Was just chatting with some of these people on facebook. Lots of fascinating stuff which I am bookmarking for myself to read as much as anyone else!
Firstly Nadene Ghouri's account of being under fire whilst trying to teach journalists in Swat,
her PBS reports about the Afghan Police, and in the Guardian here.
Also Connor Foley's Afghan stories about rebuilding Afghan pride, the work of Rory Stewart, Aid problems in Afghanistan, and UN peacekeeping.
I've read most of this, and will catch up with the rest when I have more time.
The most depressing thing I heard in this conversation was that the Taliban were in the Kallash valleys. I've written a bit here about my experiences with them, and how they were culturaly suppressed by the dominant Muslim culture over there when I found them in 2000. Under the Taliban this could only be worse. It's really sick to imagine war in a place so beautiful. I'm really worried.
also on Yahoo news- an article about American wounded
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Showing posts with label kallash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kallash. Show all posts
November 11, 2009
February 16, 2009
Islam taking root in Kalash valley
CHITRAL: A young Kalashi boy who converted to Islam on Friday said that he was “feeling good after the conversion”. ...District Khateeb Maulana Khaleequz Zaman told the Hindukush Journalist Forum that a Karachi-based trust was supporting the conversion of indigenous Kalash people to Islam. “We motivate the Kalash people to embrace Islam,” the khateeb said. “It is our religious duty to make Kalash people Muslim.” Maulana Zaman appealed to all Muslims to help and support newly converted Muslim people. Experts warn that the indigenous Kalash culture will become extinct in the next 20 years as 15 per cent of the Kalash people convert to Islam every year.
Obviously as I am not a Muslim and I love Kallash culture this worries me.
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Obviously as I am not a Muslim and I love Kallash culture this worries me.
..
November 08, 2005
More Kallash stories
If you scroll down a bit you'll find some earlier stories about my experiences in Pakistan with the Kallash tribe. I've fucked up the chronology a bit...
The morning after I arrived at the Kallash village another English guy I had met in Delhi on his way to Pakistan arrived. There was a Canadian girl there too. The sparseness of western tourists in Pakistan alleviated a little. On a patch of grass in front of my room a group of Pakistani Pentecostals were singing and praying with a group of bemused Kallash children.
I wandered down to find a doctor who was with the Christians immunizing kids. The preacher was working himself up. He had glazed eyes, a big moustache and an expensive looking brown leather jacket. He asked me if I was a Christian.
“No. I thought I'd come and learn what these guys beliefs are before trying to inflict them with mine. I think what you are doing is wrong.” I said happily.
“What is in your ears?” asked the preachers sour faced, fat wife.
“Yeah, bones.” I said.
“I think that is not nice. It is ugly.”
I didn't tell her what I thought of her relative beauty.
“Do you know what these people believe? When you've done this immunizing you are going to leave aren't you? You're not interested in these people at all are you?” I pressed.
“These people are very backward.” said the woman.
“Can I pray for you?” asked the preacher.
“Do what you like.” I said.
He prayed in my direction, very dramatically. Then he put his hands on me and started shouting. I realized what he was up to and loosened myself from his grip.
“This is not a devil it is ME!” I shouted, pointing at my face.
I got up and moved away. The preacher carried on praying whilst his wife told the gathered children to close their eyes.
I spoke to an older Kallashi.
“Do you believe all this?” I asked.
He pulled me to one side.
“People like this come here all the time. They think we are backward, but they give us medicine, and we listen to them talk about their religion. We are Kallash. We have our own religion. Pakistanis try to convert us to Islam or Christianity but our western visitors always take an interest in us how we are.”
I was pleased that the Kallash were in no way naive about their visitors. I was assured the next day Yoshi festival would start.
“Will there be dancing? I asked.
“Yes. For two days we dance in the fields then we dance in our meeting place in the next village.”
“Can I join in?”
“Of course you can.”
The morning after I arrived at the Kallash village another English guy I had met in Delhi on his way to Pakistan arrived. There was a Canadian girl there too. The sparseness of western tourists in Pakistan alleviated a little. On a patch of grass in front of my room a group of Pakistani Pentecostals were singing and praying with a group of bemused Kallash children.
I wandered down to find a doctor who was with the Christians immunizing kids. The preacher was working himself up. He had glazed eyes, a big moustache and an expensive looking brown leather jacket. He asked me if I was a Christian.
“No. I thought I'd come and learn what these guys beliefs are before trying to inflict them with mine. I think what you are doing is wrong.” I said happily.
“What is in your ears?” asked the preachers sour faced, fat wife.
“Yeah, bones.” I said.
“I think that is not nice. It is ugly.”
I didn't tell her what I thought of her relative beauty.
“Do you know what these people believe? When you've done this immunizing you are going to leave aren't you? You're not interested in these people at all are you?” I pressed.
“These people are very backward.” said the woman.
“Can I pray for you?” asked the preacher.
“Do what you like.” I said.
He prayed in my direction, very dramatically. Then he put his hands on me and started shouting. I realized what he was up to and loosened myself from his grip.
“This is not a devil it is ME!” I shouted, pointing at my face.
I got up and moved away. The preacher carried on praying whilst his wife told the gathered children to close their eyes.
I spoke to an older Kallashi.
“Do you believe all this?” I asked.
He pulled me to one side.
“People like this come here all the time. They think we are backward, but they give us medicine, and we listen to them talk about their religion. We are Kallash. We have our own religion. Pakistanis try to convert us to Islam or Christianity but our western visitors always take an interest in us how we are.”
I was pleased that the Kallash were in no way naive about their visitors. I was assured the next day Yoshi festival would start.
“Will there be dancing? I asked.
“Yes. For two days we dance in the fields then we dance in our meeting place in the next village.”
“Can I join in?”
“Of course you can.”
October 04, 2005
THE AFGHAN BORDER
I decided to see if I could walk up the the Afghan border anyway. It was aparently quite close but I had no idea how close. I couldn't sleep the previous night. Garum Cheshma's (extreme left of map) local nutter (alchoholic?) was banging on my door. I didn't open it. I had arrived the previous day on a jeep travelling through some Cecil B DeMille scale cliffscapes.
The town was typical North West frontier province. Beautiful landscape with not a woman to be seen. I was severely questioning the health of a society where the fairer sex are completely removed from view, and had totally forgotten why I was in Pakistan. I missed the easy, India hippie-hypocrisy to which I had almost grown familiar.
I had just finnished a breakfast of boiled goat with rice with an audience of schoolboys staring at me. I was breaking my vegetarian vow for the first time since I had done Vipassna in Jaipur 3 months earlier. I walked maybe 10 minutes up "the road to Afghanistan" before I encountered a farm, where two young girls stood staring at me over a gate laughing at me.
I carefully ignored them, looking round for their dad who I expected to be running at me with an AK-47. He turned up, obviously a bit startled seeing a facially-pierced hippie with bones sticking out of his ears on his way to Afghanistan, but not disturbed at all about the vicinity of his un-burkahed daughters. I was to encounter female Muslims only with the farming folk of the North west frontier province, outside the towns.
"Afghanistan?" I asked him, pointing. He nodded.
"Far?" I asked, spreading my arms.
He almost gave me the Indian head wobble.
"Don't fucking start that." I said to him. "I'm not in India now."
he laughed, having not understood a word.
I carried on walking with less certainty through heart achingly beautiful landscape. What the hell was I doing? What did I want to do? I vaguely thought that I would walk up to the border, shake hands with the "border guards" and then walk back down. I had no intention of actually crossing as I heard that the Taliban incarcerated beardless ones until their beard was a fist length.
What if I missed the border crossing totally and found myself in Afghanistan with no visa? What if there was no marked border and these "border guards" were part of my imagination? What the hell was I doing in Pakistan?
Suddenly through my drug hazzed memories of the last six months in India I remembered. Before I had left the UK, while I was still agonising about where to go I had read in the Pakistan Lonely plonker about a tribe called the Kallash. I had decided to try and get to them, using Pakistan to renew my India visa, as I knew in the UK that the Nepali set up was no longer fail safe. I had forgotten all of this in six months of drug taking frenzy but heading up onto the Hindu Kush it came back to me in the nick of time.
I knew these guys were around here somewhere. I turned round and headed back to Garam Cheshma. There I borded the next jeep back to Chitral, everyone staring at me. When in this situation in India I would find the local groccer and swap my bones for chillies to make people laugh. I did this. No one laughed. They looked even more disturbed by my ear-wizardry. I was so lonely passing back through the golden rocks. In Chitral I walked through the centre of town up to the mini-bus terminus I had arrived at two days before.
"Infidel! Herretic!" I heard in shouts and whispers as I passed. The day before I had only heard whispers. I wanted to get out before it turned into action.
"The Kallash tribe, are they far?" I asked the guys with the jeeps.
"No. In the next valley. maybe 4 or 5 hours? You can hire a jeep, 400 ruppes..."
I had grown used to this in India and knew the next question to ask.
"Is there local bus or jeep?"
"Yes. It is 25 rupees. We leave when there are enough passengers." the guy answered.
It took about another 3 hours until enough passengers had gathered and we left. I sat next to a smarmy buisnessman in shalwar-kamieeze and sunglasses. He had a greasy forehead and looked like he had money.
About 30 minutes into the journey he revealed his intentions on visiting the Kalash.
"I go to find young girls for sex."
"Oh yes...?" I answered, encouraging him with more rope.
For more than an hour he spoke of his business trips through every major Islamic country in the middle east, how much he had to pay for sex in each and how young the girls were. I nodded occasionally. I hoped the Kallash had not lowered themselves to this. He seemed uncertain.
We crossed the river and after a really hairy jeep ride half way up a river valley we eventually alighted. I was a bit disturbed as I didn't see anyone who looked Kallash. All the other passengers were Muslim and were content to stay at the Muslim guesthouse we had come to. I wandered off a bit.
The sleaze merchant followed.
"I come with you!" he said.
"No!" I shouted, bringing my hand down to emphasise the parting of our friendship, my face going red. "I go alone. Do NOT follow."
I did not want to have my first encounter with the Kallash standing next to this filth.
All the way up the valley I saw Muslim guest houses with Muslim patrons. Where were the Kallash? I thought this was their valley. I asked someone who pointed up the hillside. I walked up the hillside until I found houses which looked markedly different right at the top, where village ended and mountain began.
A woman came round the corner in a long black dress with a bright cowrie shell head-dress. She was smiling.
"You are Kallash?" I asked.
"Yes. You stay with us?" she asked.
"Yes please!!!" I wailed.
The town was typical North West frontier province. Beautiful landscape with not a woman to be seen. I was severely questioning the health of a society where the fairer sex are completely removed from view, and had totally forgotten why I was in Pakistan. I missed the easy, India hippie-hypocrisy to which I had almost grown familiar.
I had just finnished a breakfast of boiled goat with rice with an audience of schoolboys staring at me. I was breaking my vegetarian vow for the first time since I had done Vipassna in Jaipur 3 months earlier. I walked maybe 10 minutes up "the road to Afghanistan" before I encountered a farm, where two young girls stood staring at me over a gate laughing at me.
I carefully ignored them, looking round for their dad who I expected to be running at me with an AK-47. He turned up, obviously a bit startled seeing a facially-pierced hippie with bones sticking out of his ears on his way to Afghanistan, but not disturbed at all about the vicinity of his un-burkahed daughters. I was to encounter female Muslims only with the farming folk of the North west frontier province, outside the towns.
"Afghanistan?" I asked him, pointing. He nodded.
"Far?" I asked, spreading my arms.
He almost gave me the Indian head wobble.
"Don't fucking start that." I said to him. "I'm not in India now."
he laughed, having not understood a word.
I carried on walking with less certainty through heart achingly beautiful landscape. What the hell was I doing? What did I want to do? I vaguely thought that I would walk up to the border, shake hands with the "border guards" and then walk back down. I had no intention of actually crossing as I heard that the Taliban incarcerated beardless ones until their beard was a fist length.
What if I missed the border crossing totally and found myself in Afghanistan with no visa? What if there was no marked border and these "border guards" were part of my imagination? What the hell was I doing in Pakistan?
Suddenly through my drug hazzed memories of the last six months in India I remembered. Before I had left the UK, while I was still agonising about where to go I had read in the Pakistan Lonely plonker about a tribe called the Kallash. I had decided to try and get to them, using Pakistan to renew my India visa, as I knew in the UK that the Nepali set up was no longer fail safe. I had forgotten all of this in six months of drug taking frenzy but heading up onto the Hindu Kush it came back to me in the nick of time.
I knew these guys were around here somewhere. I turned round and headed back to Garam Cheshma. There I borded the next jeep back to Chitral, everyone staring at me. When in this situation in India I would find the local groccer and swap my bones for chillies to make people laugh. I did this. No one laughed. They looked even more disturbed by my ear-wizardry. I was so lonely passing back through the golden rocks. In Chitral I walked through the centre of town up to the mini-bus terminus I had arrived at two days before.
"Infidel! Herretic!" I heard in shouts and whispers as I passed. The day before I had only heard whispers. I wanted to get out before it turned into action.
"The Kallash tribe, are they far?" I asked the guys with the jeeps.
"No. In the next valley. maybe 4 or 5 hours? You can hire a jeep, 400 ruppes..."
I had grown used to this in India and knew the next question to ask.
"Is there local bus or jeep?"
"Yes. It is 25 rupees. We leave when there are enough passengers." the guy answered.
It took about another 3 hours until enough passengers had gathered and we left. I sat next to a smarmy buisnessman in shalwar-kamieeze and sunglasses. He had a greasy forehead and looked like he had money.
About 30 minutes into the journey he revealed his intentions on visiting the Kalash.
"I go to find young girls for sex."
"Oh yes...?" I answered, encouraging him with more rope.
For more than an hour he spoke of his business trips through every major Islamic country in the middle east, how much he had to pay for sex in each and how young the girls were. I nodded occasionally. I hoped the Kallash had not lowered themselves to this. He seemed uncertain.
We crossed the river and after a really hairy jeep ride half way up a river valley we eventually alighted. I was a bit disturbed as I didn't see anyone who looked Kallash. All the other passengers were Muslim and were content to stay at the Muslim guesthouse we had come to. I wandered off a bit.
The sleaze merchant followed.
"I come with you!" he said.
"No!" I shouted, bringing my hand down to emphasise the parting of our friendship, my face going red. "I go alone. Do NOT follow."
I did not want to have my first encounter with the Kallash standing next to this filth.
All the way up the valley I saw Muslim guest houses with Muslim patrons. Where were the Kallash? I thought this was their valley. I asked someone who pointed up the hillside. I walked up the hillside until I found houses which looked markedly different right at the top, where village ended and mountain began.
A woman came round the corner in a long black dress with a bright cowrie shell head-dress. She was smiling.
"You are Kallash?" I asked.
"Yes. You stay with us?" she asked.
"Yes please!!!" I wailed.
September 27, 2005
CHRISTIANITY
This is what I remember Christianity being like.
I like christians. I can understand where they are coming from. I think its a bit of a shame religions become a bit insular and groups always end up making up their own language.
I saw "Jesus is Lord" lit up above a church yesterday. I wonder what this conjures in the minds of non-believers. Jesus is Lord? of what? Lord as in the house of Lords?
I've a lot of respect for christians who take Jesus seriously. I miss that type of motivation to be honest with you. I don't like not believing anything, but I can't help it.
via Bushwhacked:
I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe -- I believe what I believe is right.
-George W. Bush
I had some smarmy christians trying to throw demons out of me once. They were "ministering" to the Kallash tribe who they no doubt thought of as "lost souls". I wanted to hit them. I felt a bit "possesed" though, which bothered me.
I like christians. I can understand where they are coming from. I think its a bit of a shame religions become a bit insular and groups always end up making up their own language.
I saw "Jesus is Lord" lit up above a church yesterday. I wonder what this conjures in the minds of non-believers. Jesus is Lord? of what? Lord as in the house of Lords?
I've a lot of respect for christians who take Jesus seriously. I miss that type of motivation to be honest with you. I don't like not believing anything, but I can't help it.
via Bushwhacked:
I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe -- I believe what I believe is right.
-George W. Bush
I had some smarmy christians trying to throw demons out of me once. They were "ministering" to the Kallash tribe who they no doubt thought of as "lost souls". I wanted to hit them. I felt a bit "possesed" though, which bothered me.
September 13, 2005
Partying with the Kallash tribe in the North-west frontier province in 2000. A full-on Animist fertility culture in an area where Osama Bin Laden could (and probably does) walk around freely.
On the "tribal dance floor"kids from 14-16 years old are actively encouraged to flirt and find a wife and groups of young Karachi male tourists (who the tribe have a lot of trouble with) are punched in the face if they get too close whilst the local Muslim Police with AK-47s turn a blind eye. I smoked a spliff with one of them.
When America invaded Afghanistan I should imagine a lot of Taliban came through the pass at the top of the valley. I met Taliban on their way through when I was there including a couple of British guys. The Kallash are culturally threatened by Islam. If they want to get anywhere in larger Pakistan it pays to convert. I wonder if an influx of Pakistani taliban into the area has proved any problem to them. the kids faces still haunt me. They were amazing.
January 14, 2005
MALUNG
Below is a picture I really treasure. I had a really hard time in Pakistan because how I looked signified my beliefs to Muslims, and to them this made me an "infidel." When I found the Kallash tribe they welcomed me like a brother.
I arrived just in time for their annual fertility festival. I couldn't believe that I had found an intact dance culture which had survived the bight of the inquisition surrounded by probably the most Fundamental Islamic state in the world.
The festival was three days long. The kids always danced but the only other male to dance for the three days was the guy on the right. The tribes local nutter. He wasn't right in the head and was the butt of a lot of peoples jokes, but he was one of the most uninhibitted dancers I've seen away from my culture. As all the other men of the village shuffled from foot to foot we danced together like motherfuckers.
They had abandoned their tribal dress to "fit in" with the surrounding Islamists and it was easy to see the finacial and cultural presure the tribe were under to convert. I hope they are all OK. They are an amazing people with an amazing culture.
I arrived just in time for their annual fertility festival. I couldn't believe that I had found an intact dance culture which had survived the bight of the inquisition surrounded by probably the most Fundamental Islamic state in the world.
The festival was three days long. The kids always danced but the only other male to dance for the three days was the guy on the right. The tribes local nutter. He wasn't right in the head and was the butt of a lot of peoples jokes, but he was one of the most uninhibitted dancers I've seen away from my culture. As all the other men of the village shuffled from foot to foot we danced together like motherfuckers.
They had abandoned their tribal dress to "fit in" with the surrounding Islamists and it was easy to see the finacial and cultural presure the tribe were under to convert. I hope they are all OK. They are an amazing people with an amazing culture.
November 06, 2004
Michael Palin
This is well late, Things are going on behind the scenes in documentaryville which I can't surmise in words yet so meanwhile:
I am sad to see the end of Palin's journey through the Himalaya on TV this Sunday. A couple of weeks back I watched him do almost exactly the same trip I did in 1999. I cried when I saw the kallash tribe a few of whom I recognised.
He did the same English lesson in the same school that every westerner who visits does (hand,finger,leg,foot etc.)only when I did it, as soon as the teacher left the room they all started attacking each other really violently. The teacher came back in and hit one of them with a thin branch.
This saddened me, but when he left they ignored me and started hitting each other again. Amazing, almost ferral kids with thick hard dead skin on the front of their feet from long, cold winters sitting by the fire.
Muslims gave me such a hard time in Pakistan these guys were like an oasis to me. I remember meeting a few Pakistani, Afghan and British Taliban who were passing through the valley at the time. I wonder if the change in political climate has affected the Kallash. What a beautiful people.
I am sad to see the end of Palin's journey through the Himalaya on TV this Sunday. A couple of weeks back I watched him do almost exactly the same trip I did in 1999. I cried when I saw the kallash tribe a few of whom I recognised.
He did the same English lesson in the same school that every westerner who visits does (hand,finger,leg,foot etc.)only when I did it, as soon as the teacher left the room they all started attacking each other really violently. The teacher came back in and hit one of them with a thin branch.
This saddened me, but when he left they ignored me and started hitting each other again. Amazing, almost ferral kids with thick hard dead skin on the front of their feet from long, cold winters sitting by the fire.
Muslims gave me such a hard time in Pakistan these guys were like an oasis to me. I remember meeting a few Pakistani, Afghan and British Taliban who were passing through the valley at the time. I wonder if the change in political climate has affected the Kallash. What a beautiful people.
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