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Traditionally this game is played on Friday afternoons (the Muslim "Sunday") on an empty field out of town. The goal of the game is to pick up a goat or calf carcass and haul it around a distant pole and then dump it back into a circle. The person (or team) who manages this wins that round. Everyone else is trying to stop you and do it themselves. There appear to be no other rules. A short hand for the game might be "a free-for-all" on horses, although a literal translation of buzkashi (spelled different ways) is "goat ball."

Games can entail dozens or hundreds of participants. Each round is financed by a sponsor, so the winner is given cash. He struts his horse forward to the tent where the big-wigs sit, and he is handed the money. Both the pros (who travel town to town) and the locals play in the same game.

So where did I take this picture from? I was sitting on a hillside, much like the one across the valley, where all the other men were sitting (no women), almost like stadium seats. It was late afternoon in early winter, when there was more free time for such pursuits.

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Buzkashi game

Traditionally this game is played on Friday afternoons (the Muslim "Sunday") on an empty field out of town. The goal of the game is to pick up a goat or calf carcass and haul it around a distant pole and then dump it back into a circle. The person (or team) who manages this wins that round. Everyone else is trying to stop you and do it themselves. There appear to be no other rules. A short hand for the game might be "a free-for-all" on horses, although a literal translation of buzkashi (spelled different ways) is "goat ball." Games can entail dozens or hundreds of participants. Each round is financed by a sponsor, so the winner is given cash. He struts his horse forward to the tent where the big-wigs sit, and he is handed the money. Both the pros (who travel town to town) and the locals play in the same game. So where did I take this picture from? I was sitting on a hillside, much like the one across the valley, where all the other men were sitting (no women), almost like stadium seats. It was late afternoon in early winter, when there was more free time for such pursuits.