Small businesses thrive in tourist hotspot SAMAA | Farahnaz Zahidi – Posted: Dec 24, 2021 | Last Updated: 5 days ago
A view from Villa Ayun.A view from Villa Ayun.
As the day starts for Bibi Rabia in Chitral’s Jughoor village, she calls out to her forty chickens for their morning feed. The brood’s eggs not only provide her family a protein-rich breakfast, but also make it possible for her to earn a living.
“I got her a few chickens to keep her busy. Zinda rehne ke liye insaan ko kuch maqsad to chahiye na,” says her son Shuja, who works in tourism in Chitral. Everyone needs a purpose to stay alive. Sixty-five-year-old Bibi Rabia survived breast cancer but after the chemotherapy, had grown depressed. But what started as a distraction has now become a livelihood.
The ethos of having work runs deep in this region. Shuja’s six sisters are all gainfully employed; one is a health worker, another a teacher, and the others run small handicraft businesses. This is nothing unique; Chitrali women are financially more empowered than those in the other parts of KP.
The assumption is that the more remote or difficult the terrain, the less empowered the women of the region. However, here in the jagged mountains of the Hindukush range a very different story is unfolding.
At a drive of less than an hour from Chitral town is Villa Ayun, a heritage home that has been turned into an eco-retreat. This was the brainchild of Maria Ul Mulk, a development practitioner, who is now managing the marketing and aesthetics of this family-owned mountain resort which she runs with her brother and mother. It is an open house for mountaineers, scholars, dignitaries or foreign tourists passing through Chitral on the Silk Route.
Converting it into an eco-resort was merely a logical progression. It was always a place that people wanted to visit, given the location, the imagination-defying views, and the background of the Ul Mulk family. The pandemic and resultant travel restrictions led to a surge in local tourism and Chitral was high on the list of must-see places. Social media helped draw people to this eco-retreat in particular.
“Our grandfather, Khush Ahmed Ul Mulk, was a renowned environmentalist whose ethos shaped the whole idea behind Villa Ayun—an eco-resort that now runs entirely on renewable energy, grows its own organic produce and where almost everything is farm-to-table,” says Maria. “I conceptualized setting up a retreat that is a blueprint for eco-tourism rather than being a cookie-cutter hotel.”
The family feared the erosion of the physical and cultural environment of Chitral at the hands of mass tourism as has been the fate of other tourist hotspots in Pakistan. “What was originally a fort built by my ancestors in the 1920s is Villa Ayun today,” says Maria. “Earthquakes and passing time caused structural damage to the fort, which was eventually brought down. But elaborate woodwork from the old fort was restored and used in our reconstructed ancestral home.” Thus its charm is the visible and deliberate preservation of heritage as well as an organic experience for the weary urban tourist who laps up the joys offered by organic vegetables and fruit from the nearby orchards, and honey farmed right there.
The Ul Mulk family has divided the work of running the six-room hotel. Maria’s brother Junaid Ul Mulk looks after business development and sales. A pivotal role is played by their mother Parveen who is in charge of operations. “My mother has always been the one who runs the state, managing farming tenancies and the works,” says Maria.
According to Masood Ul Mulk, Maria’s father and CEO of the Sarhad Rural Support Programme, an NGO working on poverty alleviation in North West Pakistan, working conditions for women have come a long way. “Some four decades ago when we needed female staff for SRSP, local women were not willing to do it due to conservative mindsets,” he says.
The NGO worked on women-centric interventions such as drinking water and electricity in previously deprived areas. “We have developed a localized systems of lending for small female entrepreneurs,” says Masood. Women get vocational training in their villages as they do not want to travel too far out. Shuja confirms this trend. “In villages, women have started setting up beauty salons and handicraft centres as well as gift and clothes shops at home. NGOs in the district have helped train them.”
In Masood’s opinion one reason why women are working to earn in Chitral is that the farmers generally have small pieces of land to call their own, so families cannot sustain themselves by relying on agriculture alone, and must find other sources of livelihood.
About three hours from Ayun is another establishment that is also run by women: the cosy Nan Café in Booni, Upper Chitral. To arrive here you need to travel back from Villa Ayun to Chitral and then about two hours further north.
“My mother is the lifeline of this eatery,” says Adnan Ali. “In Khowar language which we speak, Nan means mother. That is where we got this name.” His mother Shah Puri peeps in every few minutes from an aperture between the seating area and the kitchen where she and her female helpers prepare tray after tray of fresh steaming hot Shula, one of the most popular dishes in Chitrali cuisine made of rice and beef broth. Shah Puri hails from a small village called Ghoru Lasht, Parkusap. Some thirty years ago, she, her husband, and her four children migrated to Booni in search of a better livelihood.
Shah Puri’s journey begun when her husband was appointed a watchman and janitor for Pamir Public School, and College, and she was employed as a cook in the cafeteria. Their children were given a free education as a benefit of their employment. After 15 years of this job, the enterprising Shah Puri began working towards starting her own business. Her dream was to open a café for tea and snacks, and provide catering for events. With encouragement and support from her family, Shah Puri took the road less travelled, and eventually found donors who helped her open the cafe. Today, Nan Café is a favourite among locals and tourists, and on an average day it has a footfall of more than a hundred people. They also supply home delivery, take-away and catering.
Shah Puri’s husband helps her on his days off, as do her two sons Adnan and Tahir. As Adnan serves a platter of Cheera Shapik—a baked bread filled with thickened milk—he shares his mother’s success story. “Initially the community was surprised to see a woman running a restaurant. But now she has become a role model for local women, and more and more Chitrali women are now becoming empowered like my mother.”
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