Between a Rock and a Hard Place

“His name means ‘soldier’,” says Yaar Mahahammad, our translator. Yaar is talking about Askarkhan, a 13-year old boy who has been hefting rocks into the foundations of a new hut with the kind of ease that would put my own strength to shame.

Askarkhan peers at us with piercing eyes from beneath hand-me-down clothes. Despite his military-sounding name, his clothes have no resemblance to a uniform, and he doesn’t need one. Here, at 4305 metres altitude amidst the swirls of a snowstorm in the Wakhan Corridor, Askarkhan is far from the war and troubles that have tragically become synonymous with his home country, Afghanistan.

Here the best weapon for survival is resilience not a rifle. Guns are only useful against marauding wolves, but resilience will see Askarkhan brave the short, eight-week summer of herding yaks and sheep high on the mountainsides. Resilience will arm him against the cold of night, the snowstorms (possible on 350 days per year), and the thin air.