Even though it was our first night in tents, we slept like babies after an eventful day of travel. The sunlight made sure we were all up bright and early.
The campground owner, let’s call him MH1 for short, showed up during breakfast and became increasingly interested in us when he noticed us writing in our journals. At one point he asked us to say good things about him when we get home and began calling my wife “his sister”. We quizzed him about the school built nearby by the Central Asia Institute (CAI). He didn’t recognize the organization title, so we asked him if he had heard of anyone by the name of Greg Mortenson. MH1 immediately lit up and went on and on about the famous “Dr. Girig”. He told us a tale about how Greg was going to build a school for kids in Askole, but the town leader tried to swindle him… thus the plan was ruined. Judging by my own brief experience here, that story seemed entirely feasible.
MH2 points out the new structure and the old bridge supports
A porter, MH2, was assigned to guide us to the Korphe school so we could check the place out for ourselves. My wife knows Greg Mortenson from meeting him at a book signing and he had welcomed us to visit CAI institutions during our trip. We began walking down the same path that the kid took us on yesterday and carried on past the army camp. A few minutes later we descended down the slope a bit further to find ourselves at a suspension bridge. This bridge wasn’t the original built with Mortenson’s fundraising. MH2 explained that the old bridge was removed and the deck was shifted to a crossing downstream when this new vehicle bridge was constructed a few years back. The concrete supports for the 1st structure were left in place.
CAI Korphe School
We cut through a few fields and shuffled back up the slope on the opposite bank after crossing the river. The few hundred feet climb knocked the wind out of us, but we were rewarded with a close up view of the Korphe school. With cream colored walls and red trim, the building stood out like a sore thumb from the poorly kept homes nearby. Due to a Shia holiday there were no students present. Thankfully one of the teachers, MH3 was around and showed us inside the gates for a quick tour.
There were a handful of classrooms cluttered by desks and I enjoyed looking at the lessons scribbled out on the chalkboards and whiteboards… one board had a math problem about how much it would cost to buy so many items given a certain price of each. MH3 showed us to his desk after the short tour and asked someone to bring us tea. This gave us a good opportunity to have a lengthy conversation. Due to recent bad press surrounding Mortenson, we all had a few questions and were thankful for being able to meet in person. MH3 is the only teacher at this school who is paid by CAI, but there are several other teachers there who are either funded by other NGO’s or the Pakistan Government. We listened to how the original school’s foundation was poorly constructed meaning that they had to tear the 1st school down and rebuild everything. Now they have plans to add more classrooms later on this year. Our tea came while MH3 and a couple other residents in the room reminisced about Mortenson stumbling into their village with torn clothes and looking completely exhausted. They laugh about it now, but he was apparently in rough shape when he reached Korphe.
The road back to Askole
Soon the tea was finished and we thanked MH3 for his time and hospitality. Before taking off we gave him the 30 packs of colored pencils we brought for the young students. As we were walking home, MH2 pointed out the house that a German teacher was building for herself. According to him, she had came to the area on a hike and fell in love with her porter. They married and are now settling down together.
Gratefully most of the streets of Askole were empty when we rolled back into town. I was already tired of demands for sweeties and chip-chips. It was a good day, but we mostly focused our discussion on the upcoming adventure as we ate a light lunch back at camp.
Everyone was in good spirits despite the onset of cold symptoms among my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. I took a break from the chatter to catch up with journal entries inside my tent. A few minutes after I ducked my head inside, I looked up and our coordinator from Skardu was walking through camp. Apparently his flight to Pindi was cancelled and he was concerned enough about our situation to take the 12 hr round trip drive from Skardu to Askole and back. He called our guide and the camp-site owner over to set everything straight. We felt like we had everything settled yesterday, but it quickly became apparent that these clowns still had a few surprises up their grubby sleeves.
Despite having an agreement with us to go to Concordia and back in 12 days, the guide was already making plans to take 9 days to reach Concordia. Overall he would have extended our journey to at least 15 days. Kacho also used this meeting to mention increased fees for porters, which he was trying to claim were higher than the standard rate set by the Government. He was quickly ignored when MH1 mentioned that no porters had actually been arranged for yet… something else that Kacho had swore to god was already taken care of. MH1 agreed to take over the duty of rounding up enough porters for us, but said it would take some time and likely delay our departure to at least 9:30 tomorrow morning. The late start wasn’t how we wanted to begin our trek, but the sick party members could probably do with a little extra sleep. We thanked our coordinator and gave him a cup of tea before sending him off for the long drive to Skardu. We discussed our apprehensions about Kacho’s guide abilities throughout the moonlit evening before retiring for a good night’s rest. Tomorrow the real work would begin.
Evening at Askole camp
A Pure Trek 