Gulguna is having her lunch, shir tchai with her neighbors in the winter room.

Tea time with neighbors.

Her daughter is serving a tea. Odinamo spent all her life in Roshorv. She is the mother of 9 children. Two daughters still live with them. She also takes care of her two grandchildren as their parents work in Khorog, a 7 hour drive away. Her older grandson helps her with grazing her herd.

A picture of Odinamo with her two children.

She does her homework after school. Behind, her mum prepares bread for dinner. Lessons in primary school are mixed. Ismailis do not have a madrasa, the Koranic school. At school, she learns Russian and Tajik. She will start learning English at secondary school. In the Bartang Valley, people speak their own Rushan language. It is spoken, not written. Two valleys futher to the south is the Wakhan Corridor, but Bartangi and Wakhani peoples can’t understand each other.

Afternoon bath. Mum prepared tubs of hot water.

After the bath mum arranges Gulguna’s braids. Children are loved here because they are a blessing of God.

One of Gulguna’s duties is herding goats in the evening .This task is reserved for the children. A dog starts barking so she looks out for a wolf.

Gulguna and her friends bring a goat to the village to find out to who it belonged. There are 7 to 10 big herds in the village. In one herd, there are around 10 to 15 smaller groups each owned by a local. Shepherds switch their turns for grazing their herds.

Nigina studies Esperanto in Khorog. She came to be bridesmaid at her friend’s wedding. hers sister is en anglish teacher at local school. her brother just came back from his studies in london

Afternoon tea with neighbors.

A dance leader is singing wedding songs. Songs are about the Badakshan and Pamir Mountains, not about Tajikistan as the Pamir was there before the rise of the Tajik state. A wedding ceremony takes place at the bride’s home. If the young couple comes from the same village, a ceremony starts at a bride’s house and afterwards moves to the groom’s house.

Nigina, a bridesmaid is dancing. According to custom, the best dancers receive gifts such as home-made socks, necklaces or simply money.

A wedding ceremony takes place in the big summer room. Guests dance in pairs and then they leave the dance floor for the next. A wedding ceremony takes place at the bride’s home. If the young couple comes from the same village, a ceremony starts at a bride’s house and afterwards moves to the groom’s house.

The wedding guests. Anyone who wants to come is welcome. Hopefully there will be just enough space to dance.

Tea time.

Granny Odinamo lives in the oldest house in the village. The house is so old that no one remembers when it was built. It could be a century or perhaps two centuries old. The house was formerly part of a defensive fortress, destroyed by the Soviets.

Neighbors

Odinamo is 55 years old, her husband is 59. The wind has ravaged their faces. Odinamo prepares tobacco powder to be put under the tongue.

Traditional summer room.

Gulguna's neighbour.

Wood in Roshorv is precious, because it is rare. The Pamir is a mountainous desert and except for a few poplars and willows nothing will to grow. Women pick up all branches and twigs, sweep leaves and stalks and put everything in a stove. Men get up at dawn and set off into the mountains in search of firewood. It is hard to find something bigger than twigs and small branches. Men wander kilometers collecting anything that will burn. To get thicker wood they need to ride two days away, to the border with Kyrgyzstan. Therefore hills, farms and farmland are tidy as like an English garden. The spaces are wild and natural, but you will not find a withered twig.

Afternoon tea.

Another building is lost to erosion along the Padma.

Jogodish Borua, 65, lost his land and his house to river erosion.

Abdul Aziz, who lost his home to erosion along the banks of the river, takes a bath in the Padma.

A fisherman and a local villager cross paths on the banks of the river Padma.

The situation is especially severe for children. A woman and child have been displaced along with other members of their neighborhood who also lost their homes.

A man walks through the ruins of a house damaged by river erosion.

A boy plays on the banks of the river Padma in a spot where there once sat family homes.

People who lost their homes set up makeshift shelters along the river.

Rising water levels on the river Padma in Bangladesh threaten homes and put inhabitants of the river basin at risk.

When the Padma river rises, erosion becomes a serious problem for the community living on the river. At the same time, waste littering the earth pollutes the water.

Houses sit near the banks of the river Padma in Bangladesh.

Flooding and erosion along the Padma river in Bangladesh has resulted in many people losing their homes and their land.

People are sometimes forces to move their houses to another place out of the path of river erosion.

A family made homeless by erosion and flooding along the Padma River dry cloth on the riverbank.

lunch break for the sandwich. Many of these children have survived more than two years under the bombings in cities like Homs or Aleppo

Two brothers enjoying a class days after arriving to Lebanon

Due to the dedication of Father Elyen Nasrallah, priest of the Greek Catholic Parish Church of Qaa, more than 250 children aged from 3 to 12 years living in tents, can receive primary education and health care.