This group of Afghan Koochies we got to know fairly well. We kept bumping into them, or passing each other all the way down the Kaghan Valley. They were taking their flocks to camp near Haripur. Here we are with them outside of Naran.
Ghulam and his family originally come from Paktia, Gardez, Afghanistan. Before the Russian invasion and ensuing war, in the snow bound winters, they used to winter in Banu, across the border, in Pakistan. But in 1980, when the war with the Soviets intensified along the border, they had stopped going back to Afghanistan. The last three years, they have been hiring a truck, or a bus, to carry the women, children, and baggage, when they migrated. Ghulam, his brother, and his son, go over the mountains with their flock of two hundred sheep. The upper mountain roads are too tiring for the women, and keeping the animals off the roads, they avoid paying the Pakistani taxes. In the summer they pasture in the high meadows east of the Babu Sar, and for several months during the winter they camp outside Haripur, near Tarbella Dam.