Market day in the
Musa Qaleh Bazaar. A scene of life returning to normal, one of
traders selling and buyers haggling. The roads are busy with
traffic, motorcycles everywhere, delivery trucks dropping sacks of
grain and rice. The everyday hustle and bustle you would expect to
see on any market day in the UK.
The wide street is divided by a central reservation where stalls
are set up and young boys trade their wares from carts pulled by
donkeys, the animals getting some rest and grazing on the limited
amount of grass on the reservation.
In amongst the frenetic activity traders and stall owners are sat
or crouched overlooking their goods until a buyer comes along. A
team of workers employed by the towns Mayor, Jumo Jan, are
shovelling up rubbish and litter, in one of the new schemes
introduced to improve the town. Elsewhere in the Bazaar a team of
YTS trainees, on the scheme implemented by the British Forces
Military Stabilisation and Support Team, are digging trenches for
a new water supply and drainage system in the market.
Along the outside of the street are many, many shops built from
unpainted concrete, 10 feet wide they each are piled from floor to
ceiling with merchandise on sale, the goods spilling out onto the
pavement. Occasionally an owner would have a premises two units wide.
The merchandise on sale is varied, rugs and carpets, bicycles,
rolls of brightly coloured material and cloth, some with shiny
flecks, rice, potatoes, fruit and vegetables all looking fresh,
ripe clean and bright contrasting against the dusty slightly run
down surroundings of the Bazaar. Stalls selling herbs and spices
would be set up in adjacent shops, one owner accurately and
quickly bags up a green herb or spice in clear cellophane sachets.
There are one stop shops with shampoo to umbrellas and any number
of goods in between.
Some shops sell light engineering products, generators, water
pumps, and spare parts. Down the street there is a butcher,
another shop selling boxes of 200 cigarettes, another selling
sieves, more traders in the street sit next to piles of potatoes.
Around the corner off the main street of the Bazaar are traders of
larger goods, sacks of grain, some sellers with the grain tipped
out in huge piles on rugs and mats. Trucks are constantly pulling
up delivering more sacks. Here there were also motorcycle shops
with up to 30 brand new bikes for sale, probably the most popular
form of transport in Musa Qaleh. And closer to the end of the
street at the edge of the town a merchant has a stock of 4 brand
new red Massey Fergusson tractors.
Lt Col Harry Fullerton, Commanding Officer of the Household
Cavalry Regt has been in Musa Qal'eh for the last five
months and has seen the growth of the market. "We
didn't takeover a disaster at the beginning we took over
a market system here which was starting to be successful. But we
have certainly seen the market which happens twice a week here
enlarge possibly by up to 30 per cent. We have about 1200 stall
holders in the Bazaar.' He said. 'Probably the
key to their issues is the connection with places like Geresk as
we're still quite cut off here in Musa Qal'eh.
Further ISAF operations are going to try and do something about
that, to try and get better route security."
Mike McKie, the Foreign Office Stabilisation Officer working
along side the CO added, "In April construction of a
bridge across the Wadi, a river to the west of the town will
start. The Wadi crossing will benefit the community by giving 365
days a year access to other markets. The Southern market town of
Geresk is a main economic hub in Helmand, this Wadi crossing opens
the opportunity to rapidly access Geresk no matter what time of
year. For a large part of the winter the community in Musa
Qal'eh is effectively cut off from that market, this has
an effect in the Bazaar as prices spike. Following the completion
of the bridge, prices will be maintained at a stable level."
Two days a week business moves out of the centre of Musa Qaleh to
the banks of the Wadi where the livestock market takes place.
In the late winter the heavy overnight rain meant higher water
levels in the Wadi and probably a smaller turn out than usual. All
the same there are over 1000 traders of animals, the normal size
of the market is however three times that. Only two years earlier
there was no cattle market in Musa Qaleh.
Traders come to the market with anything from one chicken, legs
bound and concealed in the darkness of their gowns, to a cow, to
herds of goats. Often the young sons would be following their
fathers. If there were just two goats the father and son would
each have an animal on a lead, the father sometimes helping the
son out if his animal became difficult to handle.
The men with their animals were arriving from all directions from
both sides of the Wadi, swollen by the night's rain and
others coming from the north and south following the course of the
river. Two walked up carrying umbrellas. Near enough every man
walking to the gravel banks in the middle of the Wadi took his
shoes and socks off to cross the fast flowing water.
On the banks in the centre of the Wadi fires are lit, the sounds
of children shouting and men bartering could be heard in amongst
the sounds of donkeys, cows and goats.
Meanwhile the Bazaar is still a throng of hustle and bustle, the
roads busy with traffic; cars, delivery lorries, tractors towing
trailers, young boys on full size bicycles, more carts towed by
donkeys - often driven by young boys and the ever popular
motorcycles buzzing back and forth, all under watchful eyes of the
Afghan National Police.
ENDS
Contacts:
Ministry of Defence
NDS.MOD@coi.gsi.gov.uk