Tonight as I browse for the umpteenth time, the comic book « The Photographer », the story of MSF on the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, I take a sneak peek at our blog. And lo and behold, oh surprise, we have our first reader from Pakistan. What a breath of emotion, which quickly turns into questioning and questioning… Who could have heard of this blog in such faraway lands? Who are you? Man or woman? What have you come to seek through our words, behind our writings? Did you find something you liked? Did we manage to make you take off from your everyday life, with our words and photos? By what mystery, by what magic, did you arrive on this blog at the very moment when I plunged with delight in this sublime comic book, which evokes with so much poetry the countries so close to you.

Are you a resident of the North? Do you live in an urban environment amidst the horns and dust of cities? Do you buy your bread in the morning from the children who sneak in between the lines of cars in traffic jams?

Do you rather live in the mountains of the South, the ones I rediscover with joy every time I read this comic book? This comic book that we just found this morning at Gibert Joseph’s and that we rushed to acquire. I confess that I have a little fascination for these steep lands, where despite the harshness of daily life, the women are so beautiful and the men so proud.

Will you come back one day on this blog to discover this post? Do you live in Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi, Hyderabad? These are the names of cities that instantly transport us to the other side of the world, in a universe that is not ours. Names that resonate, for some, with the footsteps of the camel caravans of the Silk Road, and for others, with the sound of the machine guns that have ravaged these marvellous lands for so many years.

Islamabad, the world’s largest mosque, myth or reality? It doesn’t matter, I wake up there around 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning and I can already hear the muezzim at dawn. During the first few minutes, it is surprising and then the pleasure of the change of scenery instils itself gently in my mind and brings me great happiness. Peshawar and its many colorful bazaars. I can already feel the aromas of the spices and let myself be carried away in a whirlwind of a thousand colours. I also see the land of the mountains with its thousand colours in successive layers of ochre and green.

And finally here I am tonight, once again, in front of my blue notebook, my mind in the heart of the mountains between Peshawar and Kabul, getting to know the Pashtun people. These men who live in lost mountains, who wear the beige woollen pakol. They look good, they never get lost in the mountains and their eyes look far into the valley. Sometimes they accompany strangers like us in the Wakhan Corridor and we are under the spell of their perfect mastery of cartography.

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We let ourselves be bewitched by the sunsets and sunrises that punctuate life with no other reference point than time and nature. In the morning it smells good, round bread baked in the wood fire, sheep’s wool, dew on the mountains… Is this your daily life?

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Once again, we are under the spell of the infinite expanses of the desert, different every morning and yet so unchanging. We are amazed to discover at the turn of a path the villages lost in the valleys and we are captivated by the life we discover. Do you live in one of these earthen villages? Are you one of those women that you see on the mountain path and who come up to your house with your load of firewood?

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So reader friend from Pakistan, just a big thank you to you, for having offered us, for one evening, this imaginary walk…

Par Nathalie

Ps: as I didn’t have the chance to travel to Pakistan, thanks to the landscapes and the inhabitants of the Sinai and the Atlas who helped me to make you dream a little bit.

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)