shekib hamdard!

last night was the final episode of Afghan Star, i've become a bit caught up with this whole thing over the last few weeks, but so has the rest of kabul and afghanistan, it's great to see something so exciting going on here that is all afghan based. The two final stars Sami Yosufzai and Shekib Hamdard sang in front of around 400 people or so in the kabul intercontinental hotel. there were light glow sticks, a surprise guest performer of Manija - a rising star from tajikistan - and generally the atmosphere was filled with energy. i was sitting in the 5th row or something so I had a great view of everything, and as the final winner was announced things started to get pretty roudy in the crowd. people are really taking this seriously here, like today for lunch i went to a restaurant and the local people were watching the repeat episode and talking about it. the 2nd place winner and his enterage of supporters were pretty upset and he ended up accusing the SMS operater of cheating and all other types of stuff. but in the end, the winner was whisked out and he's now a real star. you can see a picture of the top two guys on this page:

http://www.afghanstar.tv/funstuff.html - use internet explorer

this was probably one of the most exciting nights i've had so far in afghanistan