Kalash women reveal their unique traditions

(24 May 2006)
1. Wide of Bumborat valley
2. River flowing
3. Pan from Kalash men to women dancing in colourful Kalash dresses at Joshi spring festival
4. Men watching women dancing
5. Various of women dancing and singing
6. Wide of traditional wooden houses on hillside
7. Various of Kalash woman, Hazrat Gul, working in field by her house
8. Exterior of Hazrat's house
9. Girl in doorway of house
10. Hazrat's aunt with cows in garden
11. Hazrat carrying dishes to house
12. Various of Hazrat washing dishes
13. Hazrat walking though garden with two year-old son Zulfiqar
14. SOUNDBITE (Kalash) Hazrat Gul, Kalash Woman:
"Oh, it's very different for the women here. The Muslims pray through the whole day, whereas we can just think of Khodai (Kalash Supreme God) at any time. They wear different clothes from us. And in the city, they just sit and eat, whereas we work hard and have pride in our day's work."
15. Hazrat walking to the village Bashali, a house specifically made for women to rest during menstruation and after child birth, and calling out to women inside
16. Various of Hazrat talking to woman at gate of Bashali
17. Young mother in Bashali breastfeeding her 3-day-old baby girl
18. SOUNDBITE (Kalash) Hazrat Gul, Kalash Woman:
"The Bashali is a very good place. It's peaceful, somewhere we can rest. Men aren't allowed in there, so we can relax away from them with the other women. Men from the family bring us our food. Nowadays, we have the Bashalis here in the village, but they used to be in caves in the mountains in the olden days. This is much better."
19. Hazrat talking with traditional midwife Sajama Bibi
20. SOUNDBITE (Kalash) Sajama Bibi, traditional Midwife:
"In the Bashali we don't have the facilities we need. We don't have enough blankets to keep the women warm in winter. We don't have any medicines, no injections, pills or syrups for the women or the children."
21. Wide of Hazrat and Sajama in garden
22. Woman holding baby with traditional sunscreen on his face
23. Women with children
24. Various of village
25. Various of woman working in field
26. Various of Hazrat with male and female friends dancing and joking at festival
LEAD IN:
Pakistan's smallest minority stands out. Surrounded by the Islamic communities of Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, the Kalash people continue to celebrate their animist beliefs (the belief in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects and phenomena).
But it's the women of these valleys who cut the most distinctive figures.
Their colourful clothing and headdresses are first to catch the eye, but their lifestyles are also a unique treasure of this remote mountain community.
STORYLINE:
Three lush valleys provide Pakistan's isolated Kalash community with enough water, crops and livestock to survive between the jagged mountains of the Hindu Kush.
But it's not an easy existence.
Cut off from the nearest town for three months a year, these subsistence farmers live simply and work hard.
The goats that provide the community with valuable milk, meat and leather need to be grazed at higher pastures during spring and summer.
In addition to caring for their families and homes, when the men take the herd to higher pastures for half the year, the women take on the men's chores around the village.
Hazrat Gul is a typical Kalash woman.
She says that as a result of their hard work and raising their children alone, the women of the Kalash are given a special status of respect.
Hazrat was married at sixteen.. one year later she gave birth to her son, Zulfiqar.
Keyword-culture

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