Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Nanny Mail 12/18/09 Stones into Schools

This little passage from page 338 should pique your curiosity. In order to keep a promise made nine years before to a group of grizzled, and greasy, Kirghiz horsemen ---

From the place where the Wakhan road ends in Sarhad, the journey to Bozar Gumbas involved a three-day trek along a narrow trail that clings to the cliffs and whose surface is covered in treacherously shifting talus. Along its forty-mile length, this trail ascends and descends a total of 20,000 feet, nearly twice the vertical relief between Everest base camp and its summit. What's more, these ups and down all take place at altitudes of between ten thousand and fourteen thousand feet, where the oxygen levels make it impossible for convention pack animals such as donkeys and mules to carry substantial loads. Finally, there were three major river crossings.

To haul all the supplies in from Sarhat would have required at least a hundred yaks or Bactrian camels. far more that the number of animals that were available for hire. For similar reasons , a very large yak train leading out the Charpurson Valley over the Irshad Pass Pakistan) was equally unworkable. On the other hand perhaps a supply convoy could have been assembled in western China and punched into the eastern end of the Wakhan where the terrain was not nearly as rough. But the Chinese-Afghan border had been sealed for more than sixty years--and thanks to the current political unrest among Zinjiang Province's restive Muslim population, the likelihood of Chinese border officials granting a special laissez passer was less than zero.

As Sarfraz stood beside the mound of freshly chiseled stones scratching hie head, he found himself pondering a question that seemed to encapsulate the absurdity of our work. How do you build a school on the Roof of the World when transporting the construction materials from any direction is virtually impossible?

Even by the standards of his own audacity and innovation, the plan that he came up with was manigicently nuts.

And I can't wait to read further and find out what it is!

No comments: