Camp Life

Today is a big day for us. The Sangi engineer has finally installed a Latrine. There is no running water, but it is nice to be enclosed in a sheeted area. However, the Army folks are still using the Kunhar River as a natural toilet. Thank God we are upstream to them.

The camp is comprised of eight tents. They are weatherproof, so even when it rains, we are pretty much dry. However, it is getting cold now. We are living like the refugees, in tents, using nice woolen blankets made in Spain. Now we have an intrepid cook named Yonus, who was using my REI quick-drying towel as a cooking rag. Not his fault – I left it hanging to dry – and it blew away and he thought it was a very useful rag. Last night he made us rice and lobia (red beans). Needless to say, the seven people in my tent were very audible. I am sleeping with a volunteer from Sargodha, a teacher named Ihtisham from Abottabad, who was interviewed by the BBC as the first man to climb up the Makra (Spider) mountain (because it sits between Balakot and Kashmir like a spider), Gert from Belgium who reminds me of a kind hearted bumbling Knight (I am reading Crusades through the Arab eyes by Amin Malouf). He is 6 feet 5 inches tall with wild curly blonde hair and has cut his hand twice in food distribution efforts. In addition, we have Tim and Kathleen from Melbourne, Australia, my friend Jawad from San Francisco, Tony from Oxford, England and Sakuma from Tokyo, Japan.

Sangi is a sister organization to OXFAM and they are a fine lot. The tents and blankets we are giving out are good quality and worth thousands of dollars. Still, the UN has not allowed food distribution as of yet, but Jawad is on their case, taking minutes and coming up with list of action items, I think they are a bit confused as we keep throwing the ball back in the court.

Our camp is next to the UAE field hospital. They are from Dubai and have Hummers, a 50 patient waiting room with plastic chair, a massive generator and a water filtration plant. There are lines of agencies here, Save the children, Oxfam, Relief International, IRC, Hope, red Cross/Red Crescent, Islamic relief are the international ones. Sangi, Edhi foundation, Zindagi Trust (Christians/Minorities of Pakistan), President's fund and other notable NGO's. The Pakistan political parties are also present, like Jamat-Islami, MQM (Ayaz Amir no lover of the Karachi based political party has said that even he is now saying Jiya Altaf for the first and last time), Al Khidmat, Al Rasheed Trust, Al-Rehmat, people's Party, etc. Some of these are mainstream religious parties, but everyone knows of the Kashmir Freedom Fighter organizations like Harkat-ul-Mujaheedin, Al-Ansar, Lashkar-e-Tayabba, Jesh Muhammed. They have won the people's hearts, along with the Pakistan Army, and the German, Estonian, Japanese, Chinese, Iranian, Canadian Doctors who have worked their hearts out.

What is notably missing, blaringly so is the complete absence of Pakistan government. They come in helicopters and give speeches and empty promises. Most of the schools and hospitals that have fallen down are made by corrupt contractors who should be hanged. The provincial government who certified these buildings are still in power and so far the media in Pakistan has left them alone, concentrating on stupid interview of refugees.

Even more evident is the absence of USAID. I have not seen any US government (or US corporations) in Balakot. However, I ran into an American volunteer from California and we see the Chinooks, flying overhead and the vegetable oil and tarps say USAID. The savvy locals ask me about USAID and recognize Germans and Canadians (who take extra measures to say where they are from) I hope we can avail this chance to bridge the ever widening gap between the US and the people of Pakistan.