LIFE IN A FARM-HOUSE IN KUMUL, XINJIANG, CHINA !

the nan bread -their staple food , other than rice


sticking the bread onto the wall of the oven


preparing the nan


Abida's parents and nephew


well - thats her again.


the backyard


the indoor stove again


ahh--the donkey


the cart


another look at the cart

View of the house


The facade


The indoor kitchen


Starting the fire of the out-door oven


Taking care of the fire

Abida - the student.

(Watchout for more photos.)

Again, the month of Ramadhan and Aidilfitri somehow reminds me of a student of mine, thus.....

These are photographs of a student's home in Kumul, Xinjiang in China. We often talked and I was intrigued by their way of life as a farmer in a small village .

Her father is a farmer. The main crop is cotton and to her, cotton harvesting time is always the most painful for her because of the thorns. The other crop is water-melons . She said that in summers, her family would load all the melons onto a donkey cart and sell them at the bazaar (market) .

From the pictures we can see the trees , which are of different shape from what we get here. They remind me of trees in the Mediteranean area.

What struck me about her house is the kitchen. They have the in-door kitchen, the out-door kitchen and the winter-kitchen.

We could get used to their in-door kitchen, but the out-door kitchen is certainly unique. It is mainly used in summer. The winter kitchen is actually part of their living-room and the heat from the cooking keeps the room warm. Ther are pictures of these.

An interesting point is the way they store meat . A deep hole would be dug and this is where carefully-wrapped meat are stored. The cold of the ground would maintain the freshness of the meat.

Another interesting story is that during their very cold winter ( may be -20C and more) very large chunks of ice will be be cut. These ice will than be buried underground. You may well ask for what ! Here's the surprise. In summer , they would dig up these ice, chipped what they need , and use the ice for ice-cream or cold drink during their hot summers ( 40C + ).

The donkey still plays a major role in helping them in their farm work. Thus the donkey-cart is quite a normal sight here.

Ahhh... this ! They do not have a bath-room as the types we can picture in our mind. Whenever they want to take a bath, they would go to the village or town-centre to the public bath. Oh--they do not have in-door toilets. So no matter how cold it might be, at any time of the day (or night) , if you are answering nature's call, then you would just have to do it (shivering and all ) in the out-door toilet.

(ok ---more info and photos will come later.......)