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Just added a Contact Me form at the top of the blog.
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New Feature:
Check out the Email Notification feature on the right sidebar that I have just added. It can send you notices that Pakistan Relief has a new post.
Camp
Well, I am trying to catch up on so many things to keep you informed. I am sure you are all asking about camp. This is the place to find out.
As you know we are in a UN camp which is very nice. It is located in an old stadium that has been cleaned out. It is located on a hill and there is a main road that goes by the top where the entrance is. Just as you enter the top, there are guards that scan with those metal detecting wands and look through the bags. If a vehicle is coming in, they check under with mirrors.
At the bottom of the hill into the stadium the drive turns left to the main UN camp where there is another gate and some pretty tough looking guards.
Actually, they are actually quite nice and friendly, looking tough for pictures.
On the left and just inside the gate is our tent.
This is where I spend a lot of my time and I will share more in a later post on this.
As we look out the front door, there are rows of UN tents on left side of us. These rows go from the front to back of the compound. The first two rows are offices and then the next three are UN sleeping quarters (we sleep in our tent). Right in front of us across the drive is the security office tent and to the left of that is the “Canteen” or mess hall.
That is it at the back.
A little closer.
As you can see the “Canteen” is important. The UN provides hot meals that are very nice and mainly produced by a Swedish chef (I will not go into one of my more favorite TV shows here). They also have a Pakistani chef who cooks wonderful curries. So much for losing weight.
Another important location that is at the back, left of the “Canteen” and next to the last row of sleeping tents is the shower. It is an interesting garden hose, shower spray attachment arrangement. The water is also hot which is nice. These are in grey plastic tarp tents with plastic floors. The back half is raised and divided into two for the two showers. Hot air is also blown in and makes the shower facility very comfortable on cold days.
The final important location is the toilets. These are in the opposite corner of where we are located and quite a walk in the middle of the night.
The white boxes are the toilets and the fronts lift up a couple of feet with a little door on the lower part and a blind that can be pulled down over the upper half. The low green tarp is the urinal which are really a couple of 6″ pipes in the ground. Maybe I will dare open the tarp door and we can take a peek. As you can see a real restroom is being constructed behind. Hope that is done soon.
Well, it is bed time. Here is a scene of the moon coming up over the mountains and other the NGO camp that is across the drive and to the right from our front door.
‘Night.
Closer to the Epicenter
Got to the UN camp Friday morning and took a brief tour, had lunch, and then headed to Balakot to see our second communication site.
This was a trip. We went up the narrow roads with many areas that had just enough room for one car. There were many locations where there were tent villages that lined the road. Muzaffarabad had much devastation but Balakot was much worse. To be honest with you, it was not so easy to comprehend the devastation the earthquake made because almost every thing was flat. It looked just like a large demolition site, you could not visualize that it was once a booming city. Here are a before and after picture to show what it looks like (click for larger view):
For further pictures of my trip and those of a Medical team (CRF) see my GALLERY.
Into the Mountains
Up very early this fine Friday. And I did get to fly in a helicopter. For sure this is a more interesting way to fly that a 777. The seats were bench seats along the walls with our luggage down the middle.
There are so many helicopters flying around here. The one I flew in, an Mi-8, could seat 22 or 24 people but there are much larger ones. They say they have the largest helicopters in the world flying around here but I have not seen them yet, however, there are a pair of Chinooks that make at least one mission every day.
Our flight was real good. We stopped at Bagh to drop off a couple of people and pick up a few. It was great scenery though quite smoggy because of all the fires burning for warmth. The large mountains of the Himalayas were visible above the lower mountains we were flying between. It was neat to see trees go by the window yet with the valley a very long way down below.
The co-worker that was with me had never seen snow and when we were flying by the lower mountains, there was some snow on the north sides. He was intrigued with it and was asking me about the snow. This could be a fun month teaching about snowball fights, snowmen, and snow angels.
We made it to Muzaffarabad and using a cell phone, called the comms tent to have the driver come down to pick us up. It is interesting to actually have cell phones amid such devastation. However, it really helps the relief effort.
We made it.