Wednesday September 03: Kalash valleys (Balanguru)

After breakfast Ehsan took us in the jeep up the valley to the village of Nouristan. Although there has been a village here for about 100 years, it really grew in 1972 when it was settled by Afghan refugees from the Nouristan province just across the border, which is only about ten miles ‘as the crow flies’. The refugees were permitted to stay, but Nouristan is a very remote and conservative village. The track was a real struggle for Eidjan who did the driving as it was gullied, steep, and rocky and with slippery shale areas. In fact we could not take the jeep all the way and so we walked the last 2-300 yards as there was actually a bulldozer there (I have simply no idea or concept of how they got it there) which was breaking up a large boulder just where the track needed widening. As the valley here is steep and quite narrow, the wood and stone houses are quite literally built on top of one another. 

Although we definitely could not take any photographs of them, it was interesting watching two women separating the wheat grains from the chaff by washing it in the river – a bit like panning for gold – the remaining grains are then dried in the sun on the roof.

Although there are still quite a lot of trees on the hillsides, the truth here, as in much of Northern Pakistan, is that there should be quite thick forests, and there has been and is continuing severe de-forestation. The trees are slow growing at these altitudes and if there is de-forestation for firewood it is bad enough, but in many areas, as here, there is illegal commercial logging. The headman of Balanguru had taught himself English and had spent much of the last ten years fighting against the commercial loggers and for the Kalash’ rights in the courts in Islamabad. You couldn’t help feeling that was both a massive effort and a massive achievement and wish him luck.

In the afternoon we took ourselves off for a walk around the village and found the village shops, which majored on sweets and cigarettes as far as we could see but sold pretty much anything you would really need or use. We bought Jacob a Pakistan school cap (‘baseball’ style) which seems to be used by all the boys (except Kalash boys) for a whole 25 pence, and even then we were told we could have got it cheaper in Chitral!

In the afternoon Ehsan, who had been feeling somewhat unwell for the last 3-4 days took himself off in the jeep to Chitral to see a doctor, and it was well dark before he returned. As he is reasonably well off by local terms he was able to pay to see a ‘real’ doctor and get some real medicines. At any rate, he soon improved. During his time in Chitral he had had a bath, a shave and a haircut, all for the princely sum of 85 pence!