Doing the Attan

Massa picked me up late last night. I am very thankful. There I was sitting on a concrete barrier outside the gate, dressed in full Afghan attire, getting another 60 minutes of Pashto from the locals...what a great time! You cannot imagine how much they love it if you try to speak their language.

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The title says "doing the Attan" so I better get back to that. Any guesses? Attan is the national dance of Afghanistan and the traditional dance among the Pashtuns. It is a circular dance, performed at the end of ceremony, and its origin is dated deep in Afghanistan's pre-Islamic Avesticera. Attan used to be religious dance involve many circles around the fire, some say it was dance of warriors around the fire performed before going to war, although this tradition was lost during the Islamic period, or it has been modified, but soon during 14th century in the midst of Hindukush mountains it became famous. Although in modern Afghan weddings Attan is performed only once, it is traditionally performed twice (at start of the wedding and at its end) and sometimes even more, especially among Pashtuns. They did it a dozen times last night at my first Afghan wedding!!

Of all the things in Afghanistan, I dislike their music more than anything. I know it sounds bad, but come on, at least I'm honest. Well, the bad music was more than made up for by some awesome dancing and pure enthusiasm.

Did I kiss the bride? No, I never saw her! ha! The women were in one room, the men in another. The entire wedding celebration [traditionally] is segregated, but it did not spoil the event. Read the wiki to save my fingers. Bottom line, I had a super time with more language and culture training that anyone could get in a single tour here. Too much fun!

They provided all of my favorites and in great quantity. Extra run time this morning to balance the evening out! The other half of the evening will have to be provided in a separate post when I get pictures from my female colleagues. More to follow...