Afghanistan dreaming of his first symphony orchestra

Kabul, 24 Aug 2009. - The notes of the violins dance noise of the saws at the National Institute of Music in Afghanistan, a block under construction in Kabul who aspires to host a symphony orchestra after years of silence and Taliban ban.
"We do not usually give permission to visit the school. We want to keep a low profile so that the boys do not become a target for the Taliban, "says Efe Afghan Deputy Minister of Education, Mohammad Salim, while overlooking the city center, opposite his window.
The institute is just a skeleton, there are no doors or windows, classrooms are filled with debris and the walls are dozens of bullet holes, witnesses to the fighting between mujahedin for control of the country in the 1990s.
And then, the arrival of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan also condemned to music: the teachers had to go abroad or leave his job and devote to something else, because the banned fundamentalist instruments.
"We started from scratch seven years ago. It remains difficult to attract students, but we have an ambitious and foreign donors to help us, "says the affable director of the school, Mohammed Daud.
The institute is under full reconstruction, but learning not to interrupt the teachers teach some classes in tents lined up in the yard, leaving the irregular notes of violins, saxophones, harmoniums and guitars.
And while the workers and operators are applied to go to shape the new building, in theory take two months, students take advantage of the empty classrooms to rehearse with shyness their first steps in music, no chairs but a lot will.
"I find it easy and I like a lot," says Simagul, a girl of six years studying the harmonium squatting, with the help of a friend and teacher.
"That's me, that's the sun, that's yes," repeated the trainer to Simagul, which is in its first month of school.
The girl, quietly clarifies Daud is one of the twenty orphans who hosts the music center, kids to which the Institute off the streets and shelters to open a bank account that is paid for with donations from abroad.
"Our big problem is that we lack teachers: we only have eight. But we are planning to hire fifteen and eleven more in Afghanistan from abroad, "adds the director.
The lack of professional musicians is one of the sides of the Afghan crisis in education: teachers, Deputy Minister Salim regrets, refuse to teach in areas with presence of the Taliban, and there remains an acute shortage of teachers.
"How many girls are willing teaching if they know that one day the can kill? "asks Salim, referring the Taliban, who oppose to female education, the banned during his regime and attacked in the past several girls' schools.
At the Institute, the 140 children are mixed, although the former are the majority. In the courtyard, a group around an old teacher who explains music theory and goof off in a corner a few, the section of the battery, to Daoud scolds him for not applied carefully enough.
The boys, nice for the camera, early in the morning and arrive at the center until two o'clock, in part with his musical training and learning math or English part ("Bush is former president of America", says one of shales).
"We Afghans instruments, violin, guitar, trumpet, saxophone and piano. But it is true that we only have two pianos, so first-time students, as Simagul should take their first steps with the harmonium, "says Daud.
One of those two coveted pianos Alham Said launches a genius little overboard twelve years to the tune of the movie "The Godfather" serve as a compass saw and the hammer used by workers in the same room, torn 30 years of war.
And while listening to the strains of key and hammer, sighs the director, declaring amateur Beethoven: "Soon, inshallah, we will have a building and an orchestra."