A Day In The Life

Your eyes don’t even open as you you punch your mobile phone come alarm clock on the bedside table.  A minute or two passes, and you find yourself sitting up, hunched over with a fan swirling the world around you.  You take a few deep breaths and look around.  Today it’s the Osh Guesthouse, you like it here.

You throw your clothes on and head outside into courtyard, noticing today the many roses and enlargened flowers.  It’s a nice morning, and the sting of the heat is beginning to abate as September nears.  Stretch, music, stretch, and you head out of the compound.  It’s early, and there’s little traffic on the road, as you begin to run.  The sun breaches the mountains to the east, defining what the colour orange is.  Big and bright, it throws light over the corn fields that are as tall as a Kyrgyz weightlifter, waiting to be picked.  Everything that you run past has an orange tinge, making it worthwhile getting up this morning.  You continue to run, up the hill as a bus drives past and laces your jogging breath with dust.  Further and further, higher and higher.  You reach a little shop, your sign to turn along the river.  The river is littered with water-wheels, bringing the water from the river into little pipes that feed the nearby houses.  It’s a beautiful scene, and the water flows quickly even in winter.  But something breaks your stride, as you pick up a fist sized rock.  It sits there in the middle of the path, and you continue you run along the edge.  You stare at it, and it stares at you.  It’s tail goes down, ears flap back, and “woof woof woof!” Angrily, with every muscle in its body, almost bouncing off its forefeet and ready to pounce, it barks and barks.  You know it won’t make a move while you continue to make eye contact, and have your guns in a menacing position filled with a rock.  You run past it, and it retains its position barking.  Eye contact remains even as you are twenty yards further down the road.  For today, there will be three more dogs – one black, and two a dirty beige.  Rumour has it the biggest dogs are bred to protect yurts in the mountains from bears and wolves, and you believe it.  You get back to your guesthouse and piff the rock in the pile of others, home.

The team starts building around the white plastic table outside. One by one they arrive, to an empty table.  Eventually, the guard comes out and informs us that the cook is at the other guest house, as Adina is on leave, we will need to feed ourselves.  Today’s breakfast is simpler than the crepes we are useful, but pleasant all the same.  The table is filled with grapes, peaches, boiled eggs, laptops and tea.  At 8:30, the house will be empty.

A strange phone call in the morning, as you sit there at your laptop looking at another matrix in excel.  Its hard to work out who it is what they want, but they are coming to visit you at 10:30.  They arrive early, and introduce themselves, “We’re from the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Regions Foundation”.  You struggle to hold back the laughs, as they tell you that Kyrgyzstan is one of their more significant programs.  Is this the most specific mandate of any NGO you’ve met? Forty five minutes later, and your good deed for the day is done.  They want to know where and what your organisation is doing, almost as if trying to fill in their agenda to justify flying from Switzerland.

You stare at your excel spreadsheets for several more hours.  After lunch, you have a meeting with some program people.  You want them to look at your excel spreadsheet, and they want you to look at their report.  Quid pro quo, a deal is done, and the weekend will be long for both of us.  You find out that his report is seventy pages, and your matrix is about five, as you mutter through it.  Another assessment of livelihoods, another review of conflict mitigation in southern Kyrgyzstan. 

Your housemate walks in to your office, fresh from the field.  He’s been looking at houses, while you’ve been dealing with donor reports. It seems the houses have been built quicker than anyone expected, but there are more important things to discuss.  Why have you got all these extra undies, and where’s your socks?  Your favourite running socks! Unfortunately, they’re not his underwear and he doesn’t have your socks.  You chase him around the office, up the stairs, and around the water tank trying to see what socks he is wearing... to no avail.

Before it seems the day had even started, the clock strikes 5:30pm and the local staff are ready to go.  But first, there is overly sweetened sponge cake with layers of icing being pulled out of the fridge and plenty of flowing soft drinks to be drunk.  After six months running the mapping unit, the program manager is leaving and heading to Uzbekistan for his next adventure.  Six months, and literally tears are flowing.  The beanpole of a man has made an impression on people, a smiling, laughing, fun to be around guy who just loves to impart his knowledge on people.  People take it in turns saying speeches, and then finally, the nod is given and the cake is allowed to be eaten.  Two minutes later, the food is scoffed and you head back to your respective office to continue the monotony.   

The sky is dark, the halls are all but empty, and the driver is waiting.  You wonder whether its worthwhile, but almost to give him something to do, you jump in the Lada Niva and travel no more than 500 meters up the road back to the guesthouse.  The benefit of living with a bunch of Frenchies is that every time they return from their motherland, without fail they pack their bags with cheese, wine and fine foods. And this welcome home, is no different.  You sit around the table, discussing the latest matrix, as you gulp down a fine white that you couldn’t even attempt to pronounce, while eating potatoes cooked in cheese with a cheese, salami, cheese, bread and cheese on the side.  It makes you wonder what the chemical relationship between this cheese and the Russian rubber they call cheese is... not much.

Tomorrow you eat the egg that will leave you empty for five days.

Up In The Valley Where Time Stopped

Trees arouse the strongest of emotions in all but the most insensitive people.  The mere mention of a tree will whisk people away into a parallel realm.  Birch.  Elm.  Eucalyptus.  Trees of life.  They stand still in the landscape, populating it as if the soil is what had grown around it.  The sounds of a tree , its branches, its leaves, rustles in the background.  People saw their cultures in trees.  Like the trees up in the valley where time stopped, culture has been brought forth from generations and millennia ago.

Burned out car amongst the summer snow

The landscape sets the scene as it whirls past the window, though this is not the narrative to this movie.  In the Allay Valley, this is a story of people that are impervious to movements around the Pamir Ranges that grip tight to their history, their blood, their peoples and refuse to stop wrestling the changing sands of time.  The yurts are lit by incandescent lights.  They meet with the aid of cellular.  The tides of development are present, but the remoteness provides a barrier that the wills of ten thousand horseman couldn’t overcome.  Roads remain unbuilt. Water is merely a river that is shared with human, yaks, camels, horses and sheep alike.  Education is what your father and mother tell you it is.  Health is a spur of the moment response.  Rome was not built in a day, but it is built today. 

A kyrgyz family enjoying the festival

 

One cannot paint a country with a single brush stroke.  Being in Chon Allay aroused the emotions and recalled the reasons for being a humanitarian in Kyrgyzstan.  Remote, mountain communities like these are so far from newly industrialising it makes a mockery of the whole world.  Next door, China builds roads as trucks come and go taking container loads of modern equipment necessary for the peoples of the region: cheap imported eggs, poor quality water coolers, impersonations of Turkish rugs, it’s all there in plain sight.  One hundred miles to the South, an alliance of wealthy individuals pound Afghanistan back in to the dark ages, which seemingly didn’t take much pounding.  Here, in the heart of hearts, almost the furthest place on earth from a coast, it remains the centre of all things and the middle of nowhere. Is this why we come, is this the dream?

Defeat in the arena of Kyrgyz horse wrestling

Hundreds, stand around in a circle, hollering and hooting, drinking and laughing, watching the games unfurl in front of them.  On the loudspeaker, they announce the names of villages and their local strong men.  Kashka Suu! A corner roars, and a man in his mid 20s is thrown in to the centre, willingly taking off his shirt.  Daroot Korgon! A muted response, they know they are up against the champion in yellow.  Something that resembles a boy in comparison is thrown into the middle, ready to prove himself to his village and the communities around.  They tie the ropes around their waists, and embrace each other.  The wrestling has begun.   

The crowd gathers around the wrestling

Every move is watched carefully by all the voyeurs.  A slight shift of the weight, an attempted lift.  The crowd roars, more money is given to the man with the microphone.  No result, they keep pacing around in circles, in circles, around and around, gripping each other as if their lives are stored in the hips of the man they embrace.  A clean jerk, and the yellow shirt of Kashka Suu has the Daroot Korgon boy shuffling backwards, backwards, more up right, a twist of the arms and bodies, and the boy is on his back.  The crowd cheers.  The wrestle is over for now.  Rematch? Not from Daroot Korgon, but there is always someone else charged with vodka in the crowd willing to take on someone else.  Quick to anger, things can turn quickly.  But then, a blue of the loudspeaker later, everyone is up and walking to the horse track.  The race that started heading east 45 minutes ago sees the riders coming from the west, riding at full pace on their steeds over the hills in the mountains and down the valley.  Pride takes time to win, and a local from Achyk-Suu has it stitched up.

After 15km the endurance race comes down to the wire

The festival and games provide a well earned break in the midst of summer.  The herds are up in the communities’ Jailo in the high mountains, eating fresh pastures knowing that in six months snow will cover even the valleys and feed will be hard to come by.  They eat and eat, fattening themselves, herded by donkey riding boys who whistle them from blade to blade.  As the sun will rise tomorrow, they know the winter will follow.  Survival is the greatest game played here, and only through collective action and learning have they lasted this long.  Development?  That’s a luxury.  The story cannot be told through the eyes of a voyeur, it cannot be told through the words of others..  The story can only be told one person at a time.  This is the real story, not the bride stealing, not the wrestling, not the horse racing.  This is the story of people who eat, breathe and live the mountains.  This is my friend, Bairam.

Bairam of Kashka-Suu, Potato and Wheat Farmer

Bairam in his village is considered an old man.  He has been a farmer all his life, and is the head of an agricultural cooperative with 15 neighbouring families. In this remote area of Chon Alay, Southern Kyrgyzstan, the winters are long and harsh.  For Bairam, that means he has three months to produce his crops.

Bairam preparing his field of potatoes

  

For the past ten years, Bairam has been growing wheat and potatoes 20km west of his home village in a Greenfield site with little access to infrastructure.  Out here, he plows his one hectare plot with a communal tractor – a new site each year, looking for the best soils.  The water is abundant, though the canals are in constant disrepair.  Unfortunately for many farmers that means not having water for the whole season, while today Bairam is heading home because again he is unable to water his crops.  

The biggest challenges for Bairam are good quality fertilizers and seeds at reasonable prices.  The fertilizers are imported from Osh, which makes it expensive costing him 30com per KG.  This is almost double the price last year, and about 10com per KG more than the cost in Osh.  Seeds for potatoes, wheat and barley when available are imported from all over Kyrgyzstan and even as far afield as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The potatoe seeds from Tajikistan are particularly good, as they can be grown from paddock to plate in 60 days rather than 90 – a very precious saving of 30 days in these short summers.  All of this is sourced through the agricultural cooperative, making it cheaper and easier to supply.  While the soils are poor quality, with sufficient fertilizers and good quality seed the paddock will be viable.  

A greenfield potato crop of Bairams

 

Bairam is not wealthy, and for him the risk of farming is particularly significant.  He has to pay for seeds, fertilizers and fuel for the communal tractor well in advance of seeing any money for his crops.  Meanwhile, the price of potatoes and grains are particularly low this year.  He may be able to store his potatoes in an underground communal facility for the winter, which may increase the price from 13com to 18com per KG, though it will still cost him 2com to transport it to the Osh Market.  However, Bairam may still need to sell a family cow to repay the small loans and survive the winter.  

Farming in this part of the Alay Valley is risky business.  There are opportunities to improve the financial viability across the value chain from paddock to plate with some external support.  But it is no wonder that many of the young men in his village choose to go to Bishkek seeking employment opportunities, rather than toils this tough land. 

Travelling Yonder

Bags packed.  The sky is dark.  The birds have not bothered to sing.  The driver awaits.  Another day in the life of a travelling humanitarian.  You recall the comments from the previous night on the Taftan, “With over 100 flights a year, I could eat only lentils, but I can’t be green”.  

The dusty road traverses the roundabout, all traffic heading in one direction.  The airport stands out, not for its size nor status, but for the mayhem that ensues.  Bag in one hand, ticket in the other.  Routine is familiar.  The security machine beeps, but they wave you through.  You wait in queue.  You wait in queue.

The doors fly open, they say something in Russian.  Everyone gets up, you follow through.  On a bus to nowhere, not long enough to breathe more than thrice.  They call out row by row, you wait til the end.  All aboard.  Doors close. Heat increases.  You slowly roll.  The roar of the engine isn’t what you expect.  Not twin props today, a “new:” 15 year old Jet.  It’s hot, darn hot.  The windows are clouded. The plane is crowded.  You taxi to the run way.

Without a moments pause, BOOM.  The airplane is in full throttle. Rocking side to side, racing down the runway.  Bump. Bump.  And…. Silence.  Smooth.  The wings catch the air, and like the falcons that hunt the wolves, you’re stealthily creeping through the atmosphere.

Round and round, the plane turns.  180, 360, 540, 720 degrees.  Up and up, like a spiral staircase.  International airspace beckons, and finally you get there.  From Osh over to the Uzbekistani Ferghana Valley, and now the flight begins to make purpose.  Over the crops, over the pastures.  Swathes of green and yellow patches. Is this where the Turkish get their inspiration for their rugs? 

The valley falls away, rising green hills take its place.  Not for much longer. Higher and higher, the plane creeps.  Higher and higher, the mountains peak.  Have you ever seen the land so tall?. Have you ever seen mountains touching the sky at all?  The barrier between mountain, haze and sky disappears.  You feel infinitesimally small. The Tien Shan, the impenetrable range, sits below you, so close you feel you could just walk out on to it.  From this height, all the rugged rocks look smooth, like a carpet covering the world.   It’s the dead of summer, and the peaks are snow capped.  The depths and sizes of these Christmas like patches vary, larger and deeper on the shady side of the mountain.   

The ice-cream peaks give way to the rolling green hills.  The steppes are punctuated with veins and canals, carrying the life blood of Central Asia to its dependents.  Thick, grey and rocky, these veins spread in every direction from the mountains.  Flowing fast even at its lowest levels.  The water is a never ending source of life, of conflict.  Who’s first, who’s next.  The rivers sway in a rhythmic motion, taking the blood of the mountains to far away lands.  Canals tap the veins, straight lines tear through the landscape.  Cotton was the future, and these canals feed nobody but das capitalist, not even Marx or Engels gets his feed.  The borders are near, but the veins get thinner and thinner.  Canal after canal, the rivers are tapped. Tick tock, the conflict has stopped? 

Fields and fields, patches and patches.  Tapestry of life is below.  Cotton, corn, melon, cherries, wheat, apricots, and potatoes.  Vroom vroom, they disappear.  Like a stuntman, the plane rocks from left to right.  The tarmac appears to be heading in the wrong direction.  A handbrake turn at a thousand feet? The Ruske is mad, thinking he is in a Cessna, Messerschmitt or Tiger Moth.  Bank hard to right.  Drop hundreds of feet. Being pushed by the wind, left and right and back again.  Straightening up, dropping like a stone… the heart waits to beat, while the hands hold the seat in front sturdily…

Thud, skid and slide… the plane hits the ground hard and the Ruske wrestles control.  He doesn’t slow it down as it rushes past the black sheep, until the turnoff when he decides to taxi.   You look around and notice Manas International Airport for what it is.  Over a dozen herculean black planes lie the runway, gaping anuses you could drive a tank through, marked with U.S. in-signatories.  This is the World’s Game of Chess, each team has chosen their colour.  In Osh, lies a graveyard of white behemoths from the 1990s, wondering whether they will be re-instigated with Putin’s Fervour.  And behind the gaping anuses of Manas, lie a second row of planes with more aerials than a Bangladesh apartment building. 

You push through the wall of sound, “taxi taxi taxi”, you see the sign with your logo on it.  Sergey my old man, glad to see you.  “Offis?”, “Dah”. You take a deep breath, and you’re not sure whether you’re at your second home in Bishkek or whether you have no home. 

Rebuilding Today’s Communities for Tomorrow’s Future

The history of Kyrgyzstan runs as deep as the valleys in the Tien Shan.  From the domestication of the apple over 10,000 years ago, to the rampant expansion of Islam, and to Marco Polo’s adventures along the Silk Road.  Kyrgyzstan has been at the epicentre of cultural and social transformations from the East and the West.  An Islamic ‘lite’ country, visited by Solomon himself, which is unlike any other.

Islamic minarette in Uzgen

Modern history bubbles on the surface.  It’s on every street corner, it’s in every house.  When the country fell to Socialist Soviet Republic in the early 20^th century, it quickly started losing it’s identify and adopting a new one.  The nomadic ways of the Kyrgyz started being melded with the urban Russians and the neighbouring Uzbeks.  United they served the Proletariat, the State, and Lenin.

Statue of Lenin in the centre of Osh city.

And as the Socialist Experiment fails, the boundaries of autonomous regions that intended to ensure there was no clear majority become the boundaries of new States sent out by their Mother Country to be independent countries.  It surprises no one that these fragile and newly industrialising states struggle to quell the ethnic tension.  And in June 2010, Southern Kyrgyzstan, the melting pot bubbles over: four days of rampant inter ethnic violence ensues, and the damage is done. Two thousand houses, hundreds of lives, and unenviable level of social destruction through the half a million internally displaced people.  While the emergency is over for now, the reconstruction and development continues.

All that remains is rubble from this house, ransacked and burned

How does one rebuild a life?  Mallow let’s us know where to begin, with the foundations.  The first  foundations of hundreds of houses we are building are being laid now. It has taken a long time for us to get to this point: communities not wanting to return for fear of further uprisings, provision of temporary shelters, beneficiaries needing to prove they are fair dinkum, designs for hundreds of houses needing approvals through Government mechanism, and etcetera.  But the show has begun, and it is a race against time.  In six month, this country will have ground to a halt.  Everything will be frozen over.  Nobody will be able to construct a house, and nobody will survive without a roof over their heads with solid walls holding it up.  So for now, we turn up the heat and push through.

Digging trenches for the foundations

The challenges we face are immense.  Building 500 houses across two Rayons requires a lot of attention and planning, and a heck of a lot of elbow grease and doing.  Our engineers are on site daily inspecting houses and providing technical advice.  Our supervisors are inspecting over 100 trucks per day delivering rocks, gravel, sand with rocks and gravel, nails, screws, wood, door, wiring, you name it.  Our logistics team is the most overworked of the lot, send and receiving RFQ, BOQs, CNs, and tenders.  Finance is awash in contracts.  Administration is filing everything, Human Resources is dealing with everyone, and foundations keep being laid everyday.

Technical officers supporting beneficaries' housing construction

 

It’s hard work.  Sweat drips from every brow.  Beneficaries are knackered.  Our staff are knackered.  I am knackered.  Our knackers are knackered.  But sometimes all it takes is a slice of watermelon for everything to be ok.

Plump watermelons litter the countryside, a refreshing break during a hot days work