Poetry in Afghanistan

July 2nd, 2009 - 6:20am

I wake up each morning listening to Garrison Keillors' 'Writers Almanac" on the radio. It's a lovely way to start the day. But by the time I get out of bed, take a shower and have breakfast I can't remember the poem I heard that morning. By stark contrast, Afghans can recite poetry all day. Most Afghans can't read so they don't take the radio for granted.

In fact, I remember talking with a group of people in southern Afghanistan about how they got information and they all said, "...we love the BBC!" Back then, I was trying to figure out how to roll ut a campaign with health information -- over the radio. But Taliban were often storming into the raidio stations and in turn our troops were bombing the radio transmitors. A bit surreal. So one little kid started to make a poem out of the health messages we were trying to disseminate - then he handed me a rose.