But, one thing I know, those kids are still there, in the back country of Northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, and their faces haunt me. Their parent's faces, too. My Pakistani and Kashmiri friends and I stay in touch. I love that place, and my earnestness about our project will not seep out or be wrenched away.
]]> Thanks to Charles Cusack and Karl Mandry for their steady support of our organization over the past year. These are two good hearted, generous guys and I hope they know what their support has meant to the children. Thanks guys.We are a 501c3 non-profit organization now. That was a long-time coming, a nightmare of paper-pushing. But, interesting that the application went through with no knocks on the door by any curious governmental agencies...in truth, the government has never hasseled me about my Pakistani connections.
Great news: Kashmir Family Aid has hired a local man, Chris Stollar, to take over boots-on-the-ground management and fund raising. He begins full-time on May 1st, just after Linda and I return to Bend (we're in So. California now). It is essential that Chris tours the schools we support, so we'll be flying there in May or June for a couple or three weeks (presuming the politics-of-the-moment permit travel). Thanks Chris! And welcome!
-sam c
On another front, my new book Work the System comes out at the end of the year. Linda and I travel to NYC on Monday to begin publicity efforts. A good chunck of the proceeds from the book will go to the schools in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir.
-sc
I asked our friend in Lahore, Ahsan Rashid, to describe the rug. By email, he responded:
“Sam ! The size is 6x9, the quality is 18x18 that is =324 knots per square inch. All pure New Zealand worsted wool. Each motive, flower and petal is in order. All branches are in order, if you see one flower the other is the same on the other side. Made in 365 calendar days from Dawn to Dusk.”
Email me if you are interested. samc@centratel.com
-sam carpenter
A Bad Husband?
It’s mid September, 2006, and in the first week of October I will return to Pakistan occupied Kashmir (known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir or AJK). I’ve raised money for the victims of the October 8, 2005 earthquake and at last the Pakistani/Kashmiri political climate has calmed down enough so I can go there to distribute it.
One of the tenets of our non-profit organization, Kashmir Family Aid, is that we will make sure donations are given to deserving people and we can only be sure that will happen if I am the one to personally hand them out. This means my efforts are hands-on, with regular trips half way around the world.
But this time something grips me as I prepare to pay for my airfare and I tell my wife Linda there is something on my mind and I want to lay it out for her in a non-emotional, straight-forward way, without sounding like I have something to sell. I am thinking she should consider accompanying me. As usual, Kashmir Family Aid will pay none of the travel costs: I will pay all expenses, airfare and otherwise, out of my own pocket. We will leave in two weeks. I tell her we would be in Muzaffarabad, the capital of AJK and the epicenter of the quake, for the one year anniversary ceremonies on October 8th. President Musharraf will speak. Then we would spend a week in the area personally distributing the $20,000 I had raised*. The money would go to widows, destitute women and school teachers in Muzaffarabad and in remote areas of the region. I tell her I don't expect her to go but feel I should at least give her the option. Does she want to talk about the idea? She says, maybe. And then I ask myself: If she decides to go due to my encouragement, does that make me a bad husband, a husband too cavalier about the welfare of his wife?
Beyond the Hell of the quake’s immediate devastation and the wicked aftershocks, Azad Kashmir is 100% Muslim and for a westerner of Judeo-Christian descent, a powerful argument could be made that it is not a good place to visit. There are Jihad training camps throughout the region. There is the Pakistan/India border dispute; what Bill Clinton called the most dangerous border conflict in the world. Pakistan, India and China are all involved and each is a nuclear power. Stories of male dominance and female subservience emanate from that side of the world, twelve time zones removed from America’s west coast. By any gauge, Pakistan and AJK are not tourist destinations for westerners. Linda knows this. She's watched me travel there and return and she's seen the emotional throes that I've gone through as I deal with all of that.
But I tell her it is the opportunity of a lifetime and if she goes there she will never be the same. With a neutral demeanor, I say that, yes, there are risks but that I will be there with her and there will be my Pakistani and Kashmiri friends who will watch over us. And, the upside: she should know that there are women in Kashmir whom we will help who have never laid eyes on a western woman; that there will be silent yet powerful woman-to-woman bonds made with these women, despite the cultural and language barriers. And I tell her the children will do nothing less than steal your heart. Trust me, I tell her.
I’ve been to Pakistan five times and to AJK twice and feel comfortable there. But Linda had never been to a third world country, much less a Muslim country that is an intimate player in the War on Terror.
At my proposal and despite my representations, her first reaction was a predictable trepidation. Her misgivings about going there were understandable as she daily tracks the predominantly negative media and, like most of us, she seriously considers the one-on-one viewpoints of friends and family (all of whom were aghast). But she knows most Americans fumble at even finding Pakistan and AJK on a world map and therefore they couldn’t possibly accurately relay the on-the-ground reality of these places. So, after emotionally wavering back and forth, she courageously over-rode the veto of friends and family and on October 4th found herself beside me on a 747 headed to Taipei, to Bangkok and then to Lahore, Pakistan. We would be gone for 14 days and in that time would spend several days deep in the heart of rural AJK, in places where no westerners had ever been before.
In my own defense as a good husband, and notwithstanding my low-key sales pitch, it was Linda’s decision to go. I never goaded her.
Enduring Planet Earth’s Maximum Possible Jet Lag.
It has been 36 hours of travel over twelve time zones – we’re literally on the other side of the world – and my wealthy Pakistani friends Ahsan and Mina are waiting for us at the chaotic Lahore airport. It’s the middle of the night here (and the middle of the day in Oregon) and in our travel-stupor they whisk us off to the spacious home of Ahsan’s sister Rizwana who will host our stay while in Lahore. This is where I stayed on my last trip and Rizwana and I are fast friends. I am anxious for her to meet Linda and know they will like each other and it’s my guess they will become fast friends also. Rizwana is Muslim as are Ahsan and Mina. Everyone here is Muslim.
The jet lag will be profound and will hit hard in another 24 hours but for tonight our minds buzz.
That night we restlessly slept for a few hours as our bodies struggled to adjust. We sat up in bed at 3am and talked, amusing ourselves with the thought that if we were to point in the direction of our Bend, Oregon home, our fingers would not be pointed east or west but rather, straight down through the middle of the bed.
The house has a half dozen servants and our early morning breakfast and tea is perfect, served to us, literally, on a silver platter. The tea of Pakistan is unmatched anywhere, in contrast to the coffee which is the worst I have ever endured. In the mornings here, it will be tea…
We knew that the worst of the jet lag would be days two through six and we’d be stupid, grouchy, flaky. Our hosts understood our detached demeanors as we settled in for a day of rest at their huge house, gated and guarded from the third world street chaos that churned outside. Later in the morning we would venture out. There was shopping that must be done before the long trip into AJK.
Dressing the Part
It is mid-day on this first day in third world Pakistan and the streets of Lahore are semi-controlled mayhem. There are beggars everywhere; the air pollution is thick. The traffic is insane and as we plunge through the city in Ahsan’s tiny Chinese car we spot the obligatory “Death to Israel” and “Hate America” graffiti. Linda is dressed in western garb and in or out of the car, there is no male who can take his eyes off her. The depression of the jet lag is encroaching and Linda is not amused.
In contrast to the hit and run political graffiti, as guests, Linda and I were treated like gold as we prepared for our trip into Muzaffarabad scheduled for day two. Linda bought fabric and had three Shalwar Kameez tailor-made on the spot. The Shawar Kameez is the traditional Pakistani woman’s cotton three piece dress ware and not wearing it is an invitation for stares if not outright disapproval. She immediately donned one of the modest outfits and the male attention decreased instantly. My garb stayed western, as a male it was not big deal in this westernizing city, but I had two sets of male Shalwar Kameez ready to go for the next day’s trip to rural Azad Kashmir. In the backcountry, the shalwar kameeze would be mandatory if I didn’t want to stand out as a clown, or worse.
So we spent one day in Lahore and headed north to AJK the next day in the first throws of intense physical and metal jet lag. The first step was a one hour flight to Islamabad on Pakistani Airways and, the second step, a tortuous, nail-biting four hour auto-quest through the mountains.
The Quake Zone: November 2005
My first visit to Azad Kashmir was eleven months before, just after the October 8th quake when I heard about it, tied up loose ends at home and jumped on a plane. I went solo. For three weeks I lived in the middle of it all, at the epicenter in Muzaffarabad. There was the rubble of collapsed buildings everywhere; survivors dumfounded, hungry and cold with no where to live; the city a caldron of chaos. Wild eyes betrayed an indelible, hard-wired intimacy with the indescribable violence of the quake; their shell-shock compounded by the death of loved ones, many still buried in the rubble all around. In the quake zone, nearly everyone lost someone close yet no one had the time or resources to mourn the dead as the immediate aftermath included five nights with no electricity, masses of people huddled in the streets, away from still collapsing buildings. For those who still lived it was pitch blackness and cold rain, out in the open, with no food or water.
An estimated 80,000 lost their lives throughout the 30,000 square mile affected area of Northern Pakistan, AJK and India, with twice that many seriously injured to the point of amputation and permanent paralysis. Four million people were left homeless.
The horrific 7.6 magnitude quake struck at 8:52am on a Saturday, a school day, and an out-of-proportion percentage of the fatalities were school children who had just settled into their desks. The construction of walls of the schools and homes was with non-reinforced mortar and stone. They crumbled instantly. The one-foot thick concrete roofs were reinforced though, and in slabs, they came straight down.
1,600 schools were completely destroyed. 500 were partially damaged.
So many of the school age survivors, emotional traumatized, were labeled “affected children,” as they walked about dazed and silent. There was emptiness in their eyes. How could the earth below them gyrate so madly? Would another quake come tonight or tomorrow? Nearly all of them lost close family members and too many of them were now orphans.
Alone, I prowled the streets of Muzaffarabad for three weeks, at night staying with my new-found Kashmiri friends in a house in a section of the city that was less wrecked. There were cracks in the walls but the house was still standing. I was the only westerner on the streets – the rest holed up in their armed-guarded NGO enclaves, treating the wounded, helping rebuild a physical and social infrastructure that would provide shelter, food and water. For the Kashmiris on the street, the consensus was that the outside world performed a magnificent job, and the United States was in the forefront of it all. From Mash units to Chinook helicopters to bulldozers to engineering expertise to emergency food and water deliveries, things were being handled. I saw this and was proud to be an American.
I hired a driver and we traveled in his Land Rover over remote roads to Balacot in the Northwest Frontier Provence. The devastation here was worse than in Muzaffarabad, the crowning horror, a collapsed school with 250 elementary students still inside, yet to be recovered and buried. The Pakistani army had just begun this chore, digging in underneath one end of the long, narrow building’s perfectly preserved roof, the concrete slab over 200 feet long and 40 feet wide, inches from the ground, everything underneath crushed. Not one child survived.
As an amateur journalist, I wrote ten articles in those three weeks, each published in Pakistani newspapers. It that time I also came up with the idea of a permanent non-profit organization, dedicated to assisting the children and woman survivors of the quake. It would be called Kashmir Family Aid and it would strictly focus on this region that would be recovering for generations. The added twist was that this is the center of Islamic jihad; the training camps for the other side’s legions of soldiers Hell-bent on eliminating western ways if not the west altogether.
In mid December I returned to my home in Bend, Oregon, set some goals, created a website, and raised $20,000 by making Power Point slide presentations and hounding my friends and colleagues for donations. My trip back to AJK to distribute the money had been delayed repeatedly by the serial political unrest of Pakistan and the Muslim world….the Cartoon Riots, The killing of the number two Al Qaeda man by the American military within Pakistan, the Mumbai bombings, the Pope’s thoughts about the prophet Mohammad… Now, finally, in September of 2006 it was time to go back.
And this time Linda would go back there with me. My guess was that her strong German comportment would see her through. My Pakistani and Kashmiri friends and I would be there every moment.
The Waste of Energy that is Ranting
There is a conundrum that is important to begin talk about now, before continuing (and I will put the pieces of this puzzle together at the end of this essay). This point has to do with the war on terror which is the twisted outcome of strangers who mistrust each for no other reason than they haven’t met yet. It goes beyond simply helping strangers in need. It’s an opportunity for any one person to accomplish something tangible and meaningful in this struggle between East and West: No longer must one stand by as an impotent critic of the way governments are handling things.
Metaphorically speaking, one can stop waving their hands in the air in frustration, bring them down, and start using them to accomplish something meaningful. There really is something on a personal level that can be done to stop the killing.
Most of us think a change in how our government operates will win the war on terror. What other options do we have except to believe that those in power will solve these problems? But deep inside, as each of us watches world events unfold, most of us doubt that and an enormous majority of westerners feel helpless and powerless to make things better; to end the killing. So, the crux of our deep personal frustration and anger is that we want to make things better but there is nothing we can do except complain and turn bitter. In the long term, political leadership changes will make little difference: half our population sees things one way and the other half sees things differently and the fundamental ideological struggle will continue. It’s a stalemate and right now, about that, Islamic terrorists don’t care one way or the other. They have come after us in the past and they will continue to come after us at every opportunity they can take. Isn’t it true that the root cure for this will be changes in individual perceptions? Yes, it will take a long time to accomplish this but the process won’t happen at all if it doesn’t start somewhere. Later is better than never.
The governments of our world finger-point. They blame and they make excuses and sometimes they are stupid and other times they do brilliant work and they are selfless (how can one measure the catastrophes that have not happened due to top-level intrigues?) Militaries make offensive moves and they make defensive moves. And, regarding all that, in our everyday real worlds, what does it really matter what any of us thinks of George Bush, or of Bill and/or Hillary Clinton? Or of Kim Jong Il or Sadam Hussain or what goes on in Guantanamo or in Iraq or in Afghanistan? And, again, if we do take all this personally, what really can we do about any of it? Is there some way any individual can affect an outcome by ranting and raving about the other side?
Yes, we can pay our taxes and yes that money goes to various necessary places including funding the military and in supporting our schools, the roads, the police. But at the risk of oversimplification, and speaking of our most pressing problem – the war on terror and the struggle for understanding between East and West – complaining and voting every couple of years won’t make all that much difference. The reason is because of simple misunderstanding between cultures.
If understanding among the masses could happen, the extremists on both sides would be suppressed. The masses would see to that.
Carry this with you as you read on: Linda and spent one week in the middle of Azad Kashmir, a 100% Muslim population in which 99% have never before spoken to a westerner. In that week, it is my estimate that we directly or indirectly affected a minimum of 10, 000 people virtually all of whom had a previously inaccurate view of who we are as westerners. We delivered a message of peace and caring without asking anything in return. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Take a chance here. Read on and consider a new approach; one that will make a difference. Consider energy expenditure in a way that makes a difference and a way that gives personal satisfaction rather than anger and frustration. For any one of us taking action here, it’s a matter of geometric progression; a bit of positive effort causing a huge positive impact. No more ranting or defending a defenseless position. No more sticking heads in the sand. No more impotence. What I am proposing is tangible and has guts. It’s a grass roots something-you-can-do with enormous and immediate positive affects. This is about your personal assistance in improving East-West relations as well as helping real people in need. Linda and I know it can be done. We just accomplished it and it wasn’t that difficult. For us, there will be no more ranting. How about you?
October 7, 2006: Reentering Muzaffarabad
It is time to head for AJK. We travel north and at the Islamabad airport, my Muzaffarabad contact, Khizar Abbasi, is at the gate waiting. A good man, Khizar, I am paying him a small monthly salary to carefully select the people who will receive aid from our organization. Previously a correspondent for the Pakistani Geo TV network, and therefore an investigator at heart – perfect for this job – Khizar and his family are also victims of the quake, in need of aid themselves. We have a driver and a Land Rover and the four of us head for Muzaffarabad.
After the torturous four hour drive up and over a 6,000 foot pass and along the rampaging Jellum River, the snaking, narrow road filled with cars, trucks, motorbikes, donkey carts and pedestrians, we enter Muzaffarabad, the capital city of Azad Kashmir. Linda and I are emotional and physical wrecks, the fatigue of the day’s travel compounded by the excruciating jet lag which had finally descended upon us in full force.
The city’s devastation of one year before is still in-your-face evident despite the cleanup that has removed 70% of the rubble that used to be homes and schools.. There are hoards of people everywhere but in contrast to my previous visit just after the quake, the eyes of these people are not wild and glassy but are focused and deliberate. There is commerce again, with stalls and their vendors everywhere. The winding street, through the middle of this bustling wreck of a city, sometimes with the non-barricaded shoulders abruptly falling away into the river below, is jam packed with every conceivable mode of conveyance, all careening at top speed, the shalwar kameezed pedestrians dodging and weaving through the traffic. The buildings that remain cram themselves up against the narrow street, cracked and shattered but inhabited nonetheless. It’s a madhouse and that invisible third-world buzz is pervasive and tangible. Despite the devastation and chaos, and our own travel-weariness, we feel the sheer energy emanating from everywhere. Life goes on; the human condition is a miraculous thing. We smile.
We spent that first night in the home of Noreen Arif and her husband Dr. Raja Muhammad Arif, both Assembly members of the AJK government. Mrs. Arif is the first elected woman in the Parliament. Her daughter is married to the former Prime Minister’s son. These are important people and it is an honor to stay with them in their guest room.
That night we slept fitfully at first but then talked through much of the night knowing that October 8th was upon us, the one-year anniversary of the quake. Khizar and the driver arrived early and we drove across town to where the university used to stand, now an empty, dusty field covered with an enormous closed tent filled with thousands of Pakistanis and Kashmiris. President Musharraf would speak. There were machine-gunned guards everywhere, awaiting the arrival of his helicopter. At first, the military officials denied our admittance as our paperwork was not to their liking but Khizar pulled strings and we got in at the last minute, sitting in the press section near the stage. We were the only westerners there.
The preliminaries included the mostly male hoard’s raucous chants of “Pahk-ee-Stan! Pahk-ee-stan! Pahk-ee-stahn!” Over and over the testosterone-propelled incantation continued, a multitude of fists repeatedly jammed into the air in passionate, perfect unison.
Musharraf arrived. He sat on the stage western-bespectacled in aviator sunglasses, just days returned from his Washington visit with President Bush and Afghanistan President Karsai. He spoke in Urdu and we understood none of it. We got the point though and at 8:52am there was silence as the exact moment of the quake was acknowledged, the people who died remembered.
Tent Camps
Day two in Muzaffarabad. By foot, we tentatively trace our way through a tent camp, one of many within the city. The tent camps hold 40,000 Kashmiris and Pakistanis who have no other place to live. The tents are old, beaten and rotted by last winter’s snowfall and baked in the recent summer’s torturous heat. Avoiding tripping over the tent pegs and stepping in the filth Linda, Khizar and I poke through the mud among the tents. Children hover all around, curious and hoping for a chocolate handout. The adults watch passively, not knowing and probably not caring why we are there. It is Linda’s first experience with the worst of it all.
Immediately after the quake one year ago, their homes flattened in their small remote villages high in the surrounding hills and mountains, these people retreated to the relatively low elevation Muzaffarabad and the center of quake relief efforts. They lost everything and have had no resources to go back to their villages to rebuild. In the worst cases their homes and small plots of land are gone altogether, swept away or swallowed up by the quake. The people who did not own their land – renters – are the ultimate casualties, receiving no stipend whatsoever from the government. The 6-12 member families are facing their second winter in their donated 144 square foot tents. Most of the original tent dwellers have returned to their villages to rebuild their lives but these 40,000 remain.
Students
Scores of tents and giant culvert sections are the classrooms of the largest public school in Muzaffarabad. It has 900 students. The students sit there in the heat, with their uniforms and their formal demeanors. One after the other we enter their classrooms and every time the students stand and in unison and welcome us with a perfectly synchronized “Good morning!” or “Welcome to our school!” In some cases welcome posters have been made, proudly hung on the sides of the tent walls. Classroom after classroom, from first grade through tenth grade, as we enter the children stand there in rigid formation, cautious smiles on their faces, delighted to shake hands and to chat in their tentative English, the historical British influence powerfully evident in their all-for-one, one-for-all formality. They are delighted at our presence. We ask them to sit and we thank them for welcoming us. Some ask questions; others are too frozen with nervousness to utter a word. At recess they swarm about us, the girls enclosing Linda to touch her; to ask questions; to garner some small bit of attention. The boys surround me, testing their firm handshakes and asking about America. It’s a madhouse, really, the children beside themselves with glee at finally meeting a westerner and, of all things, westerners from America.
In several of the dozens of classes we had entered, I asked the older students if they had ever talked to a westerner and, in all those classes, only one student said he had: He had met two, in fact, a German and a Russian. None of the hundreds of students we met had ever met an American.
There are two toilets for the 900 students.
On this October day the tents and culverts are piping hot. Soon, freezing weather will encroach and the students will continue to sit there in plastic chairs – or on the ground for lack of chairs – and attempt of focus on their studies. There is no playground or athletic field: It has been the United Nations compound for the last year.
Most of these children have lost a parent or brother or sister in the quake. A large percentage are orphans.The curriculums of these schools vary with a wide distinction between public/private schools and Madrassas. The private schools, maybe 40% of the total, have always taught English from the first grade. The public schools, the schools in which the less affluent attend, have traditionally taught English beginning in the 6th grade. President Musharraf changed that in the past year and public schools now teach English beginning in the first grade too. Madrassas teach no English, no math and no science but focus only on Islamic teachings. Many Madrassas are financed by Saudi Arabia and some of these schools are the incubators of jihad.
Back Pay to Teachers
The private school that intrigues us is under construction with over 200 children being taught in the partially completed class rooms. There are workers all around us. The construction is of light steel framing and corrugated CGI panels with light foam board insulation inside the panels to ward off the winter cold and the summer heat. With eight of the projected sixteen classrooms constructed, the Administrator, Tanveed, tells us construction will stop the next day as his supporting foundation has run out of money. The school teaches children ages 5 through 14. For their assembly, they stand there in straight lines in their perfectly clean uniforms, avoiding stepping in the mud holes at their feet. Tanveed tells us of his plans for future construction and it immediately strikes us that at a building cost of $6.00 per square foot, this is a project that we could take on with a single corporate sponsor back in the United States. However, there is a more immediate problem: Tanveed tells us that his 13 teachers, all but one female, have not been paid for two months. Tanveed’s wife, the school Principal, reminds us that Eid, the end of Ramadon and the ultimate Muslim celebration of the year, is coming within two weeks and the teachers have no money to buy new shoes or clothes for their children. For these teachers and their families the celebration will be humiliating and sad.
That night we ate dinner at the Tanveed’s rented house, his wife serving the food. He tells us his salary is 10,000 Rupees per month which is $165 in U.S. funds. His teachers earn half that, or less. We talked. His politics were up-front, a passionate tirade for moderation instead of radicalism. It’s a dangerous stance for a person in his position.
The next morning and at our request, Tanveed gave us a written priority list of immediate cost concerns, with teacher’s back pay the number one priority. That was exactly what we wanted to see – his teachers at the top of the priority list – so later that day we contacted him and told him we would pay the back pay, in cash, in a group meeting.
In one of the small newly constructed rooms we explain to the cluster of teachers that we want their students to have what we in the West want for our students: the ability to think for themselves and to learn to tolerate people who are different. That’s it, we tell them. That’s all we want.
And we offer an option but only if they think it is something that would be good. We can return to equip their school with computers so the students can correspond with American school children at Highland Elementary school in our home of Bend, Oregon. We are surprised at their enthusiasm: They are beside themselves with joy at that prospect and so we tell them of Susie Lucas, the teacher at Highland who already organized her students to raise money – almost 500,000 Rupees (over $2,800 in U.S. dollars) to help the children of AJK. We explain that the money these American children raised is the money we just gave them to cover their back wages.
We told them again: We want nothing in return. The teachers, so happy, walked away from the meeting with a slightly perplexed view of these strange westerners. Why did these people form America do this? Could it be that they do this because they just want us to be OK; that they just want our children to be OK? That’s it? Nothing more?
Back Country AJK: Widows and Destitute Women
Day three, we travel south by Land Rover, the non-English speaking driver, Linda, Khizar and me. An hour south of Muzaffarabad, along the gushing Jellum River, we head uphill into the backcountry. Off the pavement now we gyrate up a steep jagged rocked jeep trail. Up and up we poke our way until we reach a small home, high above the river. The vastness of the valley below, across and above us is profound. We are in AJK but across the river, facing us, is Pakistan.
It’s steep country everywhere, rising thousands and thousands of feet above us on both sides. and everywhere we look homes perch precariously. With plenty of space between them, thousands of homes are scattered across the expanse, each housing the typical Muslim family of six to twelve. Many homes were crushed to rubble but most still remain, offering some degree of inhabitability . Eighty five percent of the 3.2 million citizens of AJK live in homes like these, spread across enormous rolling ridges measuring 60 kilometers east and west and several hundred kilometers north and south.
We exit the Land Cruiser and dwarfed by the vastness surrounding us, we walk silently up to the house. Linda and I are emotionally swallowed up by the enormity of all this, these foothills of the Himalaya-Karakoram mountains that lie just 80 kilometers to the east; the carefully placed homes that stretch endlessly in every direction, back and forth, up and down. We meet the owner of the house and are served tea despite the Ramadon fasting that stretches from 5am through 6pm each day.
Eight widowed and destitute women have gathered below the main house, 100 yards distant in a small courtyard just outside a series of small shacks. They are waiting for us. They know we have come to help them.
One at a time, Linda passed the money out to each woman. We took photos so we could take back evidence of what we’ve done to help us raise even more money for a return trip early in early 2007. One by one, the women smiled their gratitude at the 10,000 Rupees placed in their hands, in most cases a year’s income. Each embraced Linda, not in the usual western tentative pat-on-the-back way, but in an enduring I-don’t-want-to-let-go clutch.
Unable to read or write, each woman signed an X or inked a thumbprint in Khizar’s record book. We took a group photo. None of these women spoke English but Khizar translated into their native Urdu that Linda and I want them to know that we are from America and that our American friends want them to have this money so they will have some relief from the pain. Khizar tells them that none of the Americans who gave them this money expects anything in return.
They were not in shock about receiving these gifts as selfless giving to their families and their neighbors is something each of them has done all their lives. But this was their first encounter with westerners and it is my guess that in those moments, any second hand negative concepts they might have had about Americans evaporated absolutely. We helped over fifty women in total, a microscopic fraction of the tens of thousands of widows and destitute woman who live in those mountains.
Back to Lahore
Linda would return to Lahore that evening. So, descending from the back country, and already part-way back to Islamabad, we re-negotiated the remainder of the wild road back to the airport. Then, with Linda safely airborne for the 35minute flight to Lahore, we headed back to Muzaffarabad, arriving in the wee hours, our heads throbbing with the roller coaster ride and way too much tea. I remained in Muzaffarabad for three more days, to continue to pass donated money out to widows and destitute women, and to visit three more schools, two in Muzaffarabad and one in the far reaches of another rural area.
In those last days I fasted. In fasting, I felt more a part of things; less of a westerner and more of a Kashmiri. Each day we woke at 4:00am and Khizar’s wife, Nasreen, fixed us Chapati with eggs or lamb stew. Then, as the chanted prayers from the mosques began just before 5:00am, signifying the beginning of the day’s fast and the emergence of dawn, Khizar would go back to bed while I would roam the city streets.
Four days later I return to Lahore. That night, Linda and I talk and we discuss the reality of things: The enormity of the problems within the quake-devastated Azad Jammu Kashmir. I had spent time in the region before , and it is gratifying to hear Linda’s thoughts which echo what has been inside me for all these months. Our sentiments are shared exactly: Going inside and witnessing the reality first-hand is a slap-in-the-face realization that these are flesh and blood people ,real people who have fears and hopes and dreams. They have families whom they love. They have beliefs which they are passionate about. And, their lack of interest in east-west politics is in contrast to their desire for peace within their families and their communities. They want to live and they want their children to be OK and they want their family names to be passed on to future generations as their own names were passed on to them. Most of all, they want the here and now to be safe; for the fear and hunger to go away.
One could look at the enormity of the problems and ask if we had done was something less than a drop in the bucket. Or, we could consider the fifty women whom we helped and ask each of them if we had made an impact on their lives. To those women, would it have mattered if we had not appeared at all? And we talked to hundreds of students in dozens of classrooms. We told the students of our intentions about raising more money and coming back to help some more, later. We asked them about their hopes and fears. Linda and I talked to hundreds of students, and dozens of teachers, most of whom had never encountered Americans. Did we make a difference?
Something Much More Than the Usual Charitable Contribution
Here it is: The people of Azad Kashmir need help. They are not getting much from the West right now. The earthquake rubble is nearly cleared, the UN compound is being dismantled, the Chinooks are gone but the poverty and the tents-as-homes and the tent schools remain. Yes, it’s true that we want to reawaken westerners to the need that is still there. And, yes, Kashmir Family Aid is seeking donations. Yet there is much more to all this and it extends into your own life and the life of your family. It’s about nothing less than the war on terror and the struggle of cultures and the huge impact you can have in fixing things. In our self-absorbed western lives, ranting and even voting go just so far.
Here is something real and tangible you can do – in Pakistan and Kashmir – deep inside the heart of jihad, the center of the universe for the training of terrorism. Linda and I did it, and – directly or indirectly – so can you. It is where we must go if we are to make connections with the moderate people who can ultimately stop extremism.
What is evident if one travels to the region (and this is possible through Kashmir Family Aid) is that the people of the region know nothing first hand of Americans. They are aware that we helped during the immediate aftermath of the earthquake crisis but they also know that those same Americans and the Europeans went home. In any case, very, very few – I’d say less than one percent – have ever met a westerner. And, how many Kashmiri’s or Pakistani’s do you know? Another question, will the long-term solution to the War on Terror be by governments and guns and politics and ideology or will it be by finding common ground: by simple one-on-one understanding between the individual people of the two cultures?
In the long-term it’s going to be common one-on-one understanding that solves the problem and to illustrate, understand that Linda and I directly communicated with at least 1,000 people in our one week in Azad Kashmir. And those 1,000 people have families and friends and it’s my bet that all told, we had a positive impact on 10,000 Kashmiris and Pakistanis. First hand or second hand, each knows we gave and then asked for nothing; That we Americans are real flesh and blood people who hurt and laugh and fight and love in the same way that they do. THIS is where the war on terror is won. Not in the Madrassas and not in the bombings and not in the politics. It’s in the classrooms and in the homes.
So, our focus is twofold: First, in assisting private and public school teachers and their students, especially girls. And second, we want to help relieve the desperation of widows and destitute women, so often neglected within the culture.
Linda will tell you that her first days in the earthquake region were full of tears at the apparent futility of it all. Ask her now and she will tell you that the people that we met have names and faces – and we met lots of people – and, beyond the donations that we made, what we did was significant in changing perceptions. We want to do more of it, as soon as possible.
So this is about much more than helping people in need. This is about connecting individuals and then, by multiplicity and consistency, connecting cultures.
The people on the ground – both in the East and in the West – will ultimately settle things and, if you want to be, you can be in the middle of it all.
*special thanks to various Bend Mt. Bachelor Rotary Club members for $10,000 of this sum...
Here is how we operate:
Operational guidelines for our organization are aimed at providing assistance to quake affected schools of Azad Jammu Kashmir and Pakistan’s Northern Frontier Province. Our goals/principles:
1. Promotion of education for primary and secondary age children, particularly girls.
2. No political or religious agendas.
3. Transparency in contribution disbursement
4. It is our aim that 90% of contributions go directly to the schools affected by the October 8, 2005 earthquake. 10% of contributions will be used for administrative purposes. The founder of the organization will make up the difference.
5. There are three options for helping: The first is for those who want to support a specific children's school over an extended period of time. The second is for those who want to make a one-time contribution. The third is for those who wish to travel to the Pakistan/Kashmir region to physically assist (our first "work party" will be in June 2007)
(Note, we are a 501c3 non-profit coporation (as of October 2007)em>
Please send your contribution to:
Kashmir Family Aid
141 NW Greenwood, Suite 200
Bend, Oregon 97701 USA
Tele: 541-385-1970
From Sam Carpenter's Blog journal dated 12/12/2005:
I write this as I prepare to fly home to the USA, Mid-December 2005. I have been in the quake zone for the better part of four weeks only leaving the area to come here to Islamabad to post these Blog dispatches and make submissions to Pakistani newspapers (the U.S. Media has little interest: out of sight; out of mind). One thing I have accomplished is to lay the groundwork with Pakistani and Kashmiri government officials and a particular Pakistani non-profit organization to enable westerners to come over to work. This place is not your average tourist destination so it's been interesting. Wild places; wild times. Absolute destruction. People in desperate need of help. This is like nothing you have ever seen.
Before you read on, know that our primary focus is the children who remain alive in the quake zone. A huge number of their brothers and sisters were killed here. The earthquake of October 8, 2005 came just before 9:00am as schools had their kids settled in for the day, at their desks. 1,600 schools were completely collapsed; typically their ten inch thick concrete roofs fell straight down on the children. Last week I looked down across the river at a school in Balakot that still had 250 children buried in the rubble. Pakistani soldiers were in the beginning stages of digging them out.
But, there are children still alive and well here in Northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. We can help them by helping their families. There are destitute women here, too, and they need our help.
If you come here you will be treated with deference and more than that, you will think you are royalty. From the top of the government to the poorest family, you will be welcomed here by all. If you are looking for adventure, want to "do some good," and are willing to make a contribution to either our foundation or to the people you will be working with (your choice), then read on.
I can tell you first-hand that the month I have just spent in Azad Jammu Kashmir and northern Pakistan, just after the earthquake, was worthwhile for the people I have helped and for me. I have welled up to speechlessness, at the brink of tears, so many times: in tents, on the streets, in government offices, in motorcycle taxis and trucks.
I have spent time here setting up a part of our foundation that my partners and I think will be good for the people who live here, for the people who donate to them, and for one-on-one understanding between cultures. Here are the basics:
1) You can come here to work with Pakistanis to build new homes. You will be met at the Islamabad airport and driven to Mansehra, a town that is about an hour and one half north of Islamabad. There will be soldiers with guns at the airport. You will be an object of attention there and everywhere else you go. You must be mentally robust and, sorry about this, for now you need to be male. We're working on finding a way to make this a safe journey for women.
2) You must be physically robust. You will join a four or five man team to build 180 square foot, permanent homes for people who are living in tents now. With your team you will pack in materials, sometimes to high altitudes. Your team mates will be Pakistani or Kashmiri. They may not speak much English but you will figure things out. The homes you build will hold families of eight to ten. Yes, that’s true, eight to ten people in 180 square feet. Bring your sleeping bag. Tents and food to be provided by our partner here, Humanity Relief and Rehabilitation Trust (www.hrrtrust.org). It's a Pakistani non-profit and a perfect "sister" non-profit for us.
3) Contribute at least $3,000 cash to Kashmir Family Aid or directly to HRR Trust, your choice. Yes, you are paying to work! Contribute more if you can. If you don't have this kind of money, there are ways to raise funds through churches and civic groups. If you really want to go, it can be done.
4) Stay to work as long as you want but make the minimum three weeks. You will work with one family every four or five days that you are here. You will be in small groups. Never will you be alone.
5) We will provide info on how to get a Pakistan visa, how to book and pay for a round-trip flight to Islamabad ($1,500-$2,000 round trip from either U.S. coast. Trust me, there is a trick to getting that price). We’ll give you the basics of how to handle yourself; what to say and not to say: how to be an American, on the loose, in Pakistan. You will not be drinking or picking up girls in this place (alcohol is illegal in Pakistan; don't even think about women). There will be an agreement for you to sign whereby you promise not to whine, to sermonize or to pontificate any right/wrong political/religious standpoints.You will work damn hard. I have been here five times and know the essentials and have Pakistani friends willing and able to help. Bottom line: Once you get here you will find that, for the most part, Pakistani and Kashmiri people really, really like Americans. HOWEVER, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE SECURITY CONCERNS OF BEING IN PAKISTAN OR AJAD KASHMIR. Check out this state department warning.
6) The family that your team is helping, the father and sons and brothers, will help build the structure. It is made of local wood, many times sliced into slabs with handsaws. The structure takes about two days to build. It has CGI roofing and a rock foundation. It will be at an elevation of between 3,000 to 10,000 feet and you will walk hard uphill with a heavy load to get there.
7) Kashmir Family Aid and HRR Trust accept no responsibility for your safety. You’re going on your own and, in fact, you might fly from the U.S. to Islamabad by yourself (although we will try to organize groups to travel together). Neither organization is a travel agency, travel giuide or government connected organization. You will be entering a hazardous area that is a semi war zone AND an earthquake disaster area. Needless to say the quake area you will be in is the ultimate disaster area, by any definition. If after-shock tremors bother you, don’t come. And no one guarantees there won’t be another 7.6 magnitude quake while you’re here. If it happens, sorry about that. The point is, no one is accepting formal or informal responsibility for your safety but, having said that, we will do everything we can to make sure you are OK. So, from us, no guarantees and no liability. You'll sign a waiver to this effect before you come.
Those are the basics of it all. Maybe forgo the climbing trip, the European sojourn or that Hawaii beach-time and do something WAY out of the box. As I said earlier, this is a wild place, in wild times. A real adventure…and the people here need your help. It won’t be “fun” in the Western sense but, guaranteed, you will go to a place inside yourself that you’ve never been before. And, “when the day is over’” as they like to say in Pakistan, and since the governments can’t figure out how to get it done, the one-on-one understanding between an American, and a whole lot of Pakistanis and/or Kashmiris, will be much, muchbetter: I’ve seen it happen oover and over again
Still interested? Email me at samc@centratel.com and tell me about yourself. Then, let’s talk.
-sam carpenter
E-mail Christopher Stollar: chriss@kashmirfamily.org
You may also call us at 541-385-1970
Principals:
The founder is Sam Carpenter (samc@centratel.com), majority owner and CEO of Centratel , a Bend, Oregon, USA telecommunications business. Sam is also a free lance journalist with numerous submissions to both Pakistani and American news media (see Resources for various articles). He is currently writing a book to be published in April 2008. He is assisted by his wife Linda and a Board of Directors based in Bend Oregon.
Objectives include:
1) Securing contributions* from the west, through media dispatches, group presentations and sustaining contributors.
2) Seeking solid corporate sponsorships.
3) Lobbying city of Bend, Oregon officials to name Muzaffarabad a "Sister City." The two cities have many commonalities including size, beautiful surrounding mountains and forests, rivers rushing through town centers and futures based on a clean and environmentally friendly tourist trade. We are also working with Azad Kashmir officials to recognize Bend as its own exclusive Sister City..
4) Recruiting volunteers to go to the region to build shelters and to act as good-will emissaries
Politics, Religion and Ideology:
The more I travel to the third world the more I find myself thankful for my life and my country. In October 2006 Linda and I visited five countries. Here they are: Taiwan, with China bearing down hard; Thailand, which experienced a military coup just two weeks before our arrival; Pakistan -- and we all know about that situation, a hotbed for terrorist training and radical madrassas; Azad Kashmir and the horror of the earthquake compounded by a 60 year violent border dispute with India -- the oldest border dispute in the world; South Korea -- while we were there, tens of thousands of artillery batteries in North Korea were primed and ready to fire per the instructions of a madman. Yes, Linda and I were thankful to get home to the U.S., the world's crown jewel of safety, freedom, and opportunity.
Here’s my approach to Kashmir Family Aid:
1) It is a waste of passion to wallow in the extreme realms of ideology, left or right.
3) It is OK to take a stand and to determine for oneself what is right and wrong. As individuals and as a culture, relativism makes us weak. From Oscar Wilde: "Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace." It is our job to teach our children this principle so they grow up independent and strong. This means that children should be encouraged to develop the courage to draw those lines for themselves.
4) Honesty, courage and compassion are worth pursuing full time. If meaningful long-term improvement is going to happen, it's going to happen because individuals exhibit these traits.
5) Life and Freedom are each precious and tenuious. Each is a gift. It is not the default way of the world. It is something that does not come easy.
6) Government? Less is better. Fiscal responsibility; lower taxes; strong military. A guarantor and purveyor of freedom. Beyond that, I believe the ultimate solutions for finding peace will lie in people-to-people contact: A major thrust of KFA is to bring the people of east and west together.
7) Religion? I have no bias unless your religion is cultish or intimidating.
8) As a nation, we’ve made mistakes – no question about it – but our intentions have been good and for the most part they still are. And, althought it has become a popular assumption, the United States is not responsible for all the problems in the world.
9) Regarding the children whom we aim to help, we ask only two things of their parents, teachers and society: First, that they guide their children toward independent, personal strength; able to make their own decisions. And second, we ask that their children are taught to tolerate people who are different. That's it. We ask nothing more.
–sam carpenter 3/25/2008
*Kashmir Family Aid is a 501c3 non-profit organization.
Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir
Saturday, December 10, 2005
When I arrived here in Azad Kashmir a month ago, it was as obvious to me as were the crushed buildings and the tent villages: The children of this place don’t cry.
It is December now. The mornings are cold, and for two months now these children have been sleeping in tiny tents with their families. The food is sparse, the sanitary conditions terrible. Many have injuries. But despite all this, in the daytime most of the children in these tent camps do the things that all children do when they have time and freedom: They play together and explore.
From the hidden, remote mountain villages far from this city, these children have landed here in Muzaffarabad to scuttle about; to wander hand-in-hand, exploring this peculiar city-world of crushed buildings, tent villages, helicopters and strangers. Their sweet faces don’t say much about what is going on inside but there is something solid and steady in those little eyes. The locals tell you that the strength has to do with the sturdiness that has been instilled in these children from their first days. These children can thank their parents and their culture for that.
This afternoon I sat on a rock overlooking the Al Ghadmat Tent Camp, forty feet below. On a sandbar next to the Neelum River, the camp has three hundred 10 x 12 foot tents neatly arranged in rows. There are ten to twelve people in each tent. I watched the women sitting below, holding their blanket-swaddled infants close in the semi-warmth of the December noonday sun, their men off to roam the busy streets. A small but lanky girl, probably eight years old, emerged from the swarming throng behind me and walked quickly past my position. Headed for her family’s tent below, she was aiming for the damp foot path that cut steeply down the embankment before me. Perfectly balanced on the top of her little head was a flexible plastic water jug filled with at least a gallon of water. Not slowing her pace in the least, she plunged down the slope in her flimsy sandals. In absolute sure-footed control, she quickly and perfectly negotiated the slippery trail to the flats below. It was a minor thing that of course went unnoticed by everyone around me but that small performance said volumes about the self-sufficiency and matter-of-factness of these children. I know adults back home who, equipped with full lug-soled hiking boots and trekking poles, would not have attempted that slope. And I grin to myself when I think of them negotiating it with a ten pound water jug balanced on their heads.
But then there are the little ones who authorities call “affected.” Shell-shocked into fearful little bundles, they are barely able to walk and they literally cling to each other when they do. They are silent. The quake was violent beyond words and these children were inside their homes or in schools when it came. Generated by the quake, there was a fiendish, from-Hell roar and their little bodies were knocked flat to the floor to be pummeled over and over as they struggled to get up. For them, it must have seemed to go on and on and their gentle minds just did not understand what or why this was happening. And afterwards, they didn’t understand the missing parents and brothers and sisters: a different kind of shell shock. It is impossible to say why the quake’s wicked violence traumatized some children and not others.
Affected or not, all these children bring tears to my eyes. I don’t know what to do about it except to sit here at this laptop in the middle of this Kashmir night to plea with the world to pay attention. In the daytime, I mingle with the kids when I can; to give them chocolates and to offer their parents some money. To these children, clearly I am a westerner, and in the streets, should I pause for any reason, groups of them materialize in front of me with their beautiful dirty little faces staring up at me. For the strong ones and for the affected ones, it is all so incredibly sad and there is no room for a “you just had to be there” excuse to justify not getting a grasp of this. Dear reader, pay attention to what is coming to you in the media about northern Pakistan and Kashmir and get clear that this is not just another news story.
Bio: Sam Carpenter, Bend, Oregon, USA, is a writer/journalist/photographer and the majority owner and president of Centratel call center (www.centratel.com). Having traveled to Pakistan three times previously, with his partners he will spend this winter in Islamabad conducting independent relief efforts. His non-profit relief organization is Kashmir Family Aid (www.kashmirfamily.org). He is assisted in relief efforts by his partners Linda Rosenthal of Bend, Oregon, and Hassan Shamim of Lahore, Pakistan/London, England.
There are one hundred and six tents in the Dewan Group tent camp. Perched on a bluff above the large, expensive and very much abandoned homes on the west bank of the Neelum river, each of the 120 square foot tents are home to ten to twelve residents who have descended into Muzaffarabad from the surrounding valleys and mountains. This camp is the smallest of four Muzaffarabad camps created and maintained by the Dewan Group, a Pakistani-based multinational corporation.
We drive into the camp and ask for whomever is managing it. A teenage boy disappears and then reappears with the coordinator, Sajid-Ur-Rehman. A pack of the ever-present teenage males materializes to silently watch, listen and shake this westerner’s hand.
Sajid’s pre-earthquake job was as a machine operator in a Dewan textile plant in Hattar in District Haripur. He says he has volunteered for this duty for “the humanity.” I hear this phrase often here. Volunteers, policemen, utility workers, government leaders and a wide swath of the rest of the population seem to agree that their efforts are not about religion or politics, but about people helping people: “the humanity.” In a newspaper article read by the outsider this could seem like posturing, but, if one even briefly mixes among these tent village families, the statement becomes fitting if not perfect. In this Azad Kashmir capital city of Muzaffarabad, even in the government buildings where politics is the way of things, people don’t speak of nationalism or religion or the usual subjects that one might expect in a city that has been in the crux of such a prolonged and intense dispute with it’s neighbor to the east. It is as if the people of this place are simply drained dry and have had enough of that and it is time to pay attention to what really matters, “the humanity.” And anyway, for the people of the tent villages, the complexity and controversy of politics/religious differences have never been important in the face of the every-day concerns of just living.
Three days after the nightmare of October 8th, this tent village was erected and families randomly began to appear. To live here, there was no screening or qualifying. If there was a tent, it was available and Tahira is profoundly thankful to the Dewan Group: This is not the home they had before but where exactly would they be if not in this place?
The camp has matured now, approaching the age of two months. Things are settled into a routine with initial major problems brought to the level of being minor or maybe just annoying. There are the typical camp sanitation problems and there is a low-voltage electricity problem that affects the equipment and the lighting (about this, I will speak to my new friend Saeed who is an engineer for the AJK Electric Department). There is enough food and plenty of clean water; enough blankets too, but there is a need for more winter clothing for when this unusual warm spell inevitably gives way to winter. Psychologically, Sajid says, the people here have few problems. Certainly they are unhappy with all that has happened, he says, and of course with having to live in a tent village, but they are holding up well all things considered. Sajid suggests that there is a reluctant acceptance; an understanding that the carnage is over and there is, at least, some consistency in the tents they occupy.
I sit across the tent from Tahira Yasmeen, 24, and her father Magta Khan, 70. Tahira is unmarried and has three sisters and four brothers. She has graciously accepted the invitation to talk to me and her serene demeanor puts my two companions and me at ease immediately. She sits cross legged on the floor with her four year old sister on her lap. Magta sits beside her and Tahira’s siblings absent-mindedly wander in and out of the tent as we talk. In Urdu, Tahira and Magta speak softly and calmly, admitting with small smiles that they have never met a westerner before.
Through an interpreter, Tahira describes her life before she came here and what it is like now. Lineal distance measurements are not part of explaining things and she describes her former home’s location in more practical terms, as “seven hours away,” meaning to travel from there to Muzaffarabad requires seven hours of steady downhill walking. She explains that at her home the winter snows commonly pile to a depth of eight meters and in their village of perhaps one hundred people, the question of simply traveling from one house to another is something to be considered carefully. Once the snow accumulates, the family stays inside for months. Neither Tahira or her father know the elevation of their village and this reminds me of how we westerners get caught up with analyzing; with statistics, with details. Really, what possible importance could a statistic like that have?
Tahira’s family of twelve shared a large ten room house. She shows us photos of her family and where they lived up high, in the small village. The landscape is breath-taking with huge, craggy snow covered mountains and a raging blue, white-foamed river. Magta says it is full of big, hungry trout. Tahira’s description of her life back then is idyllic as her family used the warm months to store wheat flour, maze, vegetables and spices for the long hard winter. They had goats and a cow, too.
Before and after the deep snows, in the village there was primary school for the children. The older ones had a two hour, one-way walk to their secondary school.
Of course, the earthquake changed all that. Tahira’s description of the quake brought a new animation to her demeanor and her eyes grew teary. Her father also grew tense at the retelling of the story. There was the trauma of the unworldly gyrating and heaving and the family’s stumbling, crawling exodus from the house which collapsed soon after. Then, there was the stunned bewilderment at the magnitude of the losses followed by sheer gratitude that no one was killed or injured. Reason returned and they took stock: The goats and cow were killed by the collapsed barn, the winter food stores were buried under the flattened concrete rubble of the house and so there was no food or shelter for the impending deep winter. So, they headed down to Muzaffarabad and found themselves here at the Dewan Group Tent Camp.
Tahira’s largest objection to the tent camp is that she is surrounded by strangers. Her life until now had been with a select few family members and life-long neighbors. Things didn’t change dramatically from one day to the next. It was a season-to-season life that was occasionally spiced with a marriage or a birth or a death. For a visitor to the tent village, it is impossible to get an emotional grip on what it was like for Tahira and her family as they endured the horror of the quake itself followed by their ejection from that serene and predictable life and were inserted into the anxious, semi-chaos of a tent village full of strangers. And then, add the exasperation of the claustrophobia-inducing tiny tent. For the outsider attempting to empathize, the situation is rendered incomprehensable by the realization that in northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, there are hundreds of thousands of other families with similar and no less profound stories.
And so Tahira says she feels depressed sometimes but that she is very thankful to the people who provided this camp. Her unhappiness is completely understandable and it is clear she will deal with it in a rational way as she confidently states that they will move back to their mountain village in the spring. The government benefits are not large but they are enough so that they can go back and build a modest shelter. She says that their lives there will not be as good: For sure, there will not be a ten room house but there will be some kind of home, a garden and livestock, and their family and those neighbors who return. The mountains and that gushing river will be there too.
Through their earthquake-induced profound losses, backed up by a tough-as-nails lifestyle, these people understand what is important in life. It is a hard-won embracing of “what is” and a fundamental, gut-level understanding that each additional breath they and their loved ones take is something for which to be thankful. It’s a difficult concept to grasp for a western visitor who can get caught up in soft-lifestyle trivialities. So, for these simple people of the remote villages, family, consistency, routine and old friends are necessary things; the stuff of contentment and what matters most.
Tahira’s story is told here but it is my guess that she won’t ever see this article ,and if she does, it will interest her only momentarily. It will not hold any importance for her.
Bio: Sam Carpenter, Bend, Oregon, USA, is a writer/journalist/photographer and the majority owner and president of Centratel call center (www.centratel.com). Having traveled to Pakistan three times previously, he will spend the winter in Islamabad conducting independent relief efforts. His non-profit relief organization is Kashmir Family Aid ( www.kashmirfamily.org). He is assisted in relief efforts by his partners Linda Rosenthal of Bend, Oregon, and Hassan Shamim of Lahore, Pakistan/London, England.
According to AJK official reports, in the quake epicenter at Muzaffarabad, Kashmir, at 8:50am on Saturday October 8th, 1,566 schools were totally destroyed and another 644 were partially destroyed. Virtually none went unscathed. This lopsided statistic illustrates the violence of the event: The number of schools that have been completely erased significantly outnumbers those that can be repaired.
For Kashmir school children, Fridays are half-days and Sundays are off. Juxtaposed between, Saturdays are full school days, and on this particular Saturday morning, the children were just getting settled into their studies.
Kashmir literally lost a generation as tens of thousands of children ages 6 to 18 perished. Their missing numbers are clearly obvious: In Muzaffarabad there simply aren’t many children milling about as is usual in third world countries. The ones who remain share a vacant, wild-eyed look. A common word used in this city is “affected” and it aptly describes these children. Many of them refuse to go to school, afraid the quake will return, associating the terrifying event with school itself. So many kids died, and the remaining few are emotionally crippled.
In Pakistan there are two kinds of schools providing their own distinct language curriculums. The majority of public grammar schools provide an Urdu-based syllabus in which the English language is not taught until the sixth grade. The typical private school, maybe 40% of the total, commences English lessons in the first grade. Today, in these tent camps and to the credit of the all-volunteer teachers, grammar school for these 5 to 12 year olds continues ad-hoc but a huge problem for the teachers is that former public school children are thrust into these essentially private schools and are lost in the English language-based curriculum. To compound the frustration, and notwithstanding the complete lack of books, paper and writing tools, the children and teachers have no chairs on which to sit. I came here with cash and I’ll see that a good share of it will be spent on chairs for these schools. It must be said that the majority of the volunteer teachers, as with nearly all of the children they teach, have suffered one or more deaths within their immediate families. The children are in a shell-shocked daze from it all and, for the adults in the camps, it has been so intense just keeping things going for themselves and for those around them that there has simply been no time to grieve for those who have been lost.
In Muzaffarabad the weather has been pleasant but I can’t imagine what it will be like for the children and teachers when the cold descends. In the winter it is nasty in these parts and keeping warm and focusing properly for hour after hour will likely be impossible. There are few tents large enough to house an entire class. More often, the physical school is a large tarp stretched above to at least keep the weather off the children. The sides are open, below is bare earth. It is late November and the Himalayan winter is a hair-breadth away.
The new citizens of Muzaffarabad are the back-country people. They have replaced the original residents, most of whom have long since departed for the cities down below: Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore. I am at one of five tiny tent schools situated in the Jalal Abad Village Green Tent Camp. Beneath the stark canvas tarp overhead are the twenty children with their teacher. The typical physical accoutrements of school are not here: No chairs, books, paper or pencils. The children engage in group nursery rhymes and verbal counting calisthenics. They stand in perfect little lines, in rapt attention in their tidy uniforms, wholly absorbed by the teacher’s promptings. Eagerly rattling off the verbal drills in perfect accord with the teacher, these children are absolutely attentive without a hint of mischievousness. They have witnessed the unspeakable horror of the earthquake and its nightmarish aftermath. Looking in their eyes, one cannot mistake what has happened here.
I am back in Lahore now, collecting my thoughts and writing these reports. It was tough up there in Muzaffarabad, emotionally and physically, but I find myself wanting to return immediately if to do nothing more than hand out chocolates to the children and cash to their parents. It is really bad up there. These tent people, parents and children, are in states of profound anxiety and physical discomfort and, of course, one has to witness it in order to completely understand. Before my visit there, the faces and the stories were from another world and not my business. Now it’s personal and I can’t pretend that place is anything less than real.
I examine the life I lead back in the states. I have been here a week and will spend more time the quake zone before returning to my home in the USA in mid December. In my upscale Oregon resort community of 60,000, Christmas will happen with all the trappings. Then, I will be married on January 1st. I am expected to return to life in a beautiful home; a life interspersed with Yoga classes and latte’s; comfortable chatter in my clean and spacious office that is decorated precisely. In the evening, big screen TV will be watched from the leather couch. As I sit here at my laptop, haunted by the tent camp children’s eyes, I reflect now upon the general absurdity my too-soft western existence. Too much, my life has been wrapped up in things that do not matter.
So, as my life carries on from here, the minor details and the major efforts will be different. To the people who know me, I tell you to expect to see a change.
With Hassan, I will return to the epicenter on the day after tomorrow.
(series to be continued)
Bio: Sam Carpenter is from Bend, Oregon, USA. Having traveled to Pakistan three times previously for business, he will spend the winter in Muzaffarabad conducting independent relief efforts. His non-profit relief organization website is www.kashmirfamily.org.
]]>There is a future beyond the earthquake recovery and for our part, we ask the governments of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir to bring back to life a project that is critical to the future welfare of the region. The feasibility studies have been accomplished and it is time to move ahead now. Here it is: In the ground, bury fiber optic cable to deliver high-speed, broadband internet service from the existing fiber optic cable terminus at Abbottabad into the heart of this region, Muzaffarabad. And, simultaneously install an equal capacity redundant link from Islamabad to Muzaffarabad via Murree. These seem to us to be obvious routes but maybe there are better ones. The point is, one way or the other and as soon as possible, get fiber cable in the ground and get high speed broadband internet service to Muzaffarabad.
Right now, without the requisite IT capacities, Azad Kashmir is being overlooked by a wide swath of outsiders who could help with relief, rehabilitation and physical rebuild. It is not that people from the outside are ignoring Azad Kashmir, it is that they cannot easily find information about it and they are unable to experience efficient communication with those who live and work here. And, those who do live and work here will continue to have limited impact on the outside world because they simply can’t efficiently interface with it. It is a much larger problem than is obvious to the casual observer.
If broadband had been here on October 8th, earthquake relief efforts would have been astoundingly more efficient and donations would have been much more significant simply because there would have been adequate communication resources. It is this simple: if people can’t or won’t communicate, things don’t happen. I call these lost opportunities “errors of omission.” In other words, when tasks are not accomplished or things go wrong, it is usually due to poor communication and not because some individual or organization made a mistake.
What is done is done, but now is now and the sooner the high-speed system is operational, the sooner benefits will accumulate. Beginning the very day high speed internet is available, the benefits will compound one on another, magnified geometrically. Benefits will be instant and the long term advantages will be astounding.
Just how backwards is current IT technology in Azad Kashmir, specifically Muzaffarabad? Mr. Javaid Ayub, the Director of Administration and Finance, Government of AJK IT Board, the man in charge of IT for Azad Kashmir, has a Yahoo Email address that he accesses with a 56k dial-up modem. He buys blocks of five hundred minutes from a local ISP “just like the guy down the street.” Astounding!
And here is another illustration: The Azad Kashmir website is www.ajk.gov.pk. At a maximum of a half dozen a day, emails trickle in via the site’s “contact us” link. Mr. Ayub checks often for these incoming messages as he feels no one else in the government is inclined to consistently do it (oddly, and as an aside, each incoming email message is available for anyone to see). Here are two typical email messages, received in the immediate aftermath of the quake: “I would like to donate helicopter cargo nets to the earthquake effort…” and, “I would appreciate your help…we are looking at creating a foundation towards relief and sustainable development in Azad Kashmir…we would like to focus on children, including education and health…”
Mr. Ayub transcribes these incoming email messages hard-copy and has them hand delivered to the appropriate administrative people because most AJK government departments do not use email.
My guess is that the responses to these incoming emails were too slow or, more probably, responses did not happen at all: lost opportunities to the people of Azad Kashmir. Mr. Ayub told me that when the website first went on-line two years ago there were many, many emails coming in. Now there are just a few messages each day because, he says, responses have been anemic at best and the outside world gave up sending their messages of assistance to a place that did not respond. And it seems to me that many outsiders with offers of aid declined to send additional emails when they discovered their initial messages were available for anyone to see.
I asked Mr. Faisal Shehzad, Project Manager for AJK IT, if he was frustrated with the situation (he has had experience with the outside world’s lightning fast broadband internet connections). He responded good-naturedly with “we use what we have: what is, is.” This man is dedicated and willing to do the best he can without complaining but it is unquestionable that Mr. Shehzad could accomplish a LOT more if he didn’t have to wait for snail-pace loading and uploading. With high-speed broadband, his activity on the internet would be literally hundreds of times faster.
My recent personal experience on one of the AJK IT department’s computers, after the dial-up modem connected it to the internet, was that it took five minutes for a simple text email to be transmitted. Back home, on my personal computer, that same email would have been transmitted in less than one second. I had not used a dial-up modem in five years and it was almost nostalgic to sit there in front of the screen just waiting for processing to take place. As a journalist, spending four weeks in Muzaffarabad, every few days I had to physically travel to Islamabad in order to submit my articles and photos. I could not send them out on the snail-pace internet connections available in Muzaffarabad.
In contrast to Mr. Shehzad’s daily dilemma, note that within three days of the earthquake, and for the first time ever, Muzaffarabad had commercial cellular/mobile telephone service. This was per President Musharraf’s direct personal orders. Three days! There was no question that mobile telephone communications were vital for relief efforts, so Pakistan’s president simply gave the order and made it happen: It was important enough. So, the value of telecommunications is clear and there is no question that high-speed broadband internet connectivity has at least the same importance as cellular communications.
The telecommunications isolation of Azad Kashmir boils down to a simple mechanical bottleneck: the existing fragile, unreliable and low-capacity microwave IT link from Abbottabad to Muzaffarabad. This absurdly inefficient radio-wave weak link can be eliminated simply by replacing it with a buried fiber-optic circuit.
Of course, this place has been in dispute and so it has been difficult to make plans for the future – until now. Azad Kashmir and Indian occupied Kashmir have been an international political hot-bed but it is clear there is a thaw in relations and that we might see something better between the governments of Pakistan and India. The problem may not be completely solved right now but at least we have a meaningful break in the tension and we are on a road that could lead to long-term peace later. So, now is time for Azad Kashmir to catch up with the economies and social structures of the outside world; to offer its people more options and opportunities.
And, this has to be said: Policies such as the Non Objection Certificate requirement and other similar bureaucratic hurdles need to go away. People who can bring opportunity and money to Azad Kashmir will not come if the government makes physically getting there difficult.
In Azad Kashmir, I have been in the tent camps, on the streets and in the highest government offices. The people here are resolute about their recovery; confident they will carry on beyond this tragedy. To compliment their natural strength and resiliency, Azad Kashmir’s population has the highest literacy rate in the region. This is because the education of Kashmiri children has been of huge importance to their parents. The people here, in a simple and purposeful lifestyle that is built around the family unit, with powerful beliefs of what is right and wrong; with an exceptional focus on education, and having weathered a physical, economic, social and emotional storm of unimaginable ferocity – the earthquake of October 8th – should be able to interact with the world outside. And, those of us on the outside would do well to get to know the people of Kashmir. Can anyone argue with this?
In our work, my partners and I are absolutely typical of others in the west – and in much of the east – who manage and direct people and capital. Personally, it is critical to our effectiveness that we can instantly reach the people we need in a variety of ways, and in turn that those people are able to reach us just as quickly and efficiently. And if we need general or specific information from wherever it may reside, we must be able to get it immediately. Further, being able to broadcast our thoughts instantly to any number of selectively grouped individuals gives each of us tremendous ability to influence.
So, through internet technology we are able to instantly send and receive whatever information is needed for decision making. In short, and without discounting the importance of cellular and human-interfaced communications systems and tools, our effectiveness and even our very ability to lead and influence is critically dependant on high-speed broadband internet technology. And, it all boils down to a simple tool that can be made available to the region in a trench.
Broadband internet would offer a prime business opportunity for the region: call centers. To the outside world, wages here would be considered low and, like India, western business would take notice. To the local population, call centers would offer numerous job opportunities and wages would be considered high. I have had experience with call center work in the United States and in Lahore, Pakistan and can say that a large, unexpected effect was that young, educated Pakistanis who moved abroad for higher education and better opportunity found a reason to return: high paying jobs at home.
Azad Kashmir is mineral-rich and there are forces at work to get access to these underground resources. This means pollution and will lead to degradation of the region’s greatest natural resource: the simple beauty of the place. It is what has happened to China and India, for example. Tourism would be good for Azad Kashmir as it would bring new money, new ideas and new opportunities to its people without depleting the region’s natural resources. As it is now, with severely limited internet access, Azad Kashmir will have little success in tourism. People from the outside simply won’t spend time in a place in which they are isolated. Five years ago maybe, but today, never. That is the way of the world now. And, if there is a desire for new business, know that it will absolutely not happen without high-speed broadband internet connectivity. Mr. Ayub says “with high-speed internet connectivity, new business will POUR into Azad Kashmir.” He is not exaggerating. For tourism and for new, clean business, high speed internet capability is literally more important than better roads and more hotels.
Westerners like me would come to live for a while, able to run their businesses back home while enjoying this beautiful place. This is the super-tourist: One who stays for months at a time and even has a second home here. To the westerner, Kashmir is an exotic, mysterious and beautiful place and it would be an adventure and a privilege to settle in for awhile. But, we will not come and stay if we must live in isolation, like hermits.
Azad Kashmir’s counterparts to the east understand the benefits of communicating with the outside world and in contrast, Pakistan’s development over the years has been thwarted by a lack of communication due to language stumbling blocks. Of course, the perfect historic example was the British departure from India and India’s subsequent grasp of the importance of being fluent in English, the language shared by the rest of the world. For the people for Azad Kashmir, embracing up-to-date internet technology is no different.
Despite the lack of connectivity to the outside world, there are currently plans for bringing IT technology and education to Azad Kashmir; the very existence of a national IT department confirms this is being taken seriously. There are good plans for getting Muzaffarabad’s government on-line, for example, and that can be completed with or without a solid backbone to the outside. But, despite the existence of a national IT department, efforts at education, and government’s commitment to upgrading internal efficiencies, the simple lack of high-speed broadband connectivity to the outside will render these efforts a waste of time and money. It’s brain-numbing simple: What Azad Kashmir must have is the technology that will make possible “any and all information, NOW.” It means ditches dug and fiber cable buried. It means the terminal equipment on each end. It means engineers and technicians available to support the system.
My personal background includes high voltage electric transmission/distribution engineering and construction management, internet technology services and human-based call center work. My prime interest and the object of my passion is human-to-human communication. Providing tools to make it more efficient is my work and the thing I love and I come to Azad Kashmir more connected that anyone I know. For how I personally get through the day in the United States, it’s all there: cutting edge wireless, sophisticated internet communication software and devices, and an assortment of human communications specialists available at any time. So, in the West, with these telecommunications tools and specialists, I am able to enormously multiply my personal effectiveness and accomplish great quantities of constructive work. But in Kashmir, right now, I can’t function.
This following real-life illustration makes my point best. My two partners and I want our non-profit foundation to be effective for the people of Azad Kashmir, but the existing internet technology is making it very, very difficult to do that. When my partners and I come back to the region in February, we cannot stay in Muzaffarabad: We must reside in Islamabad in order to use that city’s high-speed internet facilities so we can operate our non-profit foundation and also to manage our business back home in the United States. Four hours from the object of our attention, which is Azad Kashmir, Islamabad has the broadband internet connections we absolutely require. It is a confoundedly straightforward thing: We, and others like us, would much rather spend our time and money in Muzaffarabad and we would do that if it offered high-speed broadband internet connectivity.
The installation of the necessary fiber optic cable can be implemented to functionality within one year (and much, much faster if the imperative is recognized). Now is the time to start the process, despite the other closer-in-time challenges which of course will continue to require our focused attention. The inevitable red tape must be eliminated, outside consultants and engineers must be secured and physical work should begin now and continue through the winter.
I say start the process now: The implementation of fiber-backboned broadband access for Azad Kashmir is relatively simple: This is about digging ditches. Compared to a typical hydro project, the environmental, technical and cost impacts are miniscule but like a hydro project, the benefits will be instant once the system is operational.
We are not recommending a new idea or philosophy that may or may not work. High-speed broadband internet connectivity is technology that is used in progressive societies everywhere because it enhances the life of the people it serves. Its effectiveness has been tested and applied over and over throughout the world. There is no need for Azad Kashmir to wait and, in fact, waiting any longer is a grave “error of omission.”
Bio: Sam Carpenter, Bend, Oregon, USA, is a writer/journalist/photographer and the majority owner and president of Centratel call center (www.centratel.com). Having traveled to Pakistan three times previously, with his partners he will spend this winter in Islamabad conducting independent relief efforts. His non-profit relief organization is Kashmir Family Aid ( www.kashmirfamily.org). He is assisted in relief efforts by his partners Linda Rosenthal of Bend, Oregon, and Hassan Shamim of Lahore, Pakistan/London, England.
When the earthquake strikes, Shennaz Ahmed, 40, is in her small stone house at the edge of town. Three of her seven children are with her, the other four in school. Her husband Nazeer is in the city of Lahore, 500 kilometers to the south, working his construction job,. There is a roar and Shennaz is viciously knocked to the floor with her infant child in her arms. Everything in the house, attached or not, is flung hard in all directions. The walls and ceiling gyrate madly and Shennaz thinks India is finally attacking.
Using an interpreter, I speak to Nazeer and Shennaz Ahmed in my friend Hassan’s spacious home in Lahore. It is six weeks after the quake. Nazeer and Shennaz tell me of their lives, what happened and their hopes for the future.
In Balakot in Pakistan’s NW Frontier Province, per the accepted mores of Islam, Shennaz would stay indoors while Nazeer was gone. In this region it is expected that if the husband is not within immediate proximity, his wife will stay inside the house except for routine chores such as fetching water or attending to livestock. There is no socializing. Even inside their homes, village women carefully cover their heads with their dupattas as they go about the daily business of children, food and housekeeping. Nazeer and Shennaz’s children range in age from a three month old infant to eleven years and when the earthquake occurred, the four older ones were just settled into their desks at school. Shennaz and Nazeer lost their nine year old daughter when the building’s concrete roof fell. In other parts of the school by chance, the other three school children were miraculously spared. In their loss, Shennaz and Nazeer fared much better than most of their neighbors. Completely and utterly destroyed, Balakot is arguably the most devastated of all northern Pakistan villages.
As the quake grows in ferocity and the earth’s howling increases, Shennaz picks herself up from the floor with her baby still solidly in her arms. She is flung down again. Then again and again. The contents of the house are ricocheting everywhere. She knows absolutely that they must get out of the house and she crawls out the door towing her three small children, the ones not old enough to be in school. Shennaz is outside without her dupatta, something that never, ever happens in this village. As she and her children stumble away, the surging earth repeatedly knocks them down. Behind them, their house collapses. Their neighbors’ houses collapse, too. Some of those occupants escape; others do not. The four struggle to Shennaz’s sister’s house to find her and her five children cowering in an open space, their own house flattened. The violence of the quake begins to abate, the roaring is reduced to a low growl and then ceases altogether. It is mid-morning but it grows dark as thick black dust fills the air.
In Kashmir and Pakistan’s NW Province, all telecommunications access was instantly wiped out when the quake struck. And it was a full day before the rest of the world discovered the severity of the situation. Tens of thousands of people were lying under collapsed buildings. The majority were killed instantly but a huge number were still alive; incapable of moving. Way, way too many of them were children.
The destruction lies on and around the main thrust-fault of this particular quake, a 100 kilometer straight line stretching northeast from the city of Bagh in the south to the northern village of Banna. In the UN Emergency Response Center in Muzaffarabad, I found the full color and flawlessly composed “Earthquake Overview with Fault Line” map. Its cartographic perfection is in stark contrast to the actual carnage on the earth it depicts. The map shows a capsule-shaped, thirty kilometer wide “affected area” that surrounds the fault line. With an immediate population of 80,000, Muzaffarabad, Kashmir’s capital city, lies precisely midway along this fault line and almost directly on top of it, in the exact epicenter of the quake. Also directly on the fault but twenty kilometers north, is Balakot. For whatever mysterious geological reason, Balakot was hammered even harder than Muzaffarabad or anywhere else.
This, from the US Geological Survey: “Earthquakes and active faults in northern Pakistan and adjacent parts of India and Afghanistan are the direct result of the Indian subcontinent moving northward at a rate of about 40 mm/yr (1.6 inches/yr) and colliding with the Eurasian continent. This collision is causing uplift that produces the highest mountain peaks in the world including the Himalayan, the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush ranges. As the Indian plate moves northward, it is being sub-ducted or pushed beneath the Eurasian plate…”
Shennaz, her sister and their children have nowhere to go and are terrified to the point of paralysis. They ask themselves the not altogether unreasonable question, will this hellish violence come again? And, what of the rest of our children at school? Also, it is reasonable that they should assume that the rest of the world also endured this horror and so there would not be a rescue. Along with a few of their surviving neighbors, they stand and sit in this open place for hours, psychologically stunned, unable to physically move. They have their clothes and nothing more and they stay here for the rest of the morning and then into the afternoon, shrouded by the thick, black dust-filled air and racked constantly by quake aftershocks. Then, late in the afternoon cold rain begins to fall. Prior to the quake there was electricity in Balakot but of course that is gone now. Absolute pitch blackness descends and the group huddles together in the open, under the cold pouring rain, the ground below them still shuttering.
Nazeer and Shennaz are first-cousins. As I communicated with them through a translator, the phrase “first cousins” was one of the few English phrases that both Nazeer and Shennaz recognized. It is the way of things in these villages and it is universally assumed that cousins will marry cousins, their marriages arranged years before the bride and groom reach puberty. It is fundamental to their lives and it is not questioned. Because of the quake, many of these arranged marriages will happen sooner than originally planned so the parents will not have to account for these children. In marriages, the wife is the charge of the husband.
The surviving school children find their way home to their mother and the small gathering of families endures three days and three nights with no shelter, no food and no water. Any food they have is buried under the home wreckage and the springs in the hills are either dried up or the water is clouded into mud. An occasional helicopter flies overhead and they chase it, waving their hands and shouting in their Hindco Urdu dialect, “just drop us a tiny bit of food and water!” As tough and resolute as their parents, the small children never once complain in the entire three days. Late in the third day, Nazeer arrives from Lahore. He has food and water. Over the next two days, the family finds its way to the city of Bagh, eighty kilometers to the south. Family is there but Bagh is also devastated. Two days later the family takes a daylong bus trip south to Lahore where extended family shelters them.
Although over the past year Nazeer has worked here in Lahore for weeks at a time, it is not the place for his family. It moves too fast and keeping to their personal Islamic way of doing things is difficult here. Tomorrow, the entire family is returning by bus to Balakot to sort things out with other returning relatives and to accept the government rations that are being provided. Shennaz’s brother is to be married and there are other extended family marriages that will take place as families consolidate and prepare for whatever comes at them next. Returning families understand full well that their lives may ultimately carry on somewhere other than in Balakot; They just don’t know where that will be.
Earlier tonight, Nazeer, Shennaz and their three youngest children arrived at this Lahore home with nothing but the clothes they wore and 500 rupees (about $8.00 U.S.). With Shennaz nursing her baby and the two six year olds exploring the room, they shared their experience, telling me they have not had time to grieve for their lost nine year old because of the day-to-day urgencies of keeping their six remaining children warm, fed and safe.
I ask Shennaz to reconsider the Muslim woman’s characteristic refusal to be photographed, explaining to her through the interpreter that her family’s photo along with the article that I will write can help other Kashmir region families. Understanding completely, she agrees. Nazeer and Shennaz Ahmed are fortunate to encounter this upscale Lahore family and they leave here with generous cash gifts. As their hosts, we are fortunate too as we are thrust into a world of the basics; a world where the root-reasons for living are to be considered. It is here, in these faces of a poor country family that has survived the worst, that we are reminded of what is important and what is not.
Bio: Sam Carpenter, Bend, Oregon, USA, is a writer/journalist/photographer and the majority owner and president of Centratel call center (www.centratel.com). Having traveled to Pakistan three times previously, with his partners he will spend this winter in Islamabad conducting independent relief efforts. His non-profit relief organization is Kashmir Family Aid ( www.kashmirfamily.org). He is assisted in relief efforts by his partners Linda Rosenthal of Bend, Oregon, and Hassan Shamim of Lahore, Pakistan/London, England.