The Mueenuddin Fund Distributes Two Thousand Jackets in Balakot and Kawai.
Editors Note: (For this posting I'm serving both as the editor and the reporter. I traveled to Pakistan at the end of January to accompany Lauren on the last trip to the mountains to distribute warm clothes purchased with donations to the Mueenuddin Fund to earthquake victims in some unreached villages. Holly and Ken MacDonald were at Lauren's house at the same time visiting their son Ben who is interning with UNICEF. Holly and Ken are donors to the Fund and Ken joined the distribution group.)
Even though the air was cold and rain clouds were gathering in the Northeast, the kids lined up early this morning outside the gate to the compound. We had stored the remaining Mueenuddin Fund relief aid left oer the night before and had spent the night in tents similar to those provided to victims of the earthquake by UNICEF and others.
The children were told to come back when the last light sunlight faded into dusk before the distributions of the jackets and quilts the evening before has been completed.
After 4 months this high in the mountains, electricity for lights ...for any purpose...is still not restored.
Lauren, Ken MacDonald and I had arrived in Kawai, the home village of Junaid Ali Qasim, the Nazim of Balakot tehsil (roughly county) and the ‘sponsor’ (authenticator) of the Mueenuddin Fund distributions, in the afternoon of the day before.
We had driven up from Islamabad, stopping along the way at Mansehra to pick up the bundles of jackets from a warehouse managed by Atlas Logistics,
a French NGO, and in Balakot to see Junaid, at three small tents camps,(one supported by a Korean group that prepared hot meals) to distribute jackets and quilts,
to visit a new medical clinic being rebuilt by a group led by Zulfikar Ali, 
and to sit briefly with Saleem Khan, the former Nazim of Balakot city who we met seated in a bare open area among barbed wire, piles of rubble, and the remains of his collapsed house.
He described for us in great detached detail how he had stepped from his veranda into his garden just as the earthquake hit. His wife, three adult children, mother and grandmother all died before his eyes.
For our visit, he has arranged for a lunch brought by a man who appeared along a winding path walled by piles of barbed wire and debris and who reappeared and left with the empty dishes and payment. The hospitality always astonishes.
The only road above Balakot perches precariously, like a shelf on a kitchen wall, alternately dug from the steep hillside to create a lip or suspended out over the sheer drop below by ingeniously engineered atttached, unbelievably, to the sheer, almost vertical, slope. The earthquake on October 10 collapsed parts of the roadway leaving gapping sections simply missing or covered with debris from landslides. Bulldozers forced tracks through the rubble or military crews built new steel bridges to span the gaps.
Peering over the barrier-less edge induces that tingling sensation that comes to many when, while looking down from great height, one creeps slowly forward and peeps over the edge. The valley below causes a startle when the eye finally identifies as the river bed the tiny, sparkling, string-like ribbon.
This trip completed a process begun last fall when the earthquake prompted family and friends to create generously a small relief fund to be used by Lauren as she encountered need in the course of her relief job. (Tamur supplies a broad picture gained from his job as coordinator of heath for UNICEF in the affected areas.)
The spring like weather we encountered in Balakot, while a godsend (precisely how more than one victim described it: “The earthquake is Allah’s wrath and the good weather is his benevolence,”) forced us to consider the possibility that because the inevitable delays encountered in implementing a plan to purchase and distribute 2000 jackets might make the eventual delivery too late to be of real benefit.
But the visible breathe of the kids in line proved that the cold that comes with the dark (still 12 hours a day) in the recesses of this village and the cold rain about to begin still makes life miserable for everyone in Kawai, especially for the windows and children and the jackets and the quilts are not too late. They may not save lives from the deadly onslaught of heavy snow which, "Inshahallah," will not fall this year, but the jackets will make life a little more bearable until finally spring comes and stays.
On this trip, we were able to distribute on behalf of donors to the Mueenuddin Fund some 2000 jackets and quilts mostly of the size for children and women. Including purchase, transportation, temporary storage, some logistics, the cost per jacket is about $15.00. These jackets are lined and are waterproof with heavy knitted wrist and neck bands and good zippers and flat seams.
We did not hand out every single one of the 2000 jackets personally, but Lauren, almost exclusively, because she is able to say a word or two to each person or better intice a shy small girl with no parent up to the front of the distribution area, handed out at least a thousand, so we know that children and women received them because we watched them put them on and walk away toward home quickly with that special pride of possession a child can exhibit with a new garment.
.
Soon to come on this weblog are postings on the Electriciens sans Frontier initiative and the Eco-Dome project for widow families in Kawai village.
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Even though the air was cold and rain clouds were gathering in the Northeast, the kids lined up early this morning outside the gate to the compound. We had stored the remaining Mueenuddin Fund relief aid left oer the night before and had spent the night in tents similar to those provided to victims of the earthquake by UNICEF and others.
The children were told to come back when the last light sunlight faded into dusk before the distributions of the jackets and quilts the evening before has been completed.
After 4 months this high in the mountains, electricity for lights ...for any purpose...is still not restored.
Lauren, Ken MacDonald and I had arrived in Kawai, the home village of Junaid Ali Qasim, the Nazim of Balakot tehsil (roughly county) and the ‘sponsor’ (authenticator) of the Mueenuddin Fund distributions, in the afternoon of the day before.
We had driven up from Islamabad, stopping along the way at Mansehra to pick up the bundles of jackets from a warehouse managed by Atlas Logistics,
a French NGO, and in Balakot to see Junaid, at three small tents camps,(one supported by a Korean group that prepared hot meals) to distribute jackets and quilts,
to visit a new medical clinic being rebuilt by a group led by Zulfikar Ali, 
and to sit briefly with Saleem Khan, the former Nazim of Balakot city who we met seated in a bare open area among barbed wire, piles of rubble, and the remains of his collapsed house.He described for us in great detached detail how he had stepped from his veranda into his garden just as the earthquake hit. His wife, three adult children, mother and grandmother all died before his eyes.
For our visit, he has arranged for a lunch brought by a man who appeared along a winding path walled by piles of barbed wire and debris and who reappeared and left with the empty dishes and payment. The hospitality always astonishes.
The only road above Balakot perches precariously, like a shelf on a kitchen wall, alternately dug from the steep hillside to create a lip or suspended out over the sheer drop below by ingeniously engineered atttached, unbelievably, to the sheer, almost vertical, slope. The earthquake on October 10 collapsed parts of the roadway leaving gapping sections simply missing or covered with debris from landslides. Bulldozers forced tracks through the rubble or military crews built new steel bridges to span the gaps.
Peering over the barrier-less edge induces that tingling sensation that comes to many when, while looking down from great height, one creeps slowly forward and peeps over the edge. The valley below causes a startle when the eye finally identifies as the river bed the tiny, sparkling, string-like ribbon.
This trip completed a process begun last fall when the earthquake prompted family and friends to create generously a small relief fund to be used by Lauren as she encountered need in the course of her relief job. (Tamur supplies a broad picture gained from his job as coordinator of heath for UNICEF in the affected areas.)
The spring like weather we encountered in Balakot, while a godsend (precisely how more than one victim described it: “The earthquake is Allah’s wrath and the good weather is his benevolence,”) forced us to consider the possibility that because the inevitable delays encountered in implementing a plan to purchase and distribute 2000 jackets might make the eventual delivery too late to be of real benefit.
But the visible breathe of the kids in line proved that the cold that comes with the dark (still 12 hours a day) in the recesses of this village and the cold rain about to begin still makes life miserable for everyone in Kawai, especially for the windows and children and the jackets and the quilts are not too late. They may not save lives from the deadly onslaught of heavy snow which, "Inshahallah," will not fall this year, but the jackets will make life a little more bearable until finally spring comes and stays.
On this trip, we were able to distribute on behalf of donors to the Mueenuddin Fund some 2000 jackets and quilts mostly of the size for children and women. Including purchase, transportation, temporary storage, some logistics, the cost per jacket is about $15.00. These jackets are lined and are waterproof with heavy knitted wrist and neck bands and good zippers and flat seams.
We did not hand out every single one of the 2000 jackets personally, but Lauren, almost exclusively, because she is able to say a word or two to each person or better intice a shy small girl with no parent up to the front of the distribution area, handed out at least a thousand, so we know that children and women received them because we watched them put them on and walk away toward home quickly with that special pride of possession a child can exhibit with a new garment.
.
Soon to come on this weblog are postings on the Electriciens sans Frontier initiative and the Eco-Dome project for widow families in Kawai village.
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posted by Jim Ingram at 6:20 PM
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