Rajabgul Safarmurodova, a woman of Turkmen origin, is called “tractor’s aunt” by the residents of Nasir Khusrav district. The 72-year-old woman has more than 40 years of experience in driving a tractor, and even today she helps her children in plowing and preparing the land for planting.
Rajabgul Safarmurodova, together with her children, prepares the land for planting wheat in October. In this work, he is his son’s assistant. He says that he is currently working with an A-27 tractor.
Rajabgul Safarmurodova says that the head of his tractor has worked hard in cotton picking. He also has the experience of working on a “pharmaceutical tractor”. “Now I work less, my children help me. I have driven several types of tractors, three-wheelers and four-wheelers,” he says.
Rajabgul Safarmurodova grew up in Qubadian district and moved to this district in 1977 to plant new lands and reed fields. Since those times, her name has been unofficially called “Tractor’s aunt”. She admits that she had a hard way to reach this position, because many people did not accept the work of a woman at the head of a tractor.
He says that driving in the unbearable heat of the border region was not difficult, but the attitude of the people in the past years remained in his mind.
“I remember that once when I was young, women said that a woman should not be a tractor driver, they said that she is a slave, a woman should not do men’s work.”
Now it is not possible to verify the truth of this claim, but, according to Safarmurodova, despite the emotional suffering he suffered, he was supported by the collective farm and local administration in the district, and this also helped that “then people got used to it, respected me”.
Rajabgul Safarmurodova is now one of the famous farmers in the south of Tajikistan, and she teaches agricultural women in the region how to work and has been honored by public organizations. Now he and his work are presented as role models in campaigns and events.
He has his own opinion about the current working conditions of farmers. He says that every period has its own problems and reliefs, today “fuel is expensive, medicine is expensive, that’s why we suffer less and less, that’s why the harvest is not good, without medicine, we need money, now the work is more difficult.”
Despite the problem in the field of agriculture, which worries him, he is trying to increase the area of his land. Relying on her rich experience, Rajabgul Safarmurodova is confident that she can overcome difficulties.
Source : Радио Озоди