukh went on to transform the citadel of Ikhtyaruddin after 1415, when the fortifications were entirely re-built with fired bricks and new buildings were erected inside the walls.

The project to support the Citadel of Herat was a four-year undertaking, and the German government and U.S. government contributed equally to this undertaking. The restoration and reconstruction of certain parts of the structure employed as many as 400 local laborers at a time, trained many in the trade of masonry and provided a boost to the local economy. It was a major undertaking with Afghan construction workers repairing walls, moving bricks, raising scaffolding and so on.

Herat is a bustling metropolitan hub and we were able to do this in a way that we could not do it in archaeological sites of Ghazni. The Afghan government has yet to open the Citadel to the public on a regular basis due to administrative disagreements between the Herat Municipality and the Kabul-based government about the right to control revenue from ticket sales and responsibility for the Citadel’s maintenance and upkeep.

Nonetheless, the restoration of the Citadel has been a major achievement for the Afghans who carried out the arduous work and for the United States, which supported the project. At the opening ceremony of the Qala Ikhtyaruddin in 2011, Governor Saba of Herat stated, “of all the projects the US supported in Afghanistan, this was the most important with the most impact for the people of Herat.”

Gavrilis:   There is also the recent competition to design a new Afghan National Museum in Kabul. Tell us about it.

Tedesco:   The current National Museum of Afghanistan is an elegant building yet entirely insufficient as the central residence and protector of Afghanistan’s material patrimony. The building was constructed around 1919 originally to serve as an administrative building for the nearby Darulaman Palace.

It was never intended to serve as museum. The building lacks centralized air conditioning or heat, and during the civil war it suffered greatly in cross fighting. The roof was lost entirely, and the much of the building had been destroyed. It was gallantly rebuilt in the early 2000s, and serves today as the nation’s central museum. However, it is too small to properly house or display the collection.

The Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture suggested that the international community rally in support of creating a new National Museum building, one that could better serve the needs of the collection and serve as a symbol of Afghanistan’s rich past and symbol of hope for the future.

The request resonated, and an international competition was organized to design a new museum. The driving force behind the competition is that the international community had to be behind such an incredibly important and unifying project. And so the building would have to make a statement. The competition was designed to draw attention from the professional global architectural community.

One of the key things we looked at was whether designs were sustainable. We were looking for designs that were grand but also realizable. We were not looking for a museum that would be appropriate for Doha or Eastern Europe but one that would suit Afghanistan. The design had to evoke the country’s history—indoor gardens and the use of interior and exterior spaces together, tiles as decorative architectural elements and the appropriate materials in brick and wood that are found throughout the country—but the design should be conceived in an unpredictable way.

Because Kabul is in a seismic zone, a museum building could not be overly tall or incorporate heavy stone towers in the design. So that was a key environmental consideration. This presented a real challenge for the architects to come up with something that was atmospheric and modern at the same time. And there were certain things you just could not do in Afghanistan. You can’t have high-tech air conditioning or intricate security systems because they are difficult to maintain and very costly to import their components and replacement parts. So we were also looking for designs that could be effectively maintained in Kabul.

There was one magnificent finalist entry that envisioned a building whose silhouette mirrored the Hindu Kush Mountains and incorporated the use of natural light. It would have been an exquisite statement for Kabul, but structurally the building might have been unsound in a major earthquake. There were also many designs that did not make it because they would have been too expensive to construct and maintain. The winning entry is sublime. It marries the use of garden space, interior and exterior spaces. It is also a relatively modest design. It does not overshadow the existing museum or the nearby Darulaman palace. It pays homage to them but supersedes them. It uses some of the same architectural language yet represents something entirely new for Kabul. Our next step is to continue in our partnership with the Afghan government in this endeavor and launch an international campaign to raise funds to build the new museum.

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AFGHAN COOKING: IN FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE

By Humaira

This blog gets an honorable mention in the July issue of  Foreign Policy Magazine. Anna Badkhen writes an engaging article, Recipe for Living : Add Rice. Stir., about how rice is a staple in over half the countries in the world.  

Anna is also the author of a delightful new book, The World Is a Carpet, chronicling her journey in a tiny village in Northern Afghanistan for four seasons, which is how long it takes a woman in that village to make a carpet.

Except where otherwise noted, all content on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.