It's 9:07pm on Friday, August 3rd, our final night in Karachi. This evening was the final exhibition of the Arts Without Boundaries program co-sponsored by The School of Writing and Andover Bread Loaf. We held the final exhibit at The Second Floor (T2F), a community arts space in the DHA area of Karachi, just a few blocks from The School of Writing offices. It was an outstanding event, with great joy for us all. Visitors said they had never seen anything like it before. Rahedeen Ali, director of the Writing Center at Habib, said she was moved to tears. A parent said, "my daughter has been coming home each day and telling me how great her day was. She said this has been the most incredible week of her life." Another visitor said, "We don't have anything like this in Pakistan. You gave these kids a voice."
We gathered at The School of Writing offices at 10am to begin final preparations. Brendan, Alan, Julia and I each met with our small group of ~6 students to work on their writing for the exhibition. Each student selected one piece to perform at the exhibition, and we coached them on delivery. In my group, 3 of the 6 students chose pieces they had written in Urdu. I was not able to coach them on content, but I did coach them on delivery (reading clearly and slowly and loudly with emphasis and rhythm.) Surprisingly, I found it easier to coach the Urdu speakers, because I could really focus on delivery. After that session, Julia and Alan led the students through rehearsals and final tweaks of the music and theater performances. We had lunch, then walked over to T2F.
On the first floor, T2F has a large open space with brick walls and a hardwood floor. One wall is lined with books and art for sale. This was our performance space. On the second floor there is a cafe. We set up the space, hung 75 photographs (that were printed and framed overnight in a spectacular effort by a special crew) around the space, and rehearsed the performances. At 4pm, the big show began. Including participants, we had an audience of perhaps 50 folks, including some parents, visitors from the university and from the Pakistani-American Cultural Center, and other fans of TSW.
Jinaid, the terrific young teacher from the Dream Model School, served as Master of Ceremonies. He first introduced Mohsin, who spoke in Urdu and gave the audience and overview of the week and how it came about, including the story of how Lee Krishnan, Mohsin and I came up with the idea for this conference while riding on a bus to Vermont in July of 2017.
The photographs are really something. In two days touring the city, the kids really captured the look and feel of the places, people, sights, sounds, movement, tastes, smells. Once the space was filled with images, ringing all around, the space felt really special. And these were the 75 that the students chose out of perhaps 1,000 photos they took.
The first performance was music. Alan's music group performed their original composition, "Imagine Karachi", using song and drums. It was full of those pauses that make music - the space between the notes. A person I was sitting next to said she was surprised that they composed the song in only four days. I pointed out that it had been more like three hours.
After that performance, the first 13 participants read their individual pieces. Jinaid called each reader up to the microphone in random order. Some read in English, some in Urdu.
At the halfway mark, the theater group performed the first of their two pieces, "Empress Market." A dozen students re-created the feel, sounds, and sights of one of Karachi's oldest marketplaces, complete with our colleague Brendan McGrath as a beggar.
Julia and Amtul did extraordinary work with that group, capturing the student voice in the piece. After that, the other 13 participants read their individual work. Finally, the theater group performed their second piece, about the Hindu Temple we visited, honoring the rituals they had observed. At the end, Hasnein thanked the organizers of the week, the participants, and the audience. Many folks tried to single out us four Americans, but we pushed back. This week was about Karachi, not about us. When we took the group photo, some wanted me to sit in front, but I refused. The TSW staff sat in front, ringed by the students. I was in the back, as well I should be.
When the event ended, we spent some time chatting and hugging and taking selfies and smiling and enjoying each other. The students did not want to leave. One told me he didn't want the feeling to end. Adult visitors were clearly moved. Several spoke about how there isn't a venue or tradition for student voice in Karachi, and spoke of the importance of providing it. For me, it was very cool to see four art forms - writing, photograph, music, and drama - combine to tell the story of Karachi.
On a side note: I began to realize today that for many of the students, visiting the Hindu temple was a really big deal. This is a country that is 96% Muslim, but that has a significant Hindu population. Many students testified that they began to understand the importance and richness of religious diversity.
During the day, I got to speak with some of the T2F staff, including Babool Aqeel, the communications manager, and Arieb Azhar, the executive director. T2F is an initiative of PeaceNiche, the non-profit started by Sabeen Mahmud, who was assassinated in 2015. PeaceNiche supports a number of initiatives for peace, including T2F. I discussed with them the local cafe and bookstore in Lawrence, El Taller, which has a similar mission to T2F, and even a strikingly similar physical space!
Check out lots more photos and video from the event on The School of Writing Facebook Page, thanks to Annie Tejani, including a video of me reading Goodbye to Karachi.
More hugs, more selfies, and we headed back to the Guest House. Alan and Julia fly out at 7am, I fly at noon, and Brendan at 7pm. We are all heading for Mumbai, where we will spend a week working with Lee Krishnan and her folks at the Diamond Jubilee School. We are exhausted, but energized. I am jealous of Brendan, who has time tomorrow to visit the Dream School as the guest of Jinaid before he flies later in the day.
All week, the lingering question has been Mohsin's visa to India. A core dream of this conference was the hope that we could bring Indian teachers to Pakistan, and Pakistani teachers to India. So far, we've been unable to do so, due to visa issues. The animosity between the two governments is severe. Mohsin applied for his visa two months ago, and despite pressures from every direction we could think of, it has to come through yet. We had hoped for four other folks - one was denied, and two others languish in the process. We remain hopeful we can get Mohsin to Mumbai next week, but it's no guarantee.
I leave at 8:30am for the airport. My next post will likely be from either the Dubai airport en route, or from Mumbai once I arrive.
Thanks for reading,
Rich
No comments:
Post a Comment