Glen's Rambling

As our eagerly-awaited dinner was served, our hosts’ eyes were all on us. Including the one on the plate. It would have been ungracious of us to show disappointment, and admittedly our gastronomic expectations had not been high. But I think our small party was expecting other than boiled sheep's face on a plate.

We were seated cross-legged in a small circular yurt in the tiny Wakhi settlement of Elghanuk, high in the spectacular, remote Pamir mountains of Afghanistan's Wakhan corridor. As dusk closed into night outside, the mountain air rapidly chilled. Three days of hard ascent by foot had caught up with us, assuaged only briefly by the hot tea, flat bread and yak's milk yoghurt which had greeted our unannounced arrival. As we waited in the yurt normally reserved for visitors from more nearby places, the universal aroma of cooking meat had filtered through the background musk of animals and dust and hardship, and had stirred the appetite.

In the far north-east of Afghanistan, this thin sliver of mountainous land has always remained free of the conflicts for which the rest of the country has become infamous. The semi-nomadic Wakhi are Ismaili Muslims and so are generally spared the internecine fighting that wracks other branches of the faith. They have a hard and simple existence; their battles are more elemental.

With some of their summer settlements being at over 4500 metres, they are on the edge of sustainability. That altitude supports only scrub grass and small herds of sheep, goats and yaks. Water is scarce. They make use of everything they have - nothing is wasted. In terms Westerners work with, they are amongst the poorest people on Earth. Yet everyone has a place to sleep and food to eat, including unexpected guests.

Time to man up. We picked at the dish with as much enthusiasm as we could. The Wakhi reputation for hospitality is legendary, and well deserved. We may not have received all we could have wanted, but they gave all that they could spare.