By Dawn Lloyd
Editor’s Note: Dawn Lloyd is a guest columnist that spends most of the year in Kabul, Afghanistan. Throughout the term, she’ll be sharing her experiences living in Kabul with Ethos. Any opinions she expresses are solely hers and are not necessarily held by the editorial staff.
Her other entries can be found here: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7
In America, the phrase “dancing in the street” is taken as an idiom referring to high-spirited celebrations. In Afghanistan, and much of this part of the world, it is a very literal description of what happens when a country celebrates.
Most of September 11 came and passed quietly. There didn’t even seem to be any more military or police on the streets than normal, and the daily email from our security company rated all Kabul routes as “amber,” the standard, “relatively safe” threat rating Kabul of the green/amber/red/black threat level warnings.
At 4:30 pm, I went to my first class, and my students informed me the big soccer (everyone outside America calls it “football”) match was starting at 5:00 pm. It was the final championship for the South Asian Cup, and was between India and Afghanistan. The winner would advance to the Asian Cup. Previous experience working in Oman showed me that during a match of this level, most of the students would simply skip class. Afghans are generally quite dedicated and hard working, though, and so I wasn’t surprised that they did, in fact, come to class. But they bargained with me to let them out early in exchange that the day’s lesson would be done as homework.
My second class started at 6:20 pm, and to my surprise, fourteen of the eighteen students were present. They informed me that it was halftime, and Afghanistan was ahead 1-0. As a teacher, I’ve long-since learned to follow the leadership principle which says “never make a rule you can’t enforce.” Knowing how utterly unenforceable it would be to try to disallow fanatical phone-checking for game updates, I told them they could use their phones for today only. Halfway through the quiz, one of my generally quieter students stage whispered that Afghanistan had just scored another goal.
At 7:00 pm, another student announced that Afghanistan had won. My class remained amazingly calm and we continued our lesson, but shortly after we started hearing the cheering. Loud yells went up in waves from the street, and it wasn’t too long until we started hearing the celebratory gunfire and firecrackers.
When class finally ended, I walked out to join a mass of students cheering and watching the occasional fireworks, and much more common flares or tracer bullets lighting up the night sky outside of campus. One of the students told me that President Karzai had declared tomorrow a holiday since the football team would be returning and the streets would be closed. I asked some other people about this later and received less assured opinions, but at time of writing (late at night, listening to the cheering) no one knows what will happen tomorrow.
We were informed that our school transportation wasn’t taking anyone home because the streets were dangerous. Certainly none of the cheering mobs are intending to hurt anyone, but bullets fired into the air are still dangerous.
It wasn’t until 10:00 pm that we were finally allowed to go home. The cheering hadn’t really died down, but apparently security decided we needed to go home. So we piled in the shuttles (a fleet of old, beat up vans) and started toward the guest houses.
The streets were full of celebrating Afghan teenagers and men. They were grouped in clumps dancing jigs, waving flags, waving bedsheets, waving scarves, waving arms, and yelling. Loudspeakers and bullhorns broadcast more excitement in Dari and Pashtu. Meanwhile, cars drove slowly up and down the main roads, with 6-10 passengers leaning out windows or standing on the trunk or even occasionally the roof. One group had some aerosol cans (hair spray?) and were lighting the spray on fire and using them as torches. We passed a lone tire burning on the side of the road.
Unfortunately, even though the mood was pure excitement and exhilaration, this is still Afghanistan. The police were out in force and had set up several road blocks and checkpoints. They didn’t fully stop the cars, but cars were expected to slow down and the police glanced over them with flashlights. It was still September 11, and the Taliban has a long history of attacking crowds when they’re celebrating.
As I write this, at 11:00 pm, I still hear cheering from the streets, combined with the occasional firecracker or gunshot. I expect it will continue all night and into the morning.
Update: The following day was not a holiday. The team flew in to crowds of fans who skipped class, or likely work, but otherwise everything went back to normal.
Note from the author: My biggest challenge in writing these articles is thinking of interesting topics. I’d love to have suggestions! If you have something you’d like me to write about, leave a comment and I’ll try to do so.
About the author: Dawn Lloyd is an American who got bored and set out to find adventure. Four continents later, she’s settled in Kabul where she teaches English at the American University of Afghanistan. She is Editor in Chief for The Colored Lens magazine and writes speculative fiction, a list of which can be found on her personal site.