He lives in the urban centre of Farkhor district together with his wife and six children. He tries to explain the mysteries of subsistence survival to the Red Crescent monitors who come to visit. We have relatives who live in Dushanbe and they help us sometimes. I also dismantled part of the roof to sell it for construction material. That is not a very common dream in present-day Tajikistan.
Teachers receive starvation wages and many decide to leave the profession.
Rather than teachers, most children would like to become businessmen. The literacy rate is on a steep decrease. All the pupils can attend the school even if they don't have shoes. Nurhonova has five small children herself. Her husband has been unemployed over the past nine years of marriage.