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#1Pic1Day: Sesudah Perang | Life After War (GBAO, Tajikistan, 2006)

Life After War (GBAO, Tajikistan, 2006) Madam Dudkhuda is a typical town dweller in the Pamir Mountains. She works as bread baker, earning less than US$20 per month, while her geologist husband only earns about US$150 a year. There is no adequate job offered by the government, so most people in the mountainous province become unemployed or underemployed. Recently some NGOs like the Aga Khan Foundation and Acted provided some training programs to the communities, as well as microcredit financial aid, to help the rebuilding of the economy after years of civil war. Sesudah Perang (GBAO, Tajikistan, 2006) Nyonya Dudkhuda adalah seorang warga kota biasa dari Pegunungan Pamir. Dia bekerja sebagai pembuat roti, dengan pendapatan kurang dari US$ 20 per bulan, sementara suaminya yang bekerja sebagai ahli geologis hanya memperoleh US$ 150 per tahun. Kurangnya pekerjaan yang dapat disediakan oleh pemerintah menyebabkan sebagian besar penduduk di provinsi pegunungan ini menjadi pengangguran atau setengah pengangguran. Saat ini beberapa LSM internasional seperti Aga Khan Foundation dan Acted telah menyediakan program pelatihan kepada masyarakat, juga bantuan finansial dengan skema mikrokredit, untuk membantu pembangunan ekonomi pasca tahun-tahun perang [...]

September 25, 2013 // 2 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 – The Dudkhoda’s Family

Boys of Murghab, in front of Tajik banner with the tricolor flag and coat-of-arms, of which important element is a snow mountain “Pamir will be better…. Pamir will be better….” – Dudkhoda My first impression of this 39 year old Tajik man was really not so good. this man tried to hug me and kiss me when I was sleeping next to him under the same blanket on the floor in the Kyrgyz restaurant in alichur packed by the Kyrgyz drivers. He also made me to pay his bills in the restaurant. But later I found that he had story worth to tell. He arranged for me a seat in the Kyrgyz truck, along with him, who returned to his home in Murghab. He was actually a passenger of the truck, not being able to pay the ride with money but offered the drivers a dinner in his hosue in Murghab. I came along with him, sitting along the way to Murghab (100 km) for free. Just near Murghab, there were two military checkpoint. The Kyrgyz drivers failed to do registration and they became easy target of the military man in the small dormitory. “Hey, brother, you should follow the [...]

October 29, 2006 // 0 Comments

Ishkashim – Bodurbekov Family

Alisher (a.k.a Muhammad Bodurbekov) with his cousin “Now you are not guest anymore. You are part of our family. Welcome!” – Muhammad Bodurbekov Since the first minute I arrived in Ishkashim, I was impressed by the hospitality of the people in the Wakhan Valley. I was invited by Muhammad Bodurbekov, 29, to his house in the village. Muhammad, alias Alisher, worked in Dushanbe in Aga Khan’s NGO, MSDSP. He had classes in Khorog and he then had chance to see his family in Ishkashim. He spent a month in the UK for his higher education, and he still maintained his British accent. Alisher was an educated professional and he had so many things to discuss. So before starting, let’s sit on the ‘kurpacha’, the guest welcome matress, which Alisher laid between the pillars of Ali and Muhammad. Sitting on the kurpacha symbolized the acceptance of the welcome gesture from the host. In this house there were Alisher’s father, mother, sister, and some nephews and nieces. Alisher sister was married already but she was staying in her parents’ house. She was married to a man from Shegnon and according to the Shegnon tradition, the first child should be born in the [...]

October 22, 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

Bamiyan – The De-Miners

Our job is to clean up the area for your safety, Sir! This is the life of those people, who risk their life, to find mines and unexploded materials around the Great Buddha statues of Bamiyan. They are those in uniform with Farsi letters: Main Paki, and English writing: De-mining. They are the de-miners working in Bamiyan. The encounter the day before with Saboor and Jamil brought me to learn deeper about the life of the de-miners. Achmad Saboor, a Tajik driver from Panjshir, picked me up to see their work around the Buddha hills. In that car I knew Waisuddin, or Wais, a Pashtun man in his thirties, with very strong short body. He was bearded but it seemed that was just trimmed, he also speaks very good English. Wais is among the most important persons in this demining project of Bamiyan Buddha. I was lucky to know him personally. And he was happy that he could practise his English with me. He is the commander of MCPA (Mine Clearance Planning Agency). The previously introduced Achmad Saboor and Jamil, work in other organization: MDC (Mine Dog Center), sometimes also called as MDG (Mine Dog Group). Saboor is the driver [...]

June 21, 2006 // 0 Comments

Bamyan – A Day in Bamyan

A happy day in Bamiyan From a tailor in the second floor of a wooden simple building in the bazaar of Sharh-e-Nao, I heard an interesting story from a man named Ramazan. When I told him where I came from, he said, “ooo Indonesia,” then he named some Indonesian islands: Java, Bali, Roti. He suprised me in two ways. First, it was already surprising that an Afghan in this little village of Central Afghanistan, where some people still thought that Indonesia was somewhere near London. The second thing was Roti. Roti is a small island, with such far flung location even most of Indonesians don’t know whee it is exactly. So how Ramazan knew about Roti? There is an interesting story behind this. In fact he had lived in Roti for fourteen months between 2001 and 2002. Besides Roti, he has been to Jakarta and Bali also, and attempted to get into Australia by risking his life on boat with other 240 fellow refugees, trying to get a new better life in ‘modern’ countries, escaping the rule of Taliban administration. It cost them 5000 Af to get to Karachi, where then they got the boat with ticket price 700$ per [...]

June 20, 2006 // 0 Comments

Bamiyan – Hiding?

Behind all the politeness and sweet promises, who really knows what they are actually thinking about? Early in the morning Hadi told me that suddenly his wife from Kabul had called and that he had to go back to Kabul to do ‘something’ at his house. He used that gesture that he meant his wife did really need him for the nights, as he had not been home for 25 days. I asked for how long he would be there in Kabul, he said for a week or 10 days. Yesterday there was someone from an NGO in Bamiyan offering me to go to the villages of the province after a week. I asked Hadi whether it was OK to stay in his office during the waiting time, he was trying to convince me that the activities of the NGO had nothing to do with my work (how he knew?), but then he said that it was no problem at all. But suddenly early this morning he said that he had to go to Kabul for 10 days, leaving completely his office and locked the news room, which is for me was just an excuse to ask me to leave. [...]

June 19, 2006 // 0 Comments

Muzaffarabad – Five Months after the Disaster

Muzaffarabad, 5 months after the disaster February 23, 2006 So, at last I am going to Kashmir, the earthquake affected area. The departure was with an NGO, Dannish Muslim Aid. The organization name bears the name of the country mostly infavorable in many Muslim countries. Rashid, the guy from the NGO told the driver, a Pakthan from Peshawar, to say that we were from ‘Ganesh’ instead of ‘Danish’ whenever anybody ask. Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (Azad= Free), one third of Kashmir which is under Pakistan control, is a winding 4 hour journey through the Murree Road. For Rashid, the trip was extremely unbearable. He tried to make himself fall asleep instead of tortured in the “uppar-niche” – up and down journey. Murree itself is among popular place for vacation for locals, as there are several tourist buses passing the area. And the Punjab province meets its end in the border town of three provinces: Punjab, NWFP, and Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK). In Daval, the main road runs between two big rivers, on the left is the NWFP and on the right is AJK. The road goes until the end of Punjab, just before a bridge connecting [...]

February 23, 2006 // 0 Comments