Pacygram
The weather had certainly turned, and after the by now traditional haggling with the porters and owners of horses and donkeys we set off down the valley in the clouds and drizzle. We stopped for the night at the first village, Pacygram, and bought some chickens which Moumil Khan prepared, cutting them up into small pieces which were cooked in fat, all being eaten with the local flat bread from a communal pot. After weeks on tinned food this was real feast. We were all winding down after the climbing and this, combined with the harvest-home come end-of-summer atmosphere, made us feel like we were getting back to the real world, our stay in the mountains was already going through that mysterious transformation from experience to memories.
A
sad event
This made another far less pleasant incident all the more touching. We had noticed a group of people in what seemed to be a cemetery, and also that there seemed to be fewer people about than on the way up. It turned out that a few days before some animals had been stolen and a young goatherd, a child, had been brutally murdered in the process. Most of the men had gone off after the thieves, armed and set on revenge. This put our contentment into perspective, we were in a very hard country and I could only wonder why we were never ourselves subjected to anything similar. Compared to the Nuristanis even impoverished students were wealthy, just our equipment was worth more than any of them would earn in a lifetime. Did they leave us alone out of respect for guests, as one often reads in guide books on Afghanistan, were they simply scared of what the consequences would be if they harmed a foreigner or were we just lucky; we will never really know as communication was only possible at a very superficial level.
Of
horses and donkeys
We
continued our walk, livened up at one point by a horse which bolted fully
loaded with a several hundred pounds of our luggage, we realised why, for
serious work, donkeys are preferred. Despite their small size they are
much calmer and plod along steadily all day, only requiring either a prod
with short stiff stick or a slap with a thin whippy one, both techniques
being employed by the drivers according to personal taste. Others seemed
to get by using verbal means alone; I wonder if their counterparts in
times long past in England used the same methods, would they have
understood each other? I think they probably would. On many occasions,
there is this impression of time travel in Nuristan, even the clothes,
especially the head gear, seem to come straight out of a medieval
painting.
While on the subject of donkeys, something we learnt by experience was to be careful not to follow too closely on the steep bits, the extra effort required seems to work wonders on their digestive processes, you have been warned!
Everyday
life - agriculture
The
wheat was cut by now and the women, who do most of the work in the fields,
were busy heaping up winter forage on the flat roofs of the houses.
Gathering firewood for the long winters, when snow would make moving about
very difficult, was also well underway. Nominally, at least, this was the
responsibility of the men, though even old women could often be seen bent
under huge bundles of brushwood, their men were undoubtedly employed in
more vital tasks.
In the lower, more fertile parts of the valley, melons could be seen growing amongst the corn (maize) plants. All this cultivation was only possible by irrigation; the rainfall was far too irregular. Everywhere narrow, one or two feet wide channels carried water from higher up the valley, sometimes for miles nearly horizontally, either dug in the earth or carried by rough hewn wooden conduits past rocky buttresses and across side gullies until they reached the fields they were designed to water. Often a system of moveable sluices allowed the irrigation of different fields according to what must be a complex system of water sharing. It probably gives plenty of scope for feuds and bickering too.
Barg-e
Matal - another incident
After
two
days we reached Barg-e Matal, where Dave and Rich had been getting Albert
ready. Two soldiers had kept watch on it while we were away and we were
glad to learn that the battery had held its charge well and the old
vehicle had started up like a good‘un. How we could have charged the
battery if this had not been the case I do not know.
One
incident, which spoke long about the social situation in these high
valleys, is worth mentioning. We had by now built up a fairly easy
relationship with Moumil Kahn, and as we entered the village he was
wearing one of our blue duvet jackets. Among the small crowd on the path
watching our arrival was a young man, no more than a boy, but better
dressed than most of the villagers. He walked up to Moumil spoke to him
most aggressively, and then gave him a hefty slap on the face. Our
soldier, a grown man, perhaps twice the age of this unpleasant brat, said
nothing, took off the jacket and gave it to one of us without the
slightest protest. It turned out that the well dressed but uncouth youth
was the son of the chief of the village, perhaps out of jealousy or just
plain spite, he had taken objection to this non-standard uniform and had
thought nothing of publicly humiliating our friend. The near feudal
situation that this nasty little scene demonstrated made us furious, but
Moumil was more embarrassed for us than for himself and made it clear that
we should not try to do anything about it; he “knew his place” like
Thomas Hardy’s farm labourers. The cosseted life of a London student
does not prepare one for such scenes of everyday submission.
Soon we were loaded, and not without much regret we left Nuristan by the same, and only, road by which we had arrived. The road was the same, but to coin a much abused cliché, we were not.
