dynamiteandprayers.com

intro

  • Cover of the Book \{quote}Dynamite and Prayers: Emerals Miners of Afghanistan\{quote} by Max Becherer with a foreword by Carlotta Gall. ( Photo by Max Becherer )
  • With excitement Ahmad Jawead, 22, shovels and picks his way through rock after having blasted the rock in his 60 meter deep mine looking for emeralds in mountains over the Panjshir Valley village of Khenj, Afghanistan on Wednesday, October 24, 2007. Jawead has been working his mine for seven month straight looking for an emerald large enough to buy his way out of Afghanistan. After declaring his desire to leave the country and asking for help his family forbid him to leave. Now he blast the rock hoping to fund his own way out of the country.
  • October 25, 2007- Khenj, Afghanistan: Ahmad Jawead, 22, center works with the mechanic of the mountain, Mohammad Israar, 46, left, and his hired hand Rahimullah, 27, as they try to start a Chinese made motor that creates compressed air for his air pressure operated rock drill in the mountains over the Panjshir Valley village of Khenj, Afghanistan on Thursday October 25, 2007. The motor has a hand crank but they hope by heating up the carburetor they can help to prime the start.
  • October 25, 2007- Khenj, Afghanistan: Burhan Amin, 26, prays in the one room stone he shares with the rest of his team of miners in the slope of the Hindu Kush mountains towering over the Panjshir Valley near the village of Khenj, in Afghanistan on Thursday October 25, 2007. Burhan Amin, 26, a partner and cousin of Mr. Jawead, has a kidney ailment that does not allow him to work, brought on from years of battling the mountain for emeralds. Instead of maning the rock drill, Mr. Amin prepares the meals of rice, bread, lamb meat and tea for grime covered miners. Even with this light duty, he sometimes feels too ill to work. “Most of the time I am sick. Those days when I am not feeling well, because there is the mountain and it is the work of the mountain. If we work from the morning till night, you will know how much you get tired,” Mr. Amin said.
  • October 26, 2007- Khenj, Afghanistan: Emerald buyers from Kabul, Hiatullah, left, and Gulalam, right, look at a pocket full of emeralds brought down the mountain in the village of Khenj, Afghanistan on Friday, October 26, 2007. Most miners keep their emeralds in a plastic package. Usually the partners in a mine will weigh, count, then wrap the emeralds they find, signing the wrapping to insure they all agree on what was found. Then the package is opened again when it reaches the village and is sold.
  • Khenj, Afghanistan: With the sound of whinnying horses and whips, a horsemen with his whip in his mouth tries to reach down from his horse to reach down to the ground from his horse and pick up the carcass of a dead calf. On Friday, October 26, 2007 in a rare respite from the rigors of their work in the emerald mines in the mountains high over their village or from workshops and business, the men of Khenj, Afghanistan, compete in a game of Buzkashi.
  • Khenj, Afghanistan: The men of Khenj, Afghanistan, compete in a game of Buzkashi. The popular game, banned under that Taliban, is a match between villagers on horseback pitted against each other to grab the carcass of a dead goat, or in this case, a dead calf, with its head cut off, from one location in the playing field, around a flag and set in a circle in another location. Each time a rider successfully completes the task he is cheered by the crowed gathered under the leaves of Fall in the shadow of the Hindu Kush.
  • intro
  • ORDER NOW!
  • Explore Select Pages
  • Current Events for Dynamite and Prayers
  • A Note from the Author
  • Behind the Scenes
    • The Making of Dynamite and Prayers
  • Contact the Author
  • Biography
  • Follow on Social Media

Site design © 2010-2023 Neon Sky Creative Media