Sur les routes des Kirghizes Afghans
Walking Trails
A Pamir is a wide and open valley, ideal for grazing. Seen from above and a cartographer's perspective, the Pamirian Knot denotes the Massif at the northwestern end of the Himalaya. Prior to the 19th century's tracing and subsequent closure of international borders, people used to roam from valleys to valleys, moving to places along with shifting political and climatic situations. The Little and Big Pamir were used as summer pastures then, winters considered too harsh with their -40°C. As military troops increased their incursions in their dwelling areas by the 1920s, a group of approx. 1'200 ethnic Kyrgyz remain throughout the year after a major 1978 emigration that eventually brought their parents to Vang, Turkey. Now a tiny door, because of expensive administrative hurdles, opens for the wealthiest to Naryn, Kyrgyzstan.
The Trader and the Khan
Er Ali Bai and Mahmutali Khan quibble over their Kyrgyz and Pakistani hats. Both old friends as well as respected and wealthy leaders, they stopped their negociations to joke over stereotypes on their own Kyrgyz and Hunza communities. Mahmutali Khan connects Afghan Kyrgyz to the Pakistani port of Karachi and the important trade city of Kashgar in China by the intermediary of his shops and guesthouses.
ErAali died last year on these days. He was considered the wealthiest livestock owner, generous in his spending but constantly sitting with walkie talkie, binoculars on, shouting at his employed herders the directions to follow towards the best pastures. Careful management and sharing to poorer households made his fortune, along with perhaps less acceptable means, the rumours convey. He used to welcome newcomers with frontal accusations, partially hidden in jokes. "You taliban stone, what riches are you stealing from us this time?" People hard in trade are hard as stones. He kept shouting at me, partly curious, partly distant, playing with my camera too.AfghanistanBadakhshanCentral AsiaKhanLittle PamirPamirsPortraittrader
Winter in the Little Pamir
Remote Pathways
"Vast migrations of people - some voluntary, most not - have shaped the human condition. More of us flee from war, oppression, and famine today than at any other time in human history. As the Earth's climate changes in the coming decade there are likely to be far greater numbers of environmental refugees. Better places will always call to us. Tides of people will continue to ebb and flow across the planet. But the lands we run to now have already been settled. Other people, often unsympathetic to our plight, are there before us." Carl Sagan 1994: Pale Blue Dot.
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Frozen Stones
Empty camps in Bozai Kümböz, the unusually high snow covered pastures when strong winds removed it from others further eastwards. "Hell in the Wakjir (valley)" I was told, were livestock died en masse. From there on we left our travel companions to join the eastern end of the Little Pamir and return visiting each camp on our way. We eventually learned to appreciate strong winds, -20°C weather, and clear sky instead of the mild, humid and snowing weather.
Inventing the Silk Roads
Ptukh, Wakhan Corridor. Bactrian camels tread pathways that Marco Polo reportedly walked on. Another wonderful species, no other equals their sway. Afghan Kyrgyz are known to make the best and nicest covers, dressed with typical patterns. Expensive, camels are worth 20 sheep but lost some value since motorbikes and larger engines started to make their way in the Little Pamir on yack back a few years ago. A good investment in luxury and prestige, owning camels is still an important sign of wealth, detached from practical value. Their sensible feet suffer from the stony and rugged trails that lead to the lowlands. Only in the Great Pamir do they enjoy larger and smoother paths to markets, financed by the curious WFP "Food for Work" program. There they carry yurts and equipments when camps are moving, form long caravans reminder of too well known Silk Road imaginaries.
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Summer Harvest
Men prepare on the fields for the long winter in the Little Pamir, a work done only with their own hands.
A Pastoral Existence
Breeding flocks requires patience as only slow and minute drive of the herd ensures its growth. Agile goats lead the way for slower and voracious sheep, both species complementing each other in their abilities and needs. The risks are as high as the reward, since a bad climatic event can decimate more than half of a herd that can otherwise rapidly multiply its original size.
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Young Commandant
Being on the Afghan “Roof of the World“ did not shield people from the effects of war. The factions of the conflict share a stake in the important pastoral economy, trading livestock to armed groups in the lowlands. The image of a safe heaven promoted by tourist and development agencies hides and perhaps partly enables other power plays.
Exhausting Trades
A trader rests after three weeks spent in the Pamirs. He is used to move upland since the nineties and knows most of the herders. His activities are now threatened by new traders from further places and with more resources. He doubts if his well known trading companions will continue to lend him preference against the greater profit they can make with other more wealthy but unknown traders.
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Cloud Scapes
Talismans on Fragile Beings
"Children are a rare gift," as the saying goes among Afghan Kyrgyz. In the Pamir, the back of children are pinned with talismans for their health at times when good care becomes useless. During winter, the harsh climate is marked with lows reaching easily -40° C and summers are made of only two months over 0° C.
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Clouds without Rain
Speaker and Daughter
Mullah Abdylhak, a respected religious leader, took the role of speaker for his peers. An interview we shot together upon the death of past leader (khan) in 2018 made the headlines in Kyrgyz newspapers and reinstated new energies to the then dormant “repatriation“ program initiated in 2006.
The Right Hand
Milk tea, rock salt, bread and this time exceptionally some cheese. A typical serving and our daily diet in the Pamirs. Evenings, some rice and a piece of meat. Lack of vitamins is a matter of course that the specially enriched flour and rice people provision poorly helps compensate. Bread and tea, as well as lodging are prompted for free and without request to any traveler, tourists excepted, in the Pamirs. Small gifts and trust in trade are but tacitly expected.
No sugar but a bit of salt, simply pour your fried bread (borsook) in tea. Hands are marked by the sun and works but also mark trust or friendship in tending to the same meal, embracing another hand, etc. It would be impure or disrespectful to reach with the left. Works and preferences are realized with a touch of arbitrariness.
Development Dreams' Leftovers
The Khan's Son
Motorcycles were recently brought to the Pamirs on yaks three years ago. Made in Iran, China or Pakistan, the engines provide valuable support to herding activities on the large valleys. Music is often plaid loud on their speakers to the agreement of everybody's ears.
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Winter Harvest
Bling bling and Exuberance
Gold watches made in Japan or China trade for cheap in the lowland bazars, travel upland in the pockets as small gifts in trade. Gold fits the vivid and warm colors, their use value reaching further than timekeeping. New trends in style mingle with older ones, their selection is but no random act. Gifts and preferences from far away made home, while in the lowland many rail the exuberant styles of mountain dwellers.
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Winter Pastoralism
Early morning, on our way to the Little Pamir. 5th day walk. We brought the yack herd of our hosts out to the pastures. Wolves are less a threat for yaks and can be left for some while without surveillance. Herding necessitates however constant management, impossible to leave the camps fo a while. If Afghan Kyrgyz settled the Little Pamir, it is a greater issue for Wakhi who leave families for 6-8 months a year down in the lowlands. Small camps of men only from which curious jokes and stories abound.
Dusty Clouds and Pakistani Winds
Frozen Chakmaktin Lake
Kyrgyz Style
Abdulkhani Hajji Butu, current customary leader (khan) of the small community features the largest yurt too. Brought from Kashgar, he ordered it from well known Pakistani traders at a time where borders were stil open.
Care
Khaibubu and her step mother prepare her newborn child for sleep. The father was away at the time, participating to the ifrst row of “returnees“ (Kairylmandar). He would eventually see his first child only a year later.
Revising Clichés
Teachers move upland in summer for three months and teach in the local school. The curriculum consists basically of Dari, Geography, Maths and History. Only boys attended, contrary to the NGO's promises to educate girls. Several organisations and the Afghan state sponsor the institutions that mene old and successful pupils to highschools in the district capital.
Light Clouds
Reaching Specificity
Walking with two friends, we slowly made our way back from the Great Pamir’s summer camps. Strong winds blew at dusk and in early morning, announcing greater temperature shifts. The camp was unusually attached to the mountain flanks, unlike the general disposition to settle along even riverbeds. Water had to be carried from behind another ridge. The place felt particularly harsh, though we arrived at the end of its seasonal occupation. People lost eight sheep during a wolf attack the night before and desired to accelerate the move. Arriving there, it felt as if our company were plunging to the bottom of the valley, some thousand meters downwards.
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Dry Storm
Another storm without rain, dry remains the climate of the Afghan Pamirs. #clouds #Afghanistan #Wakhan #Pamir #storm #landscape #pastures
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Labour
The early morning sound of the rattling pike grabbed us from the dreams we would share to each other while sipping tea. Keeping the room warm by -20°C outside involves small but steady acts of care. The routine was settled and timed by women activities inside: the main room regularly cleaned, dung brought to the stove, water collected at the frozen river, rice washed and cooked, tea warmed, milk skimmed, added and poured into our cups, bread loaves in the center, butter or cream aside, the tablecloth swiftly opened ahead our knees touching each other. Do not forget an eye for the toddler and the young girl besides. Men would then move outside. Yack, sheep and goats out of the corrals, walking together to the pastures where they would spend lonely hours. Children read the Koran and school booklets with elders, sitting for the day, playing outside during warmers hours. Evening we enjoyed the visit of neighbors, watching Turkish series and the news on TV.
#labour #Afghanistan #Wakhan #LittlePamir #everyday #writing #ethnography #women #centralasia
Permanence
A fire is kept alive throughout the day, warm water poured on our hands before each meal. The older the house, the darker its walls.
#Afghanistan #Pamir #Wakhan #Hands #water #tea #fire #ethnography #everyday
Addiction.
A small rope bathes in melted yack grease. Hands adjust the melting resin over the lamp. Short aspirations burn the substance rapidly inhaled and quickly released. We chat over the value and spread in the Afghan Pamirs of the *black drug* (*kara dawa* in Kyrgyz). "Everyone smokes, women, men, elders, we always did. Times are tough here, we need powerful drugs," he releases between two puffs, leaning back.
#Afghanistan #Pamir #Wakhan #hands #opium #rug #drug #addiction #ethnography #everyday
Dry Rain over the Little Pamir
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