bazaar

Garis Batas 24: Cita Rasa Osh

Restoran Laghman Uyghur (AGUSTINUS WIBOWO) Osh, kota terbesar kedua di Kyrgyzstan, adalah sebuah kejutan luar biasa setelah mengalami beratnya hidup di GBAO-nya Tajikistan. Kota ini, walaupun dikelilingi gunung-gunung, suhunya sangat hangat. Osh adalah kota dalam definisi yang sebenarnya, dengan hiruk pikuk manusia dan segala kesibukannya. Bukan kota-kota di GBAO macam Khorog dan Murghab yang hanya menyimpan kisah sedih pegunungan terpencil. Arus mobil dan bus kota berseliweran tanpa henti. Jalanan pasar penuh sesak oleh orang-orang yang berbelanja. Gedung-gedung tinggi berbentuk balok berbaris sepanjang jalan. Penduduk Osh adalah percampuran berbagai suku bangsa. Ada orang Kyrgyz yang berwajah Mongoloid. Ada orang Uzbek yang berwajah keturki-turkian. Ada gadis-gadis Korea yang berpakaian modis. Banyak juga orang Rusia dan Tatar yang berkulit putih pucat. Dering ringtone telepon seluler seakan tak pernah putus di tengah riuh rendahnya pasar kota Osh. Tetapi kejutan yang paling menggembirakan setelah meninggalkan GBAO adalah, saya tidak akan pernah kelaparan di Osh. Dalam bahasa Tajik, Osh memang berarti makanan. Apakah memang ada hubungan antara kata ini dengan melimpahnya makanan lezat di Osh? Duduk di atas dipan, sambil menghirup panasnya secangkir teh hitam dan menyaksikan mengalirnya sang waktu adalah kebiasaan kakek-kakek Uzbek dan Kyrgyz melewatkan hari mereka di Osh. Sambusa, pastel kecil berbentuk segitiga [...]

July 17, 2013 // 2 Comments

Garis Batas 19: Di Atas Reruntuhan Mimpi

Gulnoro dan kesusahan hidupnya. (AGUSTINUS WIBOWO) Murghab memang didirikan di atas sebuah mimpi: sebuah kota perbatasan Uni Soviet yang tangguh di puncak pegunungan Pamir. Orang-orang dari lembah Wakhan, Shegnon, bahkan Kyrgyzstan, datang ke sini untuk membangun harapan dan impian itu. Tetapi negeri impian tidak selalu indah. Kota ini terisolasi dari dunia luar setelah perang saudara meletus di negara baru Tajikistan. Penduduk bukan hanya kehilangan pekerjaan, tetapi juga tak punya makanan. Mereka tak seberuntung orang-orang desa yang masih bertahan hidup dari ladang-ladang dan kebun. Di Murghab, orang hanya punya sepetak rumah. Tak ada uang, berarti juga tak ada makanan. Saya menginap di rumah Gulnoro, wanita berumur 54 tahun, adik khalifa Yodgor dari desa Langar. Gulnoro sudah lama sekali tidak melihat kakaknya. Terakhir kali dua tahun lalu. Jarak dari Murghab ke Langar tak lebih 270 kilometer, tetapi paling murah orang harus membayar 50 Somoni, sekitar 15 dollar. Sedangkan gaji Gulnoro sebagai guru sekolah dasar hanya 80 Somoni per bulan, itu pun masih berat untuk menghidupi keluarganya. Pulang kampung ke Langar adalah prioritas kesekian dari tumpukan tuntutan hidup. Suami Gulnoro tidak bekerja. Beig, 56 tahun, sudah hampir setahun ini menganggur. Dulu dia bekerja di Rusia. Karena kemiskinan negerinya, banyak sekali pria-pria Tajik yang [...]

June 9, 2013 // 1 Comment

Garis Batas 15: Tajikistan Sudah Kuat

Pembukaan jembatan Afghanistan – Tajikistan. Tilo dan seorang komandan Tajik bernegosiasi dengan para pejabat Afghan di tengah jembatan. (AGUSTINUS WIBOWO) Impian orang-orang desa, baik di Tajikistan sini maupun di Afghanistan sana, tentang sebuah pertemuan kembali, masih berupa impian. Bazaar bersama yang disambut dengan penuh suka cita itu ternyata hanya buka sekali saja. Jembatan kembali disegel, dijaga ketat oleh penjaga perbatasan yang tak kenal kompromi. Tiga bulan lalu, saya mengintip-ngintip Tajikistan dari seberang sana. Bersama dengan para petinggi Afghan yang penuh dengan mimpi dan harapan. Saya melihat secuil Tajikistan: beberapa tentara Tajik yang dengan fasih berbicara bahasa Persia, menandatangani surat-surat dan mengucapkan selamat kepada Shah dari Panjah. Saya datang kembali ke jembatan ini. Kali ini dari sisi Tajikistan, mengintip-intip Afghanistan yang berupa barisan gunung gundul di seberang sana. Tempat ini sepi. Mati. Tentara perbatasan Tajikistan menjaga rapat-rapat pintu gerbang menuju jembatan. Mereka juga perlahan-lahan dibunuh kesepian dan kebosanan. Tentunya tentara-tentara muda ini datang ke sini bukan karena pilihan mereka. Sebagian besar mereka datang dari tempat-tempat yang jauh. Ada yang dari kota modern Dushanbe, ada yang dari kota Khojand jauh di utara sana. Mereka datang ke sini karena terpaksa. Anak-anak muda ini sedang menjalani wajib militer. Di Tajikistan semua pemuda wajib mengikuti [...]

June 6, 2013 // 0 Comments

Karakul – Out of Murghab

A new day, and a new month, starts in Murghab The new month has just started, and I have only 4 days left on my visa. I met these two guys in the bazaar of Murghab, one with visa expiring today (November 1). The guys were from America and Israel, and they have been waiting for onward travel to Kyrgyzstan. They were there in the bazaar yesterday but failed to depart. Today is the second day (and supposed to be the last day) attempt. Murghab is somehow a depressing place to wait for transport. As now the oil price has skyrocketed, one’s a month salary is only enough to cover the distance from Murghab to Osh or to Khorog in a public transport for one time. People don’t travel anywhere. There are many drivers but not passengers. The drivers hang around the bazaar the whole day to get passengers, and except the two travelers, and me, there is nobody else to share the cost. Some drivers even didn’t have petrol for their vehicles. The cost is always calculated in terms of liters of oil, with 3.40 Somoni/liter standard in Murghab. In Langar I even saw a driver asked the passengers [...]

November 1, 2006 // 0 Comments

Murghab – Life in Murghab

A morning greetings from Murghab Murgab (Murghab) was promising when it was built. It was a new Russian settlement built as frontier city of Pamir. The highway connecting the isolated mountains to the lowland towns was supposed to bring wealth to the nomadic community. Life had changed ever since. A town was built on the top of mountains. People were educated. Frontier military checkpoints were enforced. But how is life now, after Tajikistan gained independence from the USSR and civil war took place in the new country? The hope of the future had turned to be a bad fate. I had got a chance to know Gulnara, a 54 year old woman working as a primary school teacher in Murgab. Gulnara is the younger sister of Khalifa Yodgor from Langar. But the last time she saw him was 2 years ago. “It is too expensive to go there,” said her. Langar is not too far from Murgab. It is around 250 km only, but the public transport there is very rare and expensive. At present, Murghab-Langar cost 50 Somoni/pax. Gulnara’s salary is only 80 Somoni per month. She hardly manages to feed her family with that money, needless to say [...]

October 31, 2006 // 0 Comments

Khorog – The Capital of GBAO

Driver is a respected job in Tajikistan, especially in GBAO where most people still struggle of unemployment “Thanks to God, thanks to Aga Khan, for their kindness to us” – Mamadrayonova Khurseda The provincial capital of GBAO, Khorog, is a little town set in a valley surrounded by vertical cliffs of high mountains. It is cool and lazy, and despite of its proximity with Afghanistan, it is quite laid back. The appearance of military still can be felt intensively in the town, thanks to the neighbouring Afghanistan, which is just across the river and notorious for opium export and illegal border crossing. Young soldiers have to patrol every morning along the misty and freezing river. The 1300 km long border with Afghanistan gives much headache to Tajikistan, and its patron – Russia. Russian guards were playing a big role in ‘saving’ the war torn Tajikistan from further deterioration. But as the situation of the country had been stabilized for almost ten years now, the existence of Russian and CIS troops had been much reduced since the previous two years. If you walk along the main street of Khorog, except for the numerous militsia, police, and KGB agents, you will feel [...]

October 19, 2006 // 0 Comments

Chekhcheran – The Capital of Ghor Province

A boy from Chekhcheran selling bushes for fire. “We are the center of Afghanistan. But why we are so poor?” – a villager from Chekhcheran The capital of Ghor province was a famous arena in Afghan history pages. It was mentioned many times by Babur, the great Moghul emperor. It was also expecting to prosper much further in 1970’s when there was a plan to build road through the Central Route of Afghanistan, thus connecting the Europe as far as to New Delhi. But Chekhcheran today was an isolated town, far from both Herat and Kabul, suffering Taliban attacks in few years back, and now was desperate for further development. The road in the whole province was unpaved, and it was not lit by electricity at all. The whole province had to rely on private generators to produce local electricity to watch TV (no radio signal in the whole province), light the rooms, listen to Indian songs, and run businesses. At night, it was a complete dark. “We are the center of Afghanistan,” said a local man, “but why we are so poor? Why our life is so difficult?” Chekhcheran, geographically, located exactly at the center of Afghanistan. The man [...]

September 17, 2006 // 0 Comments

Ghoz Khan – Bridge of Hope, Tajikistan Border

This is the fun of traveling in Wakhan Corridor “Now I can’t say it’s good or bad. Tomorrow I will see” – Shah-e-Panj Wakhan and Tajikistan are only separated by the Amu River. Tajikistan is visible everywhere from Wakhan Corridor. It looks like a wall of high mountains scattered by green valleys over there across the mighty river. Even the vehicles, camels, horses, and power lines of the country are visible from Afghanistan. But it’s as far as the sky, or at least, it’s double the distance to Kabul. In this side of the river, life is desperate. Qala-e-Panjah, named after the fort in the village, is a tiny village marking the beginning of the Wakhan Valley. It’s 110 km away from Eshkashem, or 2 day trip by vehicle. Motorable road is existent, but the unpaved road scretched from Ishkashim to Sarhad-e-Boroghil through Qala-e-Panjah is a heritage of the 1960’s. The road often washed by floods from the river and streams making transportation only possible by sturdy Russian jeep, 4WDs, and tractors. Everybody has to work Schools are rare, hospital is not existent, electricity is only produced by private generators, and the nearest bazaar is in Ishkashim, that 2 day [...]

July 31, 2006 // 0 Comments

Taloqan – The Colorful Mondays

Welcome to Taloqan “First it was the culture, then it mixed with the religion” – Sa’dat The city of Taloqan is the capital of the Takhar province, one of Afghanistan northern provinces. Takhar was part of the Qataghan province which once comprised the nowadays provinces of Kunduz, Takhar and Baghlan. Taloqan is hot in summer although compared to Kunduz, it’s much cooler. The city is dusty, but the smoothly paved road which connected the sleepy provincial capital to Kabul promised its brighter future. The city has somehow a strong link with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unlike other cities in Afghanistan, the roads in Taloqan has clear name and road signs, and many of the main road signs in the town center are backgrounded with Iranian flag, and signed “Afghanistan and Iran”. Some of the roads have quite Iranian smell, like the “Ayatollah Khomeini” St. Some other main roads are Hafez St., and as in all other cities in Afghanistan, the “Ahmad Shah Massoud” St. Massoud is a Tajik warrior from the Panjshir valley who fought against the Taliban and now is respected by many as a national hero. Taloqan: Ahmad Shah Massoud, Iranian flag, and burqa The people of [...]

July 23, 2006 // 0 Comments

Kandahar – From the Heartland of the Pashtuns

Pottery making is a traditional industry from Peshawar which still survive till today. “Everything here is expensive. But human life is cheap” Kandahar, the second biggest city of Afghanistan, had been lingering in the legends of the country since centuries ago. The description of old folklores about the heatwaves, about the tough desert, and about the hospitality of the Pashtun tribes are still up to date, but no doubt, the prolonged wars and the spread of fundamentalism has changed the face of the city. Living in Kandahar at this peak of the trend “war on terror” is overwhelmed by the concern of security problems. Suicide bombs can happen anywhere, and random shootings on street may deliver hot bullets just next to your feet. Taliban is the one who is always blamed to be the cause of everything, but nobody does really know who was the real actor behind all of the terrors. The politics in Afghanistan is complicated. Not only religious extrimists (thus those who always lay religion as the excuse of everything), manyu foreign nations also have importance and play in Afghan internal politics. Unexpected things can happen here on daily basis The Kandahar life has changed since, and [...]

July 10, 2006 // 2 Comments

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