Elissa Bogos: Afghan Tea House Poets

"Let all the infidels become Muslims"

Here's a wonderful short (too short!) video made by Elissa Bogos in a tea house in Afghanistan on 11.11.11 for One Day on Earth.

I describe it as wonderful, not because of the unfortunate intolerance expressed by the old man towards the end of the clip, but because it's beautifully filmed, because of its ambience and because of the music. I wished the clip had been much longer, and that it tarried longer with the "poets" who recited traditional verses (and expressed their gripes), and that it lingered around the corners of the tea house.

Elissa Bogos is a freelance photojournalist and videojournalist based in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was the editor-in-chief of The Sakhalin Times, an English language weekly in the Russian Far East.

Her photographs and videos were published in The New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, EurasiaNet, The Huffington Post, The Montreal Gazette, Reuters, New York Daily News and in other media. In Afghanistan, she freelances for a variety of NGOs and private companies and has worked with the Associated Press, Tolo TV and Channel One TV.