nomad volunteers

New Photos Up

2006-06-17T04:16:00.000+05:00

okay...so think we're all finally of pakistan. as i wasn't the last to leave i don't feel able to do any kind of summary. and with this kind of work it's never finished. there will always be people needing help & (inshallah) always volunteers working there. wanted to say that i've added some photos taken during the time we spent in pakistan...they're at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/keeptreesvertical/sets/72157594151271308/

at the moment they're in no order at all, however hopefully in a while they'll be organised into some kind of presentation.

i'd appreciate any comments on the photos.

thanks for reading this blog & an even bigger thanks to those who supported us.

with love,
jenny x

christmas shopping

2005-12-24T14:39:00.000+05:00

how’s life in the land of christmas? it’s really weird to think of everyone in the west, writing cards & wrapping presents…walking down streets strewn with lights & sparkly things. but we’ve been doing some xmas shopping of our own…

and what’s better than xmas shopping for things that are really needed? well, how’s about shopping with other people’s money? we’re absolutely astounded by how generous so many of you have been. huge respect & thanks so much to those who donated money to the people of pakistan…because without you guys none of the following would’ve been possible. or certainly not to the extent that it has been. very proud to say that, as a group, in total we’ve raised over $20,000, and as well as a little ‘merry xmas & a happy new year email’ this is mainly an update on what’s been going on in Pakistan over the last few weeks.

we last wrote about our sandbag shelter in the village of surul. after hitting send on that email, we headed back up to surul to discover that the military & an ngo (non-government organisation – a kind of charity) had turned up and supplied the villagers with cgi (you gotta get down with the lingo…cgi is corrugated iron, basically big sheets of tin, for roofs). this was fantastic news. it meant that the village we’d fallen in love with was sorted in a way that we could never have financially afforded. it meant that we could supply a few thousand sandbags & they could build really excellent shelters. as sandbags are really cheap, but cgi is ridiculously expensive, we had ample funds left over to put into another village.

the next mission was to find another village where no NGOs were working (when we arrived, surul had been one, but during the time we’d been there, it had obviously been added to someone’s list). we started looking for a village where no cgi was going to be distributed & the villagers would otherwise be trying to live in tents this winter. there are a lot of villages like this, but trying to find them is a bit of a nightmare…it’s not worth getting into, but this is basically due to an overwhelming lack of communication between NGOs, the UN and the military.

so, we spent about 10 days surveying villages; hitching around kashmir in lorries, relief trucks, UN jeeps, cars and all manner of army vehicles, complete with lots of men with big guns…even hitched in an ambulance complete with patient! trying to track down data, we found ourselves in meetings with NGOs, deputy commissioners, the UN and the army. there was usually no time for breakfast or lunch, so we survived on a diet of chai (milky sugar with a dash of tea). we’d often eat our first ‘meal’ at 8pm before hitching back to the road near our camp…then start the exhausting one hour vertical hike back up to our icebox, errr…we mean, tents. if we didn’t get food in town, then we’d start the laborious process of cooking on an open fire, which involved many trips to the nearby stream, which was a 5 minute climb away (we’re now accustomed to carrying litres of water on our heid!). now that we’ve been in Islamabad (the capital) for a wee while, we really miss it all. but up there now it’ll be absolutely freezing…our tent collapsed one morning because of the snow. although admittedly that was a one off, the snows are fortunately late this year. we’re so glad that they’ve got decent shelters, so when the snows do come, they’ll be alright.

once we’d found a number of villages which seemed to be what we were looking for, we set about trying to track down accurate information – eg. number of houses, and population. unless you’ve tried to work in this part of the world, with it’s bureaucratic procedures, it’s difficult to explain how arduous this is. all data is totally conflicting. one source would tell us a village we wanted to supply had 28 houses, whilst another source would give double or triple this number! this makes knowing how much stuff to purchase a tad tricky.

the whole thing’s been a bit like a game of snakes and ladders. one day we’d feel like we were almost at the cup. we’d climbed a few metaphorical ladders, using NGOs’ data to skip some levels. then the next thing we knew, we’d rolled a two, and find out that the population was actually 4 times what we’d been told it was & we didn’t have enough funds to help…and we’d be down that snake, right back at the start!

three of our crew left a few days ago to survey a village in kashmir. the village has literally nothing, except really bad tents, so they're desperately in need. the locals have been building frames for new houses/shelters & now they're basically waiting for cgi for the roofs. as this is a smaller village than surul, we have funds to supply the whole village. something we really have on our minds, is that we have to fully serve the village. for obvious reasons, we don’t want to go to a place where our funds will only stretch to helping half the village. we have to be able to provide for everyone, to ensure it's fair. it's also important to us that the people are really those in need...all the people in this village have 'kutcha' houses (traditional mud brick buildings), which means they have no existing materials with which to rebuild their houses.

and so it goes. on and on. inshallah (a much used phrase here, meaning ‘at god’s will’) we will be buying enough cgi tomorrow to serve over 200 households, that’s helping over 1,500 people. and really, we’ve raised some money from some small NGOs, but the cash has all come from you…friends & family. of course, if anyone else wants to donate, it’s not too late…email nomadvolunteers@gmail.com for details.

so folks, happy xmas & have a fantastic new year. we can’t thank you enough for your donations & kind words…merry christmas from pakistan.

the faces of nomad volunteers

2005-12-15T20:23:00.001+05:00

the number of people who are part of nomad volunteers, is ever changing (people have to tear themselves away from pakistan & new folk join us). the following have all been members:

wes (america)

jenny (scotland)

mikko (finland)

miresz (czech republic)

nick (new zealand)

andy (new zealand)

katie (scotland)

tim (england)

petra (austria)

cameron (australia)

yu-mi (japan)

imran, on the left, with patient (uk)

no mugshots: ahmed (pakistan), ryu (japan), joost (holland), nathan (england)

and as we're not really sure what constitutes a 'member', but we couldn't have done our projects without the following folk, who are great big shining stars & have our full respect: david (ireland), laeeq (pakistan), nafisa (pakistan), captain bajwa (pakistan), deputy commissioner of bagh (pakistan), raja (pakistan), imran (pakistan), amjad (pakistan), usman (pakistan), guys in logistics at the UN in bagh &, Shakur Aid (UK), IOM and the lovely ladies of relief shelter drive. *sorry if we've missed anyone...*

see also: 'what happens when a bunch of hippies try to save the world?'

background: the village of surul

2005-12-15T19:19:00.000+05:00

getting to kashmir...
a month after the quake we found ourselves in the back of an open-topped truck, sitting on (although technically probably ‘balancing on’) boxes of medical supplies, bouncing along to a remote village in the hills of the pakistani side of kashmir. on the way up, the medics (imran & ahmed) who’d already been at the village for 2 weeks, told us about the village of surul. to say it was ‘badly affected by the quake’ seems like one of the biggest understatements ever made.

words cannot describe...
trying to word this next paragraph is tricky…telling you about the devastation in surul. the fact that 15% of the 2,500 population died; that every household lost someone, most houses more than one person. no home is left standing. we could tell you about the number of people who were badly injured. or how severe medical problems were still untreated 2 weeks after the earthquake (until imran & ahmed arrived on foot). about the vets who’ve been acting as doctors – treating people like animals & hacking bits off. or about doctors who are so incompetent that they give out arthritis medication to someone with stomach pains. but the situation can’t be put into words: you have to see the faces, shake their hands, cuddle the children, listen to their tears – that’s the only way you can understand. statistics will never effectively explain what’s going on here. tears can flow just thinking of the people of surul, who’ve treated us so well the past weeks we’ve been there. we give a little in return…a real life television for the children, we are the first westerners to ever visit these villages.

the situation...

our camp (consisting of 3 small tents) is next to the main road, which sees about 2 pieces of traffic each day. there are no UN or other NGO 4x4s cruising around here, assessing the damage. we are the only group in these mountains (we’re at 6,000ft). the authorities are encouraging those living in mountains to go to tented refugee camps in mussafarabad & islamabad – but can they really accommodate the 6 million people living in the hills? there are also so many other problems of getting these people to relocate to these refugee camps; encouraging strong, independent kashmiris to become dependent on handouts & aid; what happens when the NGOs leave?; what should the locals do with their cattle – their livelihood?; the sanitation problems faced in these camps…we could go on, but there’s so much else to write about.

we want the locals to stay local – to remain in the mountains through the winter. but this also has its own set of problems – primarily shelter. at the moment, people aren’t homeless, everyone here has a tent over their head. but let us tell you a little about these tents. they are crap. even now the medics in our group are treating a large number of people with pneumonia and the temperature is yet to drop below freezing. winter in this area will brings a good few feet of snow and temperatures of around -10 to -15C. even those lucky enough to have the so-called ‘winterized’ tents, have a piece of material devoid of any zips, just flimsy ties to close the doors – how will they keep out the snow & chilling winds? the tents aren’t even waterproof, so how will they protect against such snowfall? anyone who attempts to survive winter in the mountains, in one of these tents will die. and as I said before, there’s apparently 6 million people living in the hills of Pakistan. the earthquake killed around 80,000…the winter stands to kill so many more.

the plan...
the evening that we arrived in surul, sitting around a campfire, Imran & Ahmed explained to us non-medics that we were going to build a shelter out of sandbags. the 5 of us city-folk looked at each other and gulped. no-one had any experience of doing anything like this (nor much muscle). but each of us apparently had enough motivation & desire to help because the following morning we started.

bori shelter project...
we didn’t know what ‘back-breaking work’ meant until we started dealing with sandbags. filling them, lifting them, lugging them, stacking them…the physical work was never-ending. the pads on all our grubby fingers cracked & bled – they’re used to touch-typing, not shoveling. the dirt felt good though, it showed we were working. camped alongside the locals, with the toilet being whichever field you fancy, a hot shower at the end of the day was a distant dream. and to be honest, we were all so involved in the project that when the darkness of night-fall descended & we were forced to end day 1 – a shower wasn’t really on any of our minds.

over the next couple of days the bori shelter shot up (‘bori shelter’, refers to the sandbags used for the walls, they’re locally known as ‘bori bags’). local men & children helped us intermittently (especially when a digital camera was involved). we finished the bori shelter on day 3. we almost cried when we went inside & realised that it actually is warm in the shelter & that actually, this could save lives. we had faith in what we were doing, but seeing it complete, in such a short period of time, & the realisation that it works, is something quite powerful. we came here with the hope of making a difference & (hoping not to sound egotistical) it seems that we can.

to donate to our project, please email: nomadvolunteers@gmail.com

what happens when a bunch of hippies try to save the world?

2005-12-15T16:31:00.000+05:00

hearing about the earthquake in october, you’d be pretty heartless if you weren’t saddened by it...80,000 dead & millions left homeless. it brought tears to many, anger to some and an overwhelming sense of loss to even more. for some it meant train or plane tickets to pakistan.

nomad volunteers are a group of individual travellers (some may say hippies, but not so sure we'd agree...). we met for the first time in pakistan after the quake. when the earth shook, some of us were backpacking in india, iran or africa, & some were in their home countries (like australia and scotland). each of us came for different reasons, but we all had the same idea in mind; to do whatever we could to help those suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake.

but it’s really not about us. we were even pretty peeved that we had to waste time thinking of a name for our group (but it was kind of necessary as we started to fundraise & create awareness for our project)…our project is what it’s really all about.