My husband is a geologist, earning only US$ 150 a year. You can say I am the breadwinner of my family. I bake ten breads every morning and sell them in the town bazaar until the afternoon. If I am lucky, I can bring home US$1, but sometimes not even one bread is sold. I live in the town of Murghab (Pamir Mountains). Since the collapse of Soviet Union and the war in Tajikistan, most people here have no job and no money to buy anything. Most men go to Russia to find job, but it’s very hard. My husband took a microcredit loan from an NGO, but we failed in our business. In winter like this, life in the mountain is hard. My husband have to bring potatoes and firewood from his village in Shegnon. It’s far away so he has to beg the truck drivers to take him for free. I feel living in the village is much easier than here, at least villagers can grow their own food in the backyard. In town like this, you have to buy everything. If you have no money, you starve to death.
Murghab, GBAO, Tajikistan, 2006