Abdullah Khan baulks at calls to serve another term as mirab — the water controller — in this farming hamlet of Damana, on the parched plains south of Kabul.
In villages where the small man is grist to the mill of warlords and corrupt police, the mirab is a pivot of power, protecting the jealously guarded water rights of the land-holding class.
But intolerable pressure during serial droughts has left Abdullah Khan bloodied.
Now he yearns for the quiet life of a farmer. No more confronting water thieves in the dead of night, he says. No more demands from the powerful for a greater cut of a dwindling resource shared according to an ancient formula.
Caught between a rocky stream and 500 farmers (Sydney Morning Herald, via Danny Yee)
The following links are for me only. You are not allowed to access them.* (Both are from the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.)
- Understanding Village Institutions: Case Studies on Water Management from Faryab and Saripul [pdf] [as html]
- Water Management, Livestock, and the Opium Economy [pdf] [as html]
* Just kidding.