Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25065
Each person will get one SO kg sac of flour, 2.4 kgs of sugar, 3.6 kgs of cooking oil, one plastic sheet and one blanket. Naturally only the flour comes in the right size container. Jonathan must calculate how much will be needed on each night and in each place, organize the arrival and transportation of nine car loads of personal goods and then organize a fleet of trucks to take each family with their goods to the right village. At night he must then fill out the appropriate forms, monitor budgets and assign personnel to make sure he has enough resources. Jonathan is assai led on all sides in his lonely quest to get 310 people transported, fed and tucked in for the night. It is a grind but urgency and exhausted faces drive us on. The refugees are crowded into the classrooms, women and children are separated from the men. They emit a humid funk. The women and children sit quietly in one room. It is always reassuring to see the children play as if they are on holiday, in contrast to the dull, tired look on the women's faces. The men have a harder look. They help with the unloading of the trucks. After hours of carrying large flour sacs everyone is dusted white and weary. Cotton Picking Poverty At the guesthouse we talk about the plight of Tajikistan with our Somali host. The Soviet system created a number of monolithic subsidized systems. Here only cotton was allowed to be grown and everyone received an education. The central government made sure that bread, fuel, timber and other goods came· from factories and regions throughout the Soviet empire. Now, after Soviet control, the Tajik government sti ll demands that people grow cotton because it is the only major resource they know how to sell. But nothing comes in return. There is no more subsidization but cotton sells as if there were. Students, doctors and their families must pick cotton for free. The schools are closed and there are serious fines for not picking a daily quota of cotton. Naturally this generates no money for the local people and in a rich agricultural region there are no staples. It is against the law to grow wheat or corn. The Tajiks speak Taj ik and Russian so they cannot leave to find work elsewhere. They are seeing a rapid loss in quality of life after the Soviet system. It is so bad that children cannot walk to school because their parents cannot afford to buy shoes. I ask if Tajiks have it worse than Somalis. He says that in Somalia, at least they have a government and American oil companies. When a Somali feels sorry for a country, it's a good bet that they are in big trouble. Jonathan compares Tajikistan to the '20s and the era of the great depression in America-robber barons, gangsters, mass poverty. He says Tajikistan is just going thro�gh the same phase. I don't bother reminding him that it took a world war to get things back on track again. Tajikistan could be rich since it provides a lot of raw resources and cotton, but no one wants to invest in a fractured country at war. So they limp along using the dead Soviet system and hope for some light at the end of the tunnel. The Somali is more poetic but less optimistic. "It is like a house. If you start from a crooked foundation the house will never be strong. You have to take it all apart and start again." The next day we return to the lonely rail station. It is chaos. Tons of personal effects are scattered around the rail line as each person tries to coordinate with an open bed truck that will take them to their village. I take pictures for Disa who is doing an article on the refugees. Men pose proudly with their chickens. Not quite knowing why they deserve celebrity they stop and stand straight as boards for their pictures. People sti ll come to search out long lost relatives and in between the industry there are tearful reunions and prayers for deliverance. We accompany some of the families returning to their deserted villages. These villages were bombed and bulldozed by the government troops. The buildings are mud brick with a white plaster veneer. In the ruins are people making new mud bricks, making tea and rebuilding their homes. On their homes children have drawn aircraft spitting fire and dropping bombs on screaming people and now they draw obscene pictures of people with large genitals having sex. A rebirth in an odd way. As I come back from wandering around taking pictures, Jonathan reminds me in an off-hand way, "Thank goodness they didn't use landmines. " The people are happy as they sit on their blue plastic sheets and rebuild their lives. "This is the part that makes it all worthwhile, " says Jonathan.