The place to go...
by Hengameh Golestan
[ places - april 02 ]
I took these photos in the Kurdish village of Mahabad. Names in Iran can have poetry - my own means 'spectacular rose garden' - but in this case, the name has a horrible irony. It translates roughly as 'the place to go', and is more or less the opposite of 'ruins'. I talked to two of the village children. When I asked the boy what he wanted to be when he grew up, he shrugged and said: "If I grow up..."
The women do all the heavy work and live a life of extraordinary hardship. The government makes no effort to improve their lives - if their life was less grim, they might develop an interest in Kurdish nationalism. Most women are too concerned with survival to get involved in politics. Winters are bitterly cold, and melting snows in spring turns the village into a mudbath.
Many of the houses have no windows, and the only light is from a small hole in the ceiling.
The women collect cattle dung to dry and burn. There are so few cattle and the climate is so brutal that the women follow the cattle to make sure no one else steals it - quarrels over ownership of shit are not uncommon.
The women lose themselves completely in prayer. As a woman, I was able to go to the mosque with them, but they quickly became unaware that I was photographing them.
