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Dispatch 5
The Glass Floor has Fallen
December 25, 2005
After I awoke in Tangdar, the day turned to be a real eye opener to the general poverty of the region. The Oct. 8th earthquake was the hammer that smashed the already cracked mirror of poverty. In the morning we went for a quick visit of the village of Dringla, 20 kilometers away from the main town of Tandar. The entire village was living in 10ft. X 10ft. sheds. Almost all the houses were collapsed. Ten people have perished in this remote mountain village. Dr. Zameer gave me a tour of the area and it’s inhabitants.
Dr. Zameer’s family had taken in a girl by the name of Faika who had suffered a leg injury during the quake and had also lost two younger siblings. Her family was from Dringla and I had a chance to meet the family in their shed. The mother had obvious post-traumatic stress syndrome and the father's demeanor looked just as bleak. After leaving their humble home I met and talked with villagers while Dr. Zameer gave medical diagnosis’ to a few villagers. Every 15 minutes there was a Pakistani chopper flying above delivering aid to unknown places, which was a comforting sign that relief was still being distributed as the snow fall in the greater Kashmir area was holding via a high pressure front. The people of Dringla had suffered a lot and plans were made to make a another visit in the coming weeks for the third time to deliver more aid.
The rest of the day was spent assessing the village of Gomul and handing out school supplies once again to around 100 children. The assessment was conducted on foot from house to house--or
should I say from shed to shed. Some houses appeared to be okay but once you
would go around a corner, an entire side was collapsed exposing a living or bedroom. Anywhere from 5-14 people would be living in small shed. One man told me that some of his family sleeps sitting up for the lack of room. During our assessment it was important for me to act as if I knew no Urdu, Hindi or Kashmiri. There was already a crowd following us asking for various relief goods but our objectives were clear--to only distribute clothes and insulation to the families that were in the direst of situations. I was strictly known as the "angrazi" (term for foreigners from England or America). If I did not play the role of the clueless American I would have to converse with over 100 people during the day begging me for something, anything... We set two rules during out assessment and token distribution. One, like I mentioned, to give to the families truly in need of immediate assistance. Which caused a lot of commotion within the village in the form of jeers, comments, accusations of favoring Dr. Zameer’s friends and so on. Second rule was to only distribute to one village at a time. People from up to 10 km’s away came in search of us. If distributed to one man from a different village, we would wake up the next morning with 40 other people from that area asking why they did not receive anything so it was essential that we do not break the rule or chaos would ensue.
I cannot think of anything more difficult in my life than resisting the pleas of an elderly women, or for that matter any person that is literally begging me for aid. There is no doubt that everyone is poor and deserves aid but we could only do so much with the material we had. The rest of the day was spent at the warehouse handing out various material to the token holders. Even people from Gundi Shot has made their long journey to our warehouse to collect their relief. Once again mixed feelings of progress being made with much, much, much more still to be done.
- Talal Ansari
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