Kalash

Je rencontra Bob à Lahore, pendant une de ces mystiques "sufi night". Il entrait dans sa 5eme année de voyage; j"étais émerveillée par toutes ses histoires et ses rencontres. Il nous livre ici le récit de ses mois d'hiver chez les Kalash entre cours d'anglais et beuvrie générale...

There is no bigger contradiction in Pakistan than life in the Kalasha valley's. The Kalasha number is approximately 3,500 people. They are the indigenous residents of 3 of the remotest valley's in the inhospitable, rugged mountains of the Hindukush Range in the North West Frontier Provence only a day's trek from Afghanistan. This minority group are the only non-Muslims in Pakistan. Legend has it they are descendants of Alexander The Great's generals who passed through this region well over 2000 years ago. The fairness of their skin and hair along with their blue eyes gives some credibility to the legend but up till now it is not proven.

Life is simple for the Kalasha people. They live entirely off the land and have no money economy. The basic infrastructure of any society, education, healthcare and transport is almost non-existant. While the basic infrastructure of any house, electricity, gas, running water and sewerage is also non-existant in most homes. House's are built into the walls of the valley from wood, stone and mud. The flat roof of each serves as a veranda for the house above. The home I lived in for 3 months like all homes had earth floors and consisted of one main windowless room. It had a wood burning oven in the middle where all meals were cooked. This also acted as a heater as the temperature had dropped to well below zero by the time I left the valley. Set around the wood oven against the soot blackened mud walls were 5 rope beds. This is where the family of 7 slept. There was no other furniture and the only other possessions were a few pots and a single pan.

I was lucky I had the only guest room in the village and it even had carpet. However the light bulb in my room wasn't strong enough to cast a shadow let alone read by so most evenings were spent playing guessing games with the family. They would sit around and talk and I would guess to myself what they were talking about. I was facinated to learn that the family I lived with have never heard about WW1 and WW2 or Adolph Hitler. They have never heard about Shakespear, Mohammad Ali, The Beatles, Elvis or Kiss. Never heard about the Olympic games or World Cup Soccer. They did not believe me when I told them man has walked on the moon. As facinated as I was learning about the Kalasha they were just as curious about me and every time I mentioned a situation back home or in another part of the world I would be faced with a barrage of questions "how many goats did he have?" "does he have enough grass to feed his goats in the winter or does he have to buy more from the bazaar?" I learnt to keep it simple.

I have never met people who allow music and dancing to be so natural and spontaneous in their lives. Up until only 2 years ago there was no written form of the Kalashmun language. History and religion has been taught to each generation expressed through song and dance. Whether it was in the classroom, or during a meal, working in the fields or sitting around drinking the homemade wine, someone would break into a song unselfconsciously and totally without ego. One day a group filming a documentary on the Kalasha was filming a local guy playing his flute. The camera focused in close on the mans face and hands but missed the essence of what was happening. The camera did not capture the sheperd with his goats who stopped to dance as soon as he heard the music. It missed the neighbours and their kids all coming out to stand on their roof's smiling and dancing with one another. It missed the lone woman in the field who stood up and spontaneously started to sing and dance on her own. I sat alone on a roof top and watched as everybody in the village returned to what they were doing when the music stopped. The man operating the camera seemed happy he captured some good footage. I was happy I captured the spirit of what the camera did not see.

The most interesting thing about living with the Kalasha was it was totally communal living. No one really owns anything or lives anywhere in particular. Everybody just belonged to the village. You sleep at the house you have dinner in and this could be any house in any village in the valley. The Kalasha love eating meat and goat is the meat of choice. When ever a beast was slaughtered the word would get out and on some occasions there would be up to 20 people sitting down to share the meal. At meal times to keep the communal custom alive food is eaten from a common plate or bowl with your fingers. The mess I made every night trying to get that rice into my mouth embarrassed only me. Even after 3 months I was still considered a guest and the men beside me would sneakily move the best bits of meat to my side of the plate. This often consisted of lumps of grizzly fat. A diet of rice, red beans, bread and mutton fat and drinking the not so purified water along with the general hygiene conditions did not really agree with my body and for over 2 months I fas diarrhea. Sometimes in life you just have to accept the simple pleasures. Like the strange but happy feeling you get when you reach a toilet before having shat your pants.

I did find it difficult to remain healthy living in the valley. After a while I decided not to watch food being prepared. At times it felt like I was living in a cave. We have come a long way since Neanderthal man but sometimes I felt like I was part of evolution in progress. It got harder as the temperature dropped. With no hot water to bath in, it became impossible to have a cold shower. As soon as the freezing water touched my skin I could feel my muscles tighten and the blood flow in my veins slow down. Going to the toilet early in the morning was a nightmare. The cold air holds you up like squating on a knife's edge. Returning to my lice and flea infested mattress and blankets would cut the cold sufficiently. While snuggling up in their warmth reminded me that the contradiction in their association was fitting in this country of contrasts. For a while I gave up smoking charris and my only vice was the bed bugs but then I found a magic powder that killed all types of vermin so I took up smoking charris again for a man without a vice is like a priest without religion.

There is a fine line between innocence and ignorance but a world of difference seperates the two. Living side by side with their Muslim neighbors the Kalasha haven't been without their fare share of religious problems. At one time they used to habitate the whole of the Chitral district but forced conversions and bloodshed over the centuries has reduced the numbers and forced the Kalasha into the remotest mountains. The situation has not improved with forced conversion to Islam the single biggest factor facing the survival of the Kalasha people today. Muslims see the Kalasha as a promiscuous people basically because the Kalasha woman are allowed to mix with the men and join in the signing, dancing and drinking. The Islamic Mullah in the valley I lived in told me that he was simply helping the Kalasha to find God. He said they have nothing else so they might as well have God. I told him he must have been talking about a different Kalasha people because the ones's I was living with had pride in themselves with a strong commitment to their culture and religion. They have a strong sense of their ansterors and history. They have a deep value system in their family and community and hope for their future. This bad version of a good person did say something that was true. He said the Kalasha peoples favorite pass time was aging slowly and the only thing they leave for their next generation when they die is a burden of song and dance and drinking. I thought wouldn't it be nice if that was true for all of us.

The Kalasha family I lived with like all Kalasha families made their own wine. It wasn't always agreeable to my palate but on occasions very drinkable. Sometimes I would come home after school to see strange Muslim men sitting around drinking wine. These men would drive in from Chitral for the day to drink in secret then probably go to the mosque on the way home to ask for forgiveness. One day on arriving back from Chitral there were 3 men enjoying the grape juice as they liked to call it. They drank into the night and were making perfect pigs of themselves when one left the room. A few minutes later I found this man in my room sitting on my mattress going through my bag. I had collected a huge sum of money that day that was transferred to me from Europe. The thought of that money being stolen from its rightful recipients made me loose control. I think the family was a little stunned at the violence in me, but what happened next stunned us all. The elder of the 3 Muslims, apparently a criminal lawyer started beating his companion who had shammed him and then pulled out a pistol and pushed it against his friends head and threatened to kill him. I locked the door and lit the fire in my room. I rolled a few fat joints and once the stone took it's effect I drifted towards sleep, my mind swimming to the sounds of the gun weilding criminal lawyer beating his wailing friend.

A mate of mine from Sydney decided he wanted a little adventure and made the epic journey to visit me in the valley. I wasn't sure how Vaughan would handle life with the Kalasha but he totally surprised me. We spent a good week catching up and swapping stories over home made wine by smoky fires in almost every house in the valley. It's always reassuring to have genuine interest and support for the work you undertake from those you trust and respect. I was happy for Vaughan to experience a little of what I was doing.

As well as teaching English to Kalasha children for 3 months I was fortunate enough to be involved with a few sideline projects. After the earthquake a good friend in Europe helped to raise some relief funds. I bought warm jumpers and socks for the 500 school children in the valley. The funds were also enough to purchase school books, pens and enough hygiene products, bandages and simple medicines for the entire valley. When the second installment of the funds came through I decided to take on 2 larger projects. The building of a school in the valley had stopped as the money had run out. I was able to fund the completion of the school construction. With the remainder of the money which was still a significant amount I organised for some sick people to be taken to hospital for treatment. A special van took 11 sick people to hospitals all over Peshawar. Most of these people had never left the valley in their entire lives let along ride in an ambulance for 15 hours to visit a hospital in a city they have only heard of. The logistics of these projects proved to be a nightmare in such a remote valley. Especially as the only road in and out was continually blocked after the earthquake.

When the time came to leave the valley I expected to feel bereft but I didn't. The bastion of freedom I allowed myself to enjoy was both cleansing and fulfilling. I know the inherent freedoms I enjoy in living my life exactly the way I choose, means even more when I willingly give others less fortunate than myself a little bit of hope.

Kalash

A blog about the minority of North West Frontier of Pakistan

Contact

Catégories

Liens Kalash

Liens amis

Projection

Coquetterie féminine

Bob l'australien

Chitral News et Google Earth

Têtes couvertes

Subventions

Kalash burial

Festival Chaumos de la minorité Kalash, dans la vallée de Rumbur au Pakistan.

Kalash Music: sounds of the Hindu-Kush

Sieste du berger

A film produced by

Archives