2018 Primetime Emmy
& James Beard Award Winner

Seriously Though, Someone Should Help That Goat

Seriously Though, Someone Should Help That Goat

Jaguar in Alichur, Tajikistan

In the summer, the Pamir Mountains of autonomous southern Tajikistan are said to be lush and green. Full of yak, sheep, herders, and life. I’ve heard they can even be warm.

Not so the winter months. Winter in the Pamirs is neither for the faint-hearted nor the impatient. We had waited for four hours for the shared 4×4 to slowly fill with travelers. So far, our party consisted of myself and my girlfriend, tired, cold, and frustrated; a suave, Russian ex-pat, impatiently tapping the front seat; a serious-looking Tajik in army fatigues who sat in stoic silence; and our driver, looking cool as he slipped his mirrored Aviators over his eyes and pulled out of the dusty bazaar. All we needed to complete our unlikely fellowship was to collect our final passenger. And his luggage.

The two puppies were instantly adopted by my girlfriend, who commandeered the back seats for the three of them. The 100-pound adult goat, however, was the more pressing issue. After sizing up the interior (which already contained four passengers) the roof was wisely selected. Three men proceeded to hold and tie the struggling goat into a bundle of legs, hooves, and wool before heaving the animal onto the already well-laden roof rack. Our final recruit then jumped into the front seat and, clearly already drunk, took charge of the music while using his spare hand to open a can of Jaguar.

The newcomer turned to me and said in Russian “I know you.” An ominous start. He fished around in his camo-print holdall and showed me his Police ID. He had been based at the frozen, isolated Tajik-Kyrgyz boarder we had crossed two days previously and, due either to our foreign passports or the complete lack of other traffic, he had remembered us.

As we drove higher the road quickly deteriorated. What had begun as an asphalt road with minor damage had transformed into a part gravel, mostly ice obstacle course; one which our driver clearly relished. Snow whistled through the open front window, mingling with cigarette smoke as we flew over potholes and snow banks. On multiple occasions the driver was forced to stop, get out and check the goat was both still attached and still conscious after a particularly vicious jolt.

It is easy to see why, in the local dialect, the Pamir region is known as “the roof of the world.” The imposing mountains, icy valley, and barren outcrops would have left us breathless, if the altitude hadn’t already. We drove for over four hours through the mountains and I could literally count the markers of human existence on my right hand, the endless line of telegraph poles alongside the road our last true connection to humanity.

This said, it felt strange to see the village of Alichur materialize out of the snow and even stranger to step out of the car and into a warm stolovaya, leaving the goat shivering atop the car, icicles in its beard.

The Policeman, whose name I discovered later was Ayoz, placed two new cans of Jaguar on the plastic table; one for him, one for me. I examined them for clues. “Is it beer?” I asked. “No, it’s Jaguar,” came his unhelpful reply. Moods visibly lifted as our group sat together sharing tea, bread, fish, and noodles, the policeman and I occasionally tipping our cans toward each other solemnly as we knocked back our low-grade, miscellaneous spirits pre-mixed with energy drink.

Back in the 4×4 we miraculously found a new sense of compatriotism. What before had been just a car full of strangers now felt like a road trip for forgotten friends. The soldier and policeman sang duets in Pamiri while the Russian and I laughed and clapped along. As dusk approached it began to snow; large, heavy flakes which turned the world white in seconds. I thought about the goat stuck in the blizzard and how far we still had to travel before we arrived that night. “Jon?” the policeman’s voice caught me a little off-guard but I quickly accepted the proffered can of Jaguar with a smile. Ayoz flashed me a cheeky grin before swivelling back to turn the music up. Maybe it was just the Jaguar burning through my veins but the smile stuck on my face. The laughing strangers, the warm car and the loud Pamiri songs felt so right set against the world of snow, goats, and mountains.

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