Shumaila Afridi
Most of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa consists of high hills; where there are hard rocks in these areas, there is also beauty there.
The people living in these hills have been living in these areas for centuries despite being deprived of modern facilities, there are some areas where people neither know about their country nor do they enjoy or are aware of their basic rights.
80-year-old Yasmin Bibi is also among those people who earn their meals by working hard every day.
Yasmin Bibi, a resident of Hasan Khel Bora, sub-division Peshawar, has been making and selling woven rope or ‘baan’ by her own hands for the past several decades.
She says that it is better for a person to start earning by working hard than by begging others.
She makes ropes and sells them locally. She leaves early in the morning for the nearby mountains, and brings the wild grass home; she then keeps it in a wet cloth for two days to soften it, and finally, starts weaving.
‘Weaving a cot/charpai is a difficult task, it takes me many days to make ‘moonj dori’ or rope for one cot, but I am happy that people like my ropes, but the money I get is not sufficient. ‘
As per the old lady, she cannot go to the market where she can sell the ropes to a shopkeeper and get paid well for her work.
She says that there is a lot of talent among tribal women, but due to lack of opportunities, they could not get the fruits of their hard work, “I have lived my life, now I want Iman and a peaceful death.’’
Recalling the past, she said that our era was very good, work was hard but people were happy, and there was color in their lives, in today’s era there are more facilities but people are bereft of liveliness.