Qyzyl Qorum – life at the end of the Wakhan Pamir / Afghanistan
We had to leave our wedding party behind. Before we left,
Malang asked the very young husband if he had consumed the wedding the previous night and he chuckled and blushed
– I think all is good on that end…
Half an hour down the hill is Qyzyl Qorum, a campment
of 5 families – the seat of the now deceased Khan: Abdul Rashid Khan. He had 14
kids and 3 wives. A soft spoken man, non-opium smoker, he was well respected by
the whole Afghan Kyrgyz clan. I met him in 2005 and 2008. Now that he is gone –
he died in december 2009 - it’s another
story…
We stay at his son’s house, Haji Roshan “Khan” . I have to
put Khan in brackets, because he is not really the Khan. A Khan needs to be
elected by the “Aksakal”, the white bearded men, and he was not – he was just
appointed by his father. He is also too young and inexperienced. These days,
Haji Roshan spends too much time smoking opium and not enough time
thinking of the future of the Kyrgyz – this is the gossip of the land and I
would agree with it… I recognize some of my pictures on the wall that I brought
back few years ago – nicely framed in some metal scrap. Outside, the light
is falling and the girls are milking the yaks. Not much milk in winter. One of
the baby yak is fed Nan, the flat afghan bread – his mum has been killed
by wolves (or snow leopards?), it happens a lot around here.
The girls are enjoying the little gossip
there is available, probably based on stories of lazy husbands and visits
to relatives. Most of the women in the Pamir have not been further away than a
day’s walk from their camp – for their whole life...
Arab, one of the youngest kid of the Khan closes the sheep pen
using Marco Polo sheep horns. Meanwhile, Karzai, his younger brother,
throws the family cat in the air – it’s no fun to be cat or dog in the
Pamir…
In the morning, I hear noise coming from the the now empty
sheep’s pen. And here is the Pamir football team – most likely the only
foot ball in the Pamir. I try to teach them a few tricks and there is much
laughter, the kids are so incredibly excited - until a mother comes to scowl
one of them. I make a mental note to try and bring a football next time I come
up here…
It’s snowing lightly – I see Arab and Karzai in the
distance, leaving with the 2 camels. “Mir Ali, let’s follow them, see what they
are up to!” and there we are, following the 2 boys. There are going to
the Autumn camp to load up on “Wuch” = Hay for the horses.
We go back after an hour and come by Ikhbal’s
place, the last wife of the Khan. She has always been a bit of a joker and I
enjoy her company. Currently, she tries to apply make-up bought to itinerant Badakshi
traders – by the look of it she has never done it. One of her son tries to
help – the other kids are giggling away. Ooroon Boi, an older son of the Khan,
comes by asking for help with his computer. His adapter is melted – I am of
little help.
It’s time for “Namaz”, one of the daily 5 prayers. Daryo Boi
is washing his hands and feet, his new wife for over a year brings the solar
powered lamp home. Daryo Boi and
Tella Bu are for me, hands down the cutest couple in the whole Pamir. I have
known Tella Bu, the youngest daughter of the Khan (a princess I dare say) since
2005 – the most beautiful and innocent girl. I saw her last year and she must
have been going through the hard teenage years – really not so pretty anymore.
By some miracle, she is back in full force and seems in love with her
man (although it’s impossible to breach that subject around here…) the strong
and kind Daryo Boi – I nickname him “Palang”, the tiger. He dreams of having
his own house, which would cost him about 1000 USD to build – mostly the
cost of the wood for the roof, which needs to be carried from the lower valleys
on yak’s back for a week. But he is the poor son of an opium addicted father
and only owns 2 yaks and a few goats.
The morning of our last day, before I leave, I want to get
into the only vehicle on the whole Pamir – and the oddest sight around her -
the “Mobil Madical Unit” bus exceptionally brought over from the Tajik
border, which must have cost a small fortune. The story of this bus is a long
story - I won’t get into it - a typical
example of people wanting to help, but not thinking it through… The bus was
brought here to provide medical help, and after a month, the “doctor” left back
to Tajikistan. This was 5 years ago. Since then, the bus is rotting away on the
roof of the world… Inside there is expired medicine thrown all over the floor.
Arab follows me and plays in the operative theater.
Another kid climbs into the driver’s compartment…
Meanwhile, 100 meters away, in Aziz’s house, Nazi Khush is
dying. I take a look at her legs, inflated by water it seems. “She is always
thirsty” tells Aziz, her opium addicted husband.
Her kids are watching. In my
opinion, it’s a bad case of diabetes – I offer to Aziz to take her down and bring
her to the hospital in Ishkashim. He declines – she would die on the way and
all she wants is to die here, in her “watan”, her mother-land. She seems
ashamed of the situation, which is even more heart breaking – she doesn’t want
to be seen like this – asking me to please not photograph her face. Tella Bu
comes to talk to her. I photograph them together, Nazi Khush under the bed
cover – she is 6 months pregnant and doesn’t have much longer to live. And
there is nothing that can be done.
After the 4 diners of goat, ibex and yak meat (we are
invited in all the houses…), we go back to Haji Roshan’s house.
He has pain in his right
eye. His mum, Ikhbal, comes in and blows water into hot iron which spreads onto
his face covered with a cloth. I jump out of my sleeping bag to photograph this – to the laughter of the Kyrgyz – they find my excitement quite hilarious.
I go back in bed to read of Kurt Diemberger’s struggles above 8000 meters on K2
– life seems less harsh that way around here… Outside the snow has stopped and
the wind is blowing hell. I leave my book aside. We lay in bed talking at
length with Malang and Mir Ali - there is a great feeling between the three of
us and I am extremely grateful to this growing friendship.
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