Paradise and the Kalif of the "German" village (:)

30th of September - 2nd of October:

 

Before we leave Khorog we try to fix our Internet since we bought a Tajik SIM card some days ago. But it seems impossible to solve the problem. We just go to the Internet café and I am happy that we got the invitation for our Uzbekistan visa, which means we do not need to wait for it 10 days in Dushanbe. We also got the invitation for Azerbaijan which is the visa we need to pick up some days later in Tashkent. I am happy that this will be probably the last visa we need to get. It is always a hazel. We do not like so much to wait 2, 3 or more days in the big towns where you normally have all the embassies and consulates.

 

(N 37.70609°, E 71.54768 °)

 

When we are leaving it is already afternoon. We just drive out of Khorog. The next day we leave to the Bartang valley to spend some time there. We are thinking if we go now to Dushanbe it will be weekend and than we have to wait there 2 days. So we decide to stay in this nice warm valley. We find a place just 1km before Yemtis. Here the river makes a curve which gives us a nice view. We make our camp bellow some really old walnut trees where close to us a small river comes down the rocks of the valley. First time for Kotomi to see walnuts at the tree and to taste it just there. It is like paradise, I put my hammock between the car and the tree. A warm wind blows through the valley and the big leaves of the walnut tree give me a shadow. In this peaceful atmosphere I finally have some time or better I get in the mood to write a blog for you. Latter some boys from the village come and ask if we need anything. They bring us walnuts and when they see I collect a wood they start to take my saw to provide us with more. A man comes back from the mountains and also he is really friendly, brings us tons of walnuts and also fire wood. He invites us to his home. But the place is so nice that I do not want to leave today. He understands.

 

(N 37.98573°, E 71.65212 °)

 

Next day we run out of butter so we try to get some in Yemtis. We find the English teacher of the village and he tries to find butter for us. He explains us that other villages call the people from Yemtis Germans (Nemez in Russian language sounds almost like Yemtis in pamir language). We find no butter but we get invited to a tea by the Caliph of the village. The Caliph is a very respected and educated person of the village. Every important decision for the village and also in the families will be discussed with him. We have a very interesting discussion about religion and that it finally does not matter which one you have. But he is also worried about the change of the world or his village. How to preserve traditions if they still exist? I mean here they still have some traditions and the villages still seem to work as a community. They keep up there tradition since they live the life which is given them by this nature. I often ask myself what are our German traditions? What is German culture? Is it only food? or some habits we Germans have?

 

The Caliph starts to play a traditional instrument, the Rubab. It is like a guitar but the body looks totally different. This region actually has a lot of different kinds of such instruments. I guess it would be really interesting for my friend Andy.

 

We are sitting in an old Pamir style house. You have no windows just in the middle in the roof you have one. Around the centre of the room you have like terraces covered with colourful carpets. Each level is used for different purpose, kitchen, sleeping place for different members of the family. The roof window consists of 4 stacked wooden squares. Each of the squares is rotated about 45 degree and the squares getting smaller until the last with the window and hole for the winter oven in it. I saw this already in other houses. The Caliph explains that this is a 3000 year old tradition but most people do not know the meaning. The 4 squares symbolise 4 angels of an ancient religion which are protecting the people of the house against everything bad from outside.

 

And one more thing I saw in a lot of houses and that is a picture of a holy man. It is the IMAM Agha Khan IV of the believers of the Ishmaelite. His ancestor is Ali the brother of the Prophet Mohamed. I never studied about Islam but also there as in all religions you have different streams and slightly different believes. One stream votes the IMAM, another stream selects the next IMAM only from grandgrandgran.... sons of Mohamed or Ali and another one just believe in the 14th IMAM after Mohammed. Well we learned a lot this day and it was very interesting to stay in his house for the tea. Before we leave we get bread, tons of walnut and apples from other villagers and go in the direction of Dushanbe.

 

This time it is really hard to find a place to make a camp. Everywhere there are still signs or it is just written on a stone mines. These are left over from the civil war in the nineties. We are happy that we find later on a place which is cleaned up already by a German mine group.

 

(N 38.25168°, E 71.37569 °)