Afghan tailors race against the clock

Tailors work in a shop in Kabul. It is a boom time for the city's tailors, with many Afghans getting at least one new outfit for the three days of socialising that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Photo: AFP

Mobin Frough's eyes are red and bleary.
He and two other young men squeezed into his tiny shop in northern Kabul have been working at their sewing machines day and night to complete orders of clothes in time for the start of Eid al-Fitr this week.
"It's good business but it makes us very tired and very impatient," says the 24-year-old.
This is boom time for the city's tailors, with many Afghans getting at least one new outfit for the three days of socialising that mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Such is the demand, Frough's one-room shop opens at 8:00 am, and he and his team will work until three or four the next morning.
Tea and cigarettes keep them going, they joke. "I have worked as a tailor for 10 years, so I can do it," Frough says.
In a street market outside, women in blue burkas stand out in a crowd sifting through stalls of bright fake flowers, coloured bangles and plastic versions of gold and gem necklaces that go for 80 afghani (1.5 dollars).
These markets do brisk trade ahead of Eid, along with cookie makers, dried fruit sellers and boutiques of expensive Turkish and Iranian fashions that are startlingly revealing in conservative Afghanistan.
But it is the tailors that put in the hours, working well into the wee hours in rooms of fluorescent light, standing out like beacons in dark and empty streets.
Aisha, 40, says she has had four punjabi suits -- Indian-style long tops and loose trousers -- made this year. An olive one is for the most important occasion, morning prayers on the first day of Eid.
Covered in black with only her face and hands bare, she says she has spent less then 48 dollars.
"Some women will spend 100 dollars, some make six outfits and then everywhere they go they will change," she says in a courtyard where boys at machines sew on buttons and finish seams, coils of zips and bias binding hanging above them.
"This is the time we have to work hard to make money," says Safar Mohammad, 22, a tailor since he was 10.
A measuring tape around his neck, Mohammad stands at a sewing machine that is hand-operated. Electricity is irregular, sometimes just a few hours a day.
On a tall workbench an iron for pressing seams rests on a gas flame; about 20 plastic bags holding completed piran tunban -- men's long shirts and baggy trousers -- hang from nails in a line from the ceiling.
Mohammad says his small business has made about 100 of the outfits this Eid. Last year they made about 60. In ordinary weeks, they make seven to eight.
His monthly income at Eid is about five times that of the rest of the year, although New Year in March is another good time for tailors.
He and his team also work almost around the clock, snatching a few hours of sleep in the early morning.
"For me it is boring," he says. "If I could find another job, I would do it."
Across town, Habibullah Walizada has a larger operation in a wealthier area close to parliament and about half of his Eid customers have chosen Western-style jackets and trousers over traditional wear.
In his workroom electric sewing machines and irons are plugged into a web of cables that run across the ceiling to a generator chugging outside.
"The orders are really high and they want them on time, so we have to work really hard," Walizada says while his staff of 20 men take a break before the graveyard shift.
"For 20 days it's not too bad. It is hard but we have to."
But running a business in Afghanistan presents a myriad of problems, says the 31-year-old, who returned six years ago from exile in Iran.
Just months back, material and other items worth 9,000 dollars were stolen from another of his shops. He believes the police may have been involved -- a common suspicion in Afghanistan.
"But I can't say anything because if I do, I could go to jail and would have to pay to get out," he says.
Then there was the government official who wanted 300 afghani to overlook an expired business licence. He refused and paid a fine of half that sum.
His generator costs a fortune to run, rent is high and he sees no benefit from the tax he pays the government. In a good month, he makes just 300 dollars.
Walizada is thinking about leaving again. "I know that living as a refugee is difficult but here I have so many problems, it is making me depressed."