Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Since Medieval times, much of the country has been poor, and as a result, the games played in villages have tended to be relatively simple. A game called Buzel-Bazi, similar to Marbles but using the knucklebone of a sheep, is common. The making of models by and for children, including carved dolls for girls, is also common. There is a game in which boys play with a hard-boiled egg clenched in their hands. While each participant tries to crack their opponent's egg, each player tries to keep theirs undamaged.

For boys and young men, many of the games involve some test of strength or prowess. Boys practice with a slingshot, with teenagers and men involved in Pahl-wani, or wrestling, whereby two adversaries have to topple each other by grabbing the arms or clothes of their opponent but must not touch their legs. Buzkashi, played on horseback, in which people vie for the carcass [Page 13]of a calf or goat, is also very popular, with dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of players on each side.

One of the most popular pastimes is the making of kites and kite flying, known as Gudiparan Bazi. Boys and men make “fighter kites” out of a bamboo frame with tissue paper, varying in size from one to five feet across. A line is attached to the kite and is coated with ground glass, the aim being to cut the line of another person's kite. Children are allowed to keep all kites that they find at the end of these competitions.

In the 1910s, there was an effort by Habibullah, Emir of Afghanistan from 1901 until 1919, to introduce European sports such as golfing, tennis, and cricket. It only had limited success, with traditional pursuits remaining the most popular. In 1933 the Football Federation of Afghanistan was established, and many boys and young men started playing soccer. There is also a game similar to stickball called topay-danda that is pursued in some parts of the country, and cockfighting and fighting between other animals also takes place. In 1979 Dutch child psychologist Nico van Oudenhoven was able to write an extensive survey of 146 games commonly played by the children of Afghanistan.

During the rule of pro-Soviet governments from 1979 until 1997, playing card games and Chess became popular in the cities. When the Taliban took over most of the country in 1997, they started introducing strict laws that banned many games such as those involving cards (they were opposed to gambling), Chess (because of connotations of gambling and because they were a distraction from prayers, and also because the figures were representations of people), and puppet shows (which had been popular in the early 1970s when the Australian Peter Scriven took The Tintookies to Afghanistan). They also banned non-religious music and all forms of dancing. The end of Taliban rule in 2001 led to return of many games banned under the Taliban.

In his book The Kite Runner (2003), later turned into a film, Khaled Hosseni tells the story of a boy in Kabul who enjoyed kitefighting. Since 1979, many toys have also been fashioned out of war “junk” such as discarded artillery shells and shell casings. In February 2002, some 138 players turned up for a Chess competition in Kabul. In lanuary 2007 Oliver Percovich and some other Australians managed to locate some secondhand skateboards that they took to Afghanistan, starting a rapid interest in skateboarding in Kabul, in a project to help the youth later known as Skateistan.

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