Muhib, one of the two project managers, had not expressed himself so clearly. You still have to walk a bit at the end of the street, but only a little. Even the road that went off the last asphalt route in the furthest corner of the northeastern province of Badakahschan was only a gravel track, winding up the gray-brown mountain slopes in serpentines.
No tree, no shrub could be seen anymore, only in the deep and now and then the green-blue shimmering Kokcha river. "Up there," Muhib waved cheerfully after stopping, only a few hundred meters higher was the goal.
Christian Werner
Steep cliffs, sparse vegetation
Up there are only pin-sized yellow dots along the steep cliff: the workers' helmets. At an altitude of 2000 meters, they blow up, chop and mortar an irrigation channel through the granite, which is to be seven kilometers long.
The climb is difficult, the air is thinner than in the valley of the provincial capital. But the gaunt, sun-tanned men above don't mind. With their bare hands they weigh boulders weighing several centimeters, tilt them on the slope, balance mortar buckets along the narrowest footpaths; something on her feet that used to be sneakers in better days.
After all, most people wear a helmet. Even a walnut-sized pebble that dissolves further up the steep slope can become a deadly projectile here.
Christian Werner
Construction workers at an altitude of 2000 meters
One or two meters wide is the blown-up swathe that runs along the steep slope, on the edge of which it is hundreds of meters deep and contracts the stomach without vertigo. The 140 men up here, from teenagers to old people, work concentrated, sometimes cheerful, as if they were here in their very own world.
Whatever they are beyond the topographical situation, the Hamidabad area, roughly a district, is bitterly poor even by Afghan standards. Which means a lot. Too poor to be drawn into the fierce war between the government and the Taliban. Too poor for people to be able to afford to flee to Europe. Too poor to have electricity, televisions, telephones and any idea what another life could look like. This is also Afghanistan.
Christian Werner
The people of Hamidabad are bitterly poor even by Afghan standards
"The Taliban? Here?" Rahman, a bearded beard with a checked cloth instead of a helmet on his head, laughs with a throaty laugh: "They never came here. What should they want from us? We have nothing, there is no road here. Only stones come after us."
There are no telephone poles that could be used to extort network operators. After all, some elementary schools and, for four years, the gravel track, officially built by the government with foreign funding.
A few hundred meters below are the seven villages of the men working here in tiny valleys, where they mainly grow fruit. Depending on the altitude and the availability of water, pomegranates, apples, pears, cherries, almonds, apricots and peaches grow.
Christian Werner
Water is in short supply in the mountain region
Excellent peaches because the combination of lots of sun, tolerable, dry warmth and irrigation is perfect for fruit. If there is only enough water. There was always a lack of that.
After the snow melts in the spring, there is almost no rain during the summer. In order not to let the meltwater rush into the Kokcha River at least unused, the canal should now be built.
Despite all the poverty, the inhabitants of the seven villages of Hamidabad have something to make an impression with in previous projects in the area, such as elementary schools or road construction: a functioning community, without feuds, without confessional trenches.
Christian Werner
Functioning community, without feuds, without denominational trenches
The elders of the village councils, a local aid organization, the provincial river authority and the World Food Program WFP came together here, South Korea provided the bulk of the funding. The Sisyphus project on the Granitberg could begin.
The men have been milling through the stone here since late summer 2018. First the blasting masters come and create the swath in the rock. Then the workers move in, layer and wall the pieces of stone into the gutter for the water.
Work is carried out six days a week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. At night a guard guards the pickaxes and shovels with a truncheon, but nothing has ever gotten away.
There is flat bread and green tea from large thermos jugs. Payments are made in food, rice, flour, tea, but the jobs are so popular that some of the men have returned from Pakistan and Iran, where they worked as day laborers, construction workers and harvest workers.
Christian Werner
Work has been underway on the water channel since late summer 2018
"This is better here," says Abdulbarak, one of the foremen who already worked on the construction site in Tehran: "We are building something for ourselves, can finally water more trees, and we will also be paid for it."
Before that, the income from care had just been enough to send the families so much that they would not go hungry. There are simply no properly paid jobs up here.
However, there has never been an attempt here to do what is so obvious: diverting the water that shoots down abundantly from the peaks every spring for the tiny fields and orchards on the slopes.
Christian Werner
Reasonably paid jobs - none
"A man named Ashirmat tried it 20 years ago," recalls a worker from the village of Saliabad, "building a gutter from the next snow field to his garden. But he slipped on the mountain and fell to his death."
Many young men from Badakhshan's poor north have gone to the army and police force in recent years, who are equally involved in the extremely loss-making battle against the Taliban. Hardly anyone from richer regions wants the jobs in these uniformed Ascension Command. Only the poorest.
Years ago they drove the medical admission committee of the German police development project to despair: "We had to lower the X-ray dose during the examination," said a German doctor in Faizabad in 2010: "Otherwise we will look through them. They are completely under-mineralized malnutrition. "
Christian Werner
The workers on the mountain have to be careful - there are no safety measures
Nobody likes to talk badly about the police on the slope of Hamidabad. But nobody wants to go there either. Each family can hire a worker for the sewer project. If in doubt, the village committee decides who gets the job. If one gets sick, the next family member can move up.
They stopped working in early December. When it freezes, the cement no longer sets. In addition, icy granite slabs are not sure-footed even for the men from the mountains. They completed five kilometers from the canal, two are still missing. Work for at least another year.
The first snow fell, soon it will be one meter high. They will then sit in their huts for three months, heating with the dried manure of the sheep and goats, waiting for spring.
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Sher Agha, who looks like an old man but is only 52 years old, lists the possessions he has created in his life: "Five peach trees. Two almond trees. One apple tree."
But now he has planted another 100 peach trees, so that they will soon bear when the canal is ready. So much that he could sell the fruit in the next valley, even bring it to the provincial capital.
He pauses for a moment, almost startled by his words. As if the idea was frivolous that a single person could own 100 peach trees.