Simon and Garfunkel, we need you

It’s all about water this week. Something that, in Scotland, we usually feel we have more than enough of and something we rather take for granted. We like it in the lochs, in the bathroom and in very small quantities in Scotch. We don’t like it in the tent, in our wellies and falling from the skies in August. Here in Tajikistan – and in most of the world - it is a matter of life and death.

..with secret ingredient

Dushanbe hosted an International Conference for the Year of Water Co-operation earlier this week. I know you’re all saying “how could I have missed that”? Well you probably did, but it was a big deal here. The traffic police were all given new white shirts (probably washed in Barf, a local detergent brand that is unlikely to make it big in the U.S.). The fountains were all turned up full blast. The main roads were all shut for hours on end as delegates were whisked around aquatic events. It’s important here, because Tajikistan has water!

Tajikistan is a bit of the poor relation amongst the “stans”. It might have the tallest flag pole in the world but this is a poor consolation compared to the oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. But the country does have water. As you sweep east across the steppes from the Urals it’s pretty flat and dry for hundreds of miles. Then you hit this wall of mountains rising to over 7,000 metres - think of putting 5 Ben Nevis’s on top of each other and then add some. Clouds rise and become rain then snow then glaciers… that’s a lot of water tumbling down.

Downtown Dushanbe yesterday

The western Pamirs

What to do with it? There’s only so much you can put in Scotch (and somewhat less than average in a muslim country). You can drink it, raft in it, irrigate with it and – coming from such a height – make hydro-electric power with it. You need to manage it.

Tajikistan already has the highest dam in the world at Nurek but the key issue now is the idea of a new, bigger, better dam at Rogun. This could guarantee a rosy future for the country with reliable water and electricity supplies and lots of electricity for export which could go, for example, to Afghanistan to help build the economy and aid regional stability. That’s all good then! Everyone’s happy. Lots of money for Tajiks, cheap electricity for the country’s neighbours, prosperity, regional peace…..

Not so fast. As you know, building a dam means interfering with nature’s water distribution – i.e. blocking rivers. In particular, building Rogun would threaten the water supplies down the mighty Vakhsh river to Uzbekistan. Uzbeks are less than enthusiastic about this. The Uzbek President is quoted as saying, with characteristic subtlety, that such developments can lead to wars. The border between the two countries – close cultural and ethnic neighbours for centuries – has been closed since the end of 2010.

This is what the water conference is about. Do we build a dam or not? An intensely political question with no easy answer but one that is going to resonate around the world in the years ahead, and not just in relation to Central Asia. Dams on the upper Nile have always been controversial. What now about dams in the Himalayas that will affect the burgeoning economies of India and China? Who owns the water streaming from the Andes? Future international tensions are less likely to be about energy supplies or race or even religion and more about our most precious commodity, water.

 It’s not clear that any new agreements were reached at the Dushanbe water conference but maybe it’s worth “barfing” our shirts and diverting the traffic if it at least gets people talking about one of the most important elements of life, especially if it stops future generations fighting wars over it.

History

I was in Penjikent last week. The city is in the Zarafshan valley just east of Samarkand and has been a regional centre and major staging post on the Silk Road from Europe to China for several years – actually about 5,000! Having been around a while, it has several features of historical interest.

Sarazm

Sarazm, a settlement dating from around 3,000 BC and now a UN World Heritage site, is in an unmarked and unfenced field just west of the town. It’s heaven on earth for amateur archaeologists wanting to have a poke around and for anyone who has seen the Indiana Jones films. Here we are pictured just before the wall behind us opened up and the 20 foot scorpion appeared….

Sogdian fresco

We then fled to Ancient Penjikent, the old city just south of the current one that was largely destroyed by arab invaders in 722 AD. It is famous for its well preserved frescoes, which have largely gone to St. Petersburg and Dushanbe, but some remain in the little museum. This one could depict earlier fighting against the arabs or local protests about the opening of a new Silk Road bypass in 700 AD, it’s not clear which…

Lenin in Penjikent

Waves of history have broken over Penjikent. Alexander the Great passed this way well before the arabs and Genghis Khan, Marco Polo and Tamerlane some time after them. Rudaki, the “father” of Persian poetry, was born here. Lenin may never have got here but his golden statue still stands proudly downtown as testament to a continuing influence.

It would be an understatement to say that all of this history sits lightly on the local inhabitants. More recently they have been “orphaned” by the break-up of the Soviet Union and have seen a bitter, five year civil war. They probably feel that sometimes you can have just a bit too much history.

I’m a great believer in the idea that you should learn from the mistakes of history, despite all the evidence to the contrary that we never do. (Witness the classic case just south of us here, in Afghanistan). In a way, however, one of the beauties of Tajikistan is that the people seem to reject this concept outright. They seem to have built up an immunity to the lessons of history.

No sooner has one rampaging horde flattened the land than they are back out there replanting and rebuilding in the same place and in the same ways, still inviting strangers into their homes to share what they have. They haven’t turned militaristic and started bashing others nor given up and moved elsewhere. Tajiks are essentially sedentary, farming people - hence such early signs of civilization; they have never invaded anywhere.

The patriarch

Is this a strength or a weakness? They’re not particularly pacifists but neither do they get too worked up about some perceived slight or great triumph 700 years ago. Are they well-balanced and pragmatic or short-sighted and over-flexible? I don’t know. I wonder what the village patriarch thinks, now it’s the invasion of the aid agencies and – hopefully – western tourists. Perhaps “They come, they go. It’s all the same. Though at least under Genghis, the camel trains ran on time..” 

All About Eid

A holiday on Thursday for the Festival of Eid al-Fitr. This marks the end of Ramadan. Thank God, whoever your god is.

Not that I actually did any fasting but I just felt quite debilitated by the thought of it. So I think I deserved to join in the celebrations at the passing of this period of abstinence.

Special prayers are said, largely in the open in fields and stadia as well as mosques and then it’s a big festival of consumption. People were staggering out of the markets on Wednesday evening laden with soft drinks and cakes and nuts and fruit and sweets. And then it’s a sort of open house for three days – like Hogmanay used to be in Scotland, with a rather less conspicuous consumption of Scotch. Rounds of visits to relatives and friends and the receiving of same at home. I’ve no idea how they work out who does what, where and when but it seems to work. No groups of revellers wandering the streets looking for someone who is in, to visit. Although there were gangs of children roaming around armed with carrier bags collecting protection money in the form of sweets from all and sundry..

Not equipped to receive at home, I did my bit of visiting.   As always, a fantastic spread awaits. Fruit and nuts and sweets and sambusas (what we would call samosas) and tomatoes and cucumbers and, of course, heaps of bread. All very nice but what I can’t get used to is the lack of a hierarchy of eating. No starter, main course, dessert as set in stone for British menus. At my first call a massive wedge of cake was thrust before me. I was just into my second forkful when space was made in front of me for some shurbo – a bowl of soup with half a sheep in it. Then perhaps some dates and a loaf of bread followed by a chocolate bar…

Shurbo

Sambusas

As a culinary widower I take what I can get but it is unusual.

Anyway, it’s all about unity and charity and celebrating God’s gifts. Men only of course. The women cook and serve the food; the men sit around and munch and chat. Ouch! I can feel the pins being put in the voodoo doll out there. All I can say is that the women seem to be having a pretty good time in their part of the house and they probably get to eat in some sort of logical sensory order, laughing at us juggling with meat and two veg in one hand and home-made chocolate cake in the other.

Enjoying Eid

The next Festival is Eid al-Adha, or feast of the sacrifice, in mid October. This is an important religious holiday honouring the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) whom God tested by commanding him to kill his young, first born son to prove his faith. Ibrahim – and son – were steeled to go through with this but luckily God intervened at the eleventh hour with a lamb to sacrifice instead. As this is also a part of Christian teaching and as a first born I’m rather glad they worked something out.

Not so good for the sheep though. Boys are taught the secrets of sheep slaughtering at an early age here. It’s a bit of a coming of age ritual. Apparently you cover their eyes with their ears (the sheep that is)… Not sure that really qualifies as humane, though, and it still doesn’t prevent a hell of a mess on the carpet.

Shuttle Diplomacy

The nature of my work in Tajikistan, as with many VSO postings I now realise, is fluid. Often it is a matter of pitching in where you think you can help and where help would be gratefully received.

Currently my role involves a good deal of shuttle diplomacy. In the interests of developing tourism in the country I shuttle between government departments, tourism businesses and donor agencies just trying to get everyone going in the same direction. A sort of Hillary Clinton of Rudaki Avenue, Dushanbe, bustling between meetings aiming to keep all sides happy and away from fighting. (At least I don’t have Bill at home to worry about as well; no wonder she had to let John Kerry take over).

My vehicle of choice for shuttling is the number 1 trolley bus, pictured. It sure beats Hillary’s for fuel economy and carbon emissions but hers may just have the edge for speed and comfort.

Phil's shuttle

Hillary's shuttle

In my diplomatic role, I like to think that I am seen – like Hillary – as a neutral and high-minded representative of a successful western society that is reaping the benefits of centuries of honesty, hard work, fair play and wise investment. One can but dream, but I don’t think everyone sees me in quite this way.

The view of the west from some quarters of central Asia and the former USSR is that we – or at least the smartest of us - have found ways to make easy money and acquire lots of consumer goods without having to work too hard. We’re smart, devious and know how to get others to do all the work. This is admirable; teach us to be like you they might say….

For example, an imaginary – though not unimaginable – exchange.

A new CEO has just been appointed at Royal Bank of Scotland. He has agreed to take a salary of only £1 million per annum – 17% less than his predecessor - and will not receive a bonus until 2017. Austerity bites, ouch!! But this is still quite an attractive package for Tajiks, where around 40% of the population survive on $1.25 per day or less (i.e. it would take one of them at least 3,000 years to earn the new RBS CEO’s salary for one year, a long working life…). As a westerner – and a Scot to boot – many of my work partners feel that I might know some of the secrets about the route to such success.

“What does he do?”

“Well, his bank takes money from people who want to lend and gives it to people who want to borrow. They keep some of the money passing through their hands for doing this”.

“Very good. So he shifts money from one side of his desk to the other and keeps some of it on the way. I love this capitalism; it sounds easier than growing water melons or driving donkeys.”

“Well you could put it that way. But it’s a lot more complex than you make it sound.”

“No, fine. I just want simple capitalism. I can do this. I just pass paper from one side of my desk to the other and catch money falling out in the middle. Wonderful. What paper do we need to pass for tourism? Do they need to come here or can we just send papers to say they’ve been?”

I exaggerate of course but I do sometimes wonder if we are really in the best position to set an example of a good, liberal market economy that produces the best for its citizens.

Anyone looking for a new CEO for a failed bank?