A Simple Life: Our homestay in the Kyrgyzstan Mountains

Endeshe Ashyrov is 70 and has 13 children, the youngest is ten the eldest 42. When we arrived he put on his high white hat and black leather coat, shouted at the dogs in a deep guttural voice (who immediately stopped barking) and led us up to the house. It was chilly, a reminder of our altitude. It drops to minus 15 here in winter. A pile of shoes at the door reminded us to slip ours off just as a young woman appeared and surprised us by introducing herself in English. Her name was Elizabeth. She studied down in Osh and was home for the holidays. She explained that her father liked English names but we thought he had probably run out of Kyrg ones because we could not recognise any of others in the family nor could we repeat his wife's name, even on the third attempt. She by the way was 50 if you are doing the maths. Elizabeth's english started promisingly but could not easily be stretched beyond preliminary pleasantries. The family spoke Russian and we were soon in a sort of linguistic quagmire but the laughter was spontaneous and the smiles real and when Elizabeth produced family photo's the communication fog seemed hardly to matter. Photo's are a great weapon in this battle and I said to Matt: the next time we do this we must bring a proper album. He just looked at me and shook his head.

The shots of her parents were mostly formal, proud, serious; a careful record usually taken in front of the house, with the family or in uniform. There was no money for point/shoot/hope photography indeed, it was clear that there was very little money at all but they were almost completely self-sufficient and seemed to have everything they needed. This lack of acquisitiveness created a sense of contentedness and a feeling of calmness. I think they were so close to (and dependent on) their high altitude environment, understood its cycles clearly and had practised routines in response to it, that nothing else seemed important. Even a couple of odd Kiwi's turning up in the centre of the largest landmass on the planet driving a small dusty French car seemed not to surprise them. We could learn a lot from this simple and happy existence.

The entrance room had a sort of kitchen at one end and a large raised platform at the other covered in rich red rugs and cushions. Carpets hung from the walls on one side and through the windows on the southern side we could see the magnificent Pamir Mountains in the distance. We were seated on one side and the women sat opposite. A bright red cloth was spread between us, there were no tables and no chairs in the house. Dark black tea and bread was served together with a pale yellow cream. Later, as the stars came out we were led outside, across a small bridge and down a track to where the goats milled about and there in the corner was the loo, the deepest darkest squat you could imagine. That mystery revealed we went back to the house where rugs, a sort of palyass (sp?) and thick white duvets had been made up on the floor of another room. We cleaned our teeth in a mug at the back door and fell asleep, happily tired after a huge day on the road.

I woke early. Each morning at dawn in these summer months Endeshe takes his sheep and goats and his four cows from their overnight pens near the house up to the lush grasslands above the village. The dirt road in front of the house passes his neighbours so there is quite a procession. The men seemed only to nod to each other or throw rocks at errant dogs. The teenage boys who did most of the work looked like tourists in their Nike caps and Lakers shirts but I was the odd one out and felt intrusive with my camera. The Pamirs were stunning against the azure early morning sky and I was happy to be ignored and just to wander anonymously. Matt appeared and made his way (courageously I thought) in jandles to the loo. He wasn't long. Together we followed a whirring sound to the side of the house and found ten year old Norema making butter with a hand operated separator. She sat next to a large peat/dung burning stove which was heating the milk but it lacked a proper chimney and the smoke soon drove us outside again. What a morning ! Twenty minutes later Endeshe was back and we all sat down for breakfast, dunking our bread in the fresh butter and soaking the hard cakes in coffee made with goats milk and honey. The Pamirs could not be ignored and although we could have sat there all day in the warm sun it was time to go. But not before the obligatory photo's.

The road to the Chinese border was a nightmare. Nothing we had read, not the slog of the previous day, not even the locals comments that 'road is too badly' prepared us for the 50kms of hell. I won't go on, you will have to wait for the video. Absurdly, the track aside, it was the most magnificent of all our travels so far. I leave the photo's to speak for themselves as I lack the vocabularly to adequately describe this beautiful land. Plus Oultra, G&M

22 Jul 2006

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