Bags, bags, bags

One person I did know at the Wedding party was Johan, who is J’s friend from South Africa. I went to his workshop a couple of days before. He was a lawyer once, who decided however he was sick of making money and wanted to do some good in the world. So he is here in Tajikistan running a workshop making leather bags. He realised that people were throwing the sheep and goat skins to their dogs to eat, rather than doing anything more useful with them. Equally there is so little small scale industry here, the people are not yet used to thinking about shifting for themselves so used to working on the collective farm or kolkhoz.

In the countryside, either they think about working the land, or if that cannot support them, the only other option they seem to find is going to Russia. This obviously splits up families, and often causes divorce, or the husband returns with HIV and gives it to his wife. Now around 12 families are supported by this workshop, which as he says is a drop in the Amu Darya, however it means at least 12 families won’t be split up.

Johan has trialled various tanning techniques using all natural ingredients, one of the best emulsifiers is found in fresh brains! However none of these being forthcoming, he has found alternatives such as cotton oil.

These skins all get sent to the workshop in Dushanbe from around the country, he pays between 30 and 40 somoni for each skin. Here they get made into bags, slippers etc. We went round the workshop with J, her friend, N, F the Professor’s son and J’s boss Mr Tamavadeh. He was lovely and unpretentious and we had a joke about Iranian taarof. He was from Iran!

So we sat in Johan’s flat, eating biltong and drinking tea, having a conversation which veered between Persian and English, with only F being able to understand both, and to a lesser extent J and then Johan – who speaks some Persian. I bought a bag to carry round my extra stuff in when I have my laptop.

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