Up close with the Wakhan people of the Hindu Kush

[GOTFIVEONIT]

Wakhan people

High up in northern Afghanistan is the Wakhan Corridor, a small finger of land which pokes into China.

The 7,000-metre (22,965-feet) peaks of the Hindu Kush and the Pamir mountains jut up out of the valley - the high passes and hanging valleys are the home of the Kyrgyz nomads.

In the corridor itself the Wakhan people live and speak their own Wakhi language - a form of archaic Persian.

Text and pictures: Alastair Leithead



Yak trek

The only way to get around out of the valley is on horses, or ideally yaks. They carry heavy loads of water and food supplies for a trek and can carry people along too. They expertly negotiate the narrow, high mountain passes, and the men leading them sing to encourage them along.

This is the Duncan family - a British family on a day trip up into the hills. For four years they have been bringing health care to the Wakhi people.



Uncovered faces

The people are very poor - it's harvest time at the moment and they do everything by hand.
The wheat is cut, threshed under the hooves of donkeys, winnowed with pitch forks and then the women sort through to pick out the impurities before filling sacks for the winter. They live on flat bread, cooked in tandoors twice daily.

And unusually for Afghanistan the women, in their bright red and purple material, leave their faces uncovered.



Horse race

This year the first Pamir Festival was held with traditional music and horseback sports. This was the horse race in the lee of the mountains in Sarhad-e-Boroghil, which marks the end of the road. It's a two-day walk from here to Pakistan over the mountain passes, but the borders of China and Tajikistan are not far away.

There's a huge potential for tourism here and security is fine, with no Taleban and few bandits. But the violence elsewhere means very few tourists have come.



Rubab player

The locals were out in force for the festival - travelling for hours along the dreadful road, cut by rivers and landslides.

The music was from a young rubab player - and others joined in with drums.



Dry run

There were more than 100 people there for the event, which was designed to try to attract tourists. None came.

But it was all arranged at quite short notice and it was a good "dry run" for next year, when it's hoped more foreigners might come.



Buzkashi

The highlight of the afternoon was the buzkashi match.

In this case, a couple of dozen horsemen took part in the game which is a little like polo but is played with the headless carcass of a sheep or a goat.



Prizes

There are few rules and no teams - individuals have to wrestle the dead animal into their possession, ride once around a pole at one end of the field and then fight back through the crowd of whip-wielding men, all trying to stop them from dropping the carcass into a circle at the centre of the ground.

A prize is awarded for each successful delivery of the animal into the circle.



Trading opium

It's unusually peaceful in the Wakhan Corridor, but poverty and opium addiction are huge problems. There is little money in circulation and the Wakhis barter with their live animals for sugar, tea and other commodities, including opium, which is brought up the valleys by traders.

They collect the animals around harvest time and drive them all the way to Kabul and to market, in a trek that takes 40 days over high mountain passes to the capital.

[Aryan_]

Great thread Gotfive.

The Wakhan salient was actually a portion of Kashmir taken by the British and given to Afghanistan during the Great Game with Russia. Inshallah it will be taken back one day, as will the parts occupied by India. To this day, the area interacts more with Kashmir than it does with Kabul.

The Wakhi are a type of Tajik not Kyrgyz like the article claims. You find a lot in the Northern Areas, there were lots in Passu. Nice, kind people.