Another Weekend in Srinagar

Last weekend I was able to go to Srinagar again. The Handicap International managers live in Srinagar because there were no empty houses available for them in Wayil or nearby villages. They live in a house with extra rooms, so it is no problem for me to come for a visit occasionally. I go home with them on Friday after work, and return with them on Monday mornings. Last Friday it snowed for the first time in Wayil. And the air was clear. I just had to stop and take this photo of the nearby mountain on my way to the Hope Disability Centre. During the day it continued to snow. It was so beautiful. We decided to leave work right at 4:30 to be sure to get back to Srinagar, considering the weather. Unlike in the Midwest of the USA, there would not be any trucks out on the roads spreading sand or plowing.


Some of the guys had a bit of a snowball fight at the end of the day. One of the HI team members, Shiwendra, had never seen snow before, so it was a requirement that he be introduced in the art of snowball fights. Sledding and snowmen and snow angels can come later.














My face was pressed to the glass all the way back to Srinagar. It was so beautiful. We saw one vehicle which had slid off the road, but we made it safely back to the city.












It had been a beautiful day, a real gift from God. And He wrapped it all up for us at the end of the day in a rain bow, over Dal Lake.






















The next morning Shiwendra and I went for a walk along the shores of Dal Lake. I knew with all the rain and snow that the air would be clear, and we would be able to see the mountains surrounding Srinagar if the clouds lifted. It wasn't sunny but it was beautiful.








There was a man out fishing,




























And the snow on the haak greens was beautiful.














We turned away from the lake, following a small lane I knew about that would eventually take us to the nearest village to the Handicap International house. The village is named Brein, and is pronounced "brain'.
















It had cleared up a little more by the time we left the village.

One week later this village is now rocked to the core, because a 16 year old boy was shot to death by security forces as he was returning with his friends from playing cricket. He was shot very near the Handicap International house, in the wealthy suburb of Nishat, where doctors and expats live. The people who live in those houses are now pretty much unable to leave.

Young men are shot and killed all the time in Kashmir by security forces. Most of them are protesters. But this week, two young men were killed as they were walking home. On Monday a 14 year old boy was killed when a tear gas canister was fired into his head as he was heading home from school. All of Kashmir has been protesting these senseless murders this week.

Protests even took place in normally quiet Wayil village, though the protesters were not from Wayil. Even in the height of the militancy, I have learned, Wayil youth never took part in any of the militarism, and no Wayil youth or adults have been killed by the security forces. Nearby villages lost 20 or 30 young men, but not Wayil. That explains why I always feel so safe here in the village. Though if I had walked to work the day of protests in Wayil a half hour later than I do, I might have been caught up in it.

I have been well protected from any harm. Last year the village where I stopped to help plant rice had protests the following week, and a tourist bus had its windows broken out. The week after I left Brein a murder took place there. Half an hour after I walk to work there is stone pelting in sleepy Wayil. The closest I have come to a protest took place last Saturday, as Andrew and Shiwendra and I were in a bookstore in Srinagar. It was a labor protest that passed by, and we decided to stay in the shop a bit longer.






After we left, we stopped by the post office so I could post a DVD I had created on Kashmiri embroidery, and a letter. The entrance to the post office was a maze of razor wire and guards. As we approached, a guard asked us our reason for coming to the post office. We were admitted to the next step, frisking. Two women guards frisked me and went through my bag. They pulled out my cell phone, digital camera, and video camera. The cell phone had to be switched off, and they kept the cameras until I returned from the post office itself. I rejoined Andrew inside the post office, and we waited in line. After a fairly long wait, I handed my items to the postal worker on duty. He told me how much postage would be due on each of the items, and then handed them back to me. What? It was explained that the lady who sold the stamps was not in today, so I could not post my items. Wow. It wasn't a wasted visit, though, because I had stamps back in Wayil I could use to post them, now that I knew how much each one would cost. On the way out, after picking up my cameras, I asked to take photos of the guards who had frisked me. They agreed.






















The post office in Ganderbal has no such security in place. It is a different world outside Srinagar, I am learning.

Gulmarg

A couple of weeks ago, all the kids, a 2nd cousin, uncle Tariq and I went to Gulmarg to play in the snow. It is about an hour and a half drive. It had not snowed at all in Wayil yet, and it looked like we might not get snow at all this year! There wasn't much snow in Gulmarg, either, but there was enough to play in, and it wasn't very cold.










The kids took turns going down a hill on a sledge,


















and being hauled back up by the sledge owner. The people who go to Gulmarg to make a living hauling tourists up the hills on sledges, or taking them around on horses, are hurting this year, because of the lack of snow. But this past weekend it has snowed a lot, so as soon as the roads are cleared, the tourists will once again head for Gulmarg.








Gulmarg has what the sign says is the highest gondola in the world. We did not take it due to the cost and because it was overcast. But we had a group photo in front of it.















We stopped in Gulmarg village for tea and a bite to eat before heading home. The photo is of Sami's brother Tariq and his daughter Tabia.



















There is a playground on the way home that we also stopped at. It was a great day out for all of us.

Home Life

In Kashmir, kids stay home in winter, and go to school in the spring and summer. Tahir's wife Zubida is a school teacher, so the whole family spends much of the winter at the Wani family home, instead of at their apartment in Srinagar. There are 3 cousins almost the same age, and they have a wonderful time playing together. No board games, no puzzles, no card games, almost no toys. I watched one morning as Tabia spent a good hour practising putting on a dupta (scarf) like all the women wear. Last night, two pieces of wood were joined together with a bit of tape, and became a laptop. A third small piece of wood became a flash or pin drive for the USB port. A stuffed bolster pillow with a drawstring end became a hobby horse, complete with reins.


On Taffiya's 3rd birthday, Sami brought home cake, party hats, and balloons, and we had a party. Here the 3 cousins closest in age take turns feeding each other some cake.















Children are very important members of the family, and fathers are active participants in their children's lives, at least in this family, which I think is pretty typical from what I have observed in other families. This is wonderful for me to see. I am also very happy to see that the girls are treated the same as the boys. No special treatment for Adeem.

Tania, as the oldest of the cousins, doesn't have anyone her age to play with. So one day I asked her if she wanted to come for a walk with me. We walked through the village, and I let her choose, at every intersection, which way we would go.










We went up and down small lanes, along the road, above the road on a dry irrigation channel, and said hello to many villagers - all of whom knew her name.













A rook stayed put long enough to take his photo.

















A woodcutter was in the village felling trees. He climbed far up into this tree, with no climbing equipment, just his small axe, and a rope tied to the top of the tree to have it fall in the right direction with the help of people on the ground.















Later I took a photo of him cutting a tree on the ground. His axe looks very small to me.


















Tania enjoyed our walk. The other children were not happy to be left behind, but I wanted this to be Tania's treat.

















The Wani family keeps a milk cow in a byre in the front yard. I watched Shabnum milk her the other day. She is a very gentle cow. I have no idea what the spots are in the photo. Sorry. None of the other photos had them.











I have photos of all the family members, but almost none of Tahir's beautiful, gentle, and wise wife, Zubida. So one morning, when the light was coming in the window nicely, I captured her cleaning the haak greens for our dinner.


These plants grow throughout the winter, and everyone who has a bit of land grows them. Dark green and leafy, I expect they have a lot of vitamins.

Sheikh Jamal Din Day

One morning Tahir, Sami's brother said to me - "This weekend is a special celebration in the village up the hill. People come from all the nearby villages to celebrate this saint's day." Sounded interesting. One of the stories about Sheikh Jamal Din is that he had a lion as a friend, and the lion would allow the Sheikh to ride him. A lion? In the Himalayas? I thought this to be a truly fantastic story, until a couple of weeks later Tahir told me that he had personally seen a lion, with a mane, on the road between Wayil and Ganderbal. OK then, I guess the Sheikh could indeed have had a lion as a friend. The Sheikh had requested no shrine be built for him when he died. He wanted only a simple grave in the woods. And over the years, when people had tried to honor him by building a shrine, the bricks would be scattered overnight - every time it was attempted. On the celebration day, Tahir and I and three of the Wani children and Ishtiyaq the family helper walked the mile or so up the hill to the saint's grave.




















Along the way we stopped to check out a potter's kiln.


















Very interesting.














We, like nearly everyone else, were carrying a large pot of cooked rice to bring to the celebration. (Well, Ishtiyaq was carrying it, to be precise.) Was it to be a big pot luck? I soon found out. We arrived at the simple burial site in the woods. A group of men were singing on a concrete pad to the left of the grave, and people were lighting candles and incense on the grave site. I was careful to be circumspect in my photo taking, as I was getting some harsh looks from some of the older men on the concrete pad.










Tahir and the children lit their incense and candles, and had a quiet prayer.



























































After the family paid their respects to the saint, we were offered tea by one of the group on the concrete pad. After tea, I asked if I could wander around, and Tahir said it was fine. I went back to where a crowd of people were gathered, and made my way in, to find a huge pile of yellow rice, and a man with a stick beating off teenage boys who came too close.















One of the men there was one I pass every day on the road as I walk to and from the Hope Centre office. He was happy to see me, and asked to have his photo taken.





















This rice distribution was getting interesting! I watched for a while and saw that some people were bringing rice to the pile, and some people were being given rice from the pile, and some people were stirring the rice and mixing in everyone's contributions. Fascinating.


















The teenage boys were kept at bay because they were to stay off to one side, and someone would bring them their rice. They were not to get it from the main pile.



















The place where the teenagers waited for their rice was wild. Shouting, pushing, grabbing.













There were very few women or girls at this event. Here were some of the few.
















People were still coming as we were leaving. Tahir said that the celebration would be going on well into the night. I never would have been able to see such an interesting cultural event if I had been staying in Srinagar, and was grateful that Tahir invited me to come along.

To Srinagar by Bus

Showkat, the other half of the Admin Team came to Wayil by bus to pick me up for an outing one Saturday in January. We were planning to take the bus to central Srinagar. There had been some disturbances in Srinagar, so Sami said we could only go to a particular suburb called Darga, not central Srinagar. We still had an interesting time. We went to the University of Kashmir, with its hundreds of chinar trees and a lovely large library. I love libraries. I would like nothing better than to spend a day in a library. To me it is the ultimate luxury.














I was surprised to see that in this library, under Religion, nearly all the headings are about Christianity. Where is Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam?


















Leaving the library, I spotted a leaky water pipe that had created lovely ice sculptures out of leaves and grass.

































Before we caught our bus back home, we were walking along Dal Lake and I spotted a man making charcoal for the kangri baskets. I asked if I could take a photo of him, and was surprised at his answer: "Yes, if I can take a photo of you." Fine! He used his cell phone, and I used my camera.

Village Life in a Kashmir Winter

The other morning as I was getting ready for work, I realized how efficient it is to wear your clothes to bed at night to keep warm, and to wear your coat inside your house. In Minnesota, where I grew up and lived most of my life, it was always such a chore to get ready to go outside, and when you would enter a building - for work, or someone's house, you would have to go through the same routine again of taking off all the outer clothes so you wouldn't be too hot inside. And all those extra clothes had to go somewhere. So closets would be full to the point that you couldn't close the door properly, and the mountain of boots, scarves, mittens, coats and jackets of all types would sometimes mean searching for 5 minutes for a pair of gloves or mittens that matched. And people would forget their scarves and mittens and gloves and hats (not usually their coats) at work or a friend's house, and there they would stay, because no one would really know whose they were. These problems don't exist in Kashmir. I keep my pheran on all the time, and my hat on all the time. The only things that come off are my gloves, which fit nicely into the pockets of my pheran, and my boots. It's quick, and I usually don't leave my gloves behind anywhere, because I need them! So this aspect of life is very efficient. And since I am wearing my 'coat' everywhere, no one knows or cares that the clothes underneath are the same ones I have been wearing for a week. (this does not apply to my underwear). You don't need to spend a fortune on work clothes for the winter, to make a good impression. Who would ever see them??? Efficient, cost effective, and wonderfully simple. See Ishtiyaq and Adeem? Mom dresses Adeem once in the morning, with all his layers, and he is good to go for the day - the kids run outside and play and come back inside, and no clothes except shoes go on and off. A great time saver for mum, and lots of freedom for the kids.

Every day I walk the 15 minutes from the Wani house to the Hope Disability Centre, carrying my tools of the trade in my bag: my laptop, charger cord, the Internet router and its cord, my cell phone, my fingerless gloves, and my purse, which has a bit of everything in it. Sometimes I bring files home with me, and sometimes I have some food in my bag. So some days I am carrying a good 15 pounds to and from work. I go home for lunch most days, so I am getting in an hour of walking carrying a load every day. It seems to be enough exercise for me, along with some carousing with the toddlers at the Wani house.

Every once in a while, when I walk to work in the mornings, someone will be handing out delicious yellow rice, called tahri. This rice is prepared with turmeric, which gives it the yellow colour, and then fried onions and oil are added to it. People prepare it for two reasons - one reason is if they have had a bad dream.




















They give the rice out in the hope that if they do something nice for people, then the bad dream won't come true. The other reason is that they are celebrating something wonderful.




In either case, it is certainly permissible to ask the occasion of the tahri, so people can share their good or their fears with their neighbours.


















Before giving any of the rice to passers by, first some of the rice is set out for the birds.














Kashmiris eat a lot of rice. At the midday and evening meal, a Kashmiri adult is expected to put away at least 4 cups of rice, and children, even little ones, eat 2 cups at the midday and evening meals. The children are fed before the adults eat. Before a meal with the adults, the rice is ladled out in beautiful silver bowls in the kitchen, and brought to the eating room. Here Shabnum, Sami's sister, does the rice dishing.


I eat about a cup or so of rice at my meals. So they have given me Sami's bowl when he was a boy. It's my size.













One day in Ganderbal town (a 20 minute drive from Wayil), there was a fire by the road. I inquired as to what was going on, and learned that the fire was built to heat up some very large rocks. Once they were hot, cold water would be poured on them to crack them, so they could be removed.


One day as I was walking home from work, I noticed a dog laying by the roadside. Not unusual, except that at that time of day, the dogs are almost all up and about getting ready for their evening activities. This one seemed in no hurry to join in, for some reason.

The next morning as I was walking on the other side of the road to work, I heard a whimper. I went to investigate, and saw the same dog. He hadn't moved since the day before. So I knew he had been in an accident and had broken his back, most probably. I stood there for a while watching him, and even debated about taking a photo. It seemed disrespectful to the doomed dog, but I went ahead and took it, so I could discuss it here. All the dogs are wild street dogs. Not one is a pet. They are free to live their lives as wild dogs, with the pack structure, and relationships with no interference from humans. They eat the chicken heads and skins and offal from the shops, and the rice and leftovers thrown out by the households. They keep the rodent population down. I have yet to see a rat here, and the one time we had two small rabbits at the Centre last summer, they didn't last a week before the dogs got them. So they certainly serve a purpose. But no one is going to pay to have surgery on a dog, and not even pay to have it put down. While I was watching the dog, thinking if there was something I could or should do, I was being watched by neighbours at one of the shops. One man called to me and indicated that the dog was a goner, by moving his finger over his throat. Yes, I had already figured that out. I had nothing to give the dog to make it more comfortable, though it looked pretty comfortable the way it was. So I continued onto work. That evening, I checked on the dog. He was now sitting more upright, with a bowl of food next to him, and a blanket under him, but still next to the road. After that, I did not see him again.

I enjoyed the orderly display and colour of this fruit vendor stall in Ganderbal town.















If I head to the rice/oat fields outside the village, I get to enjoy some nice sunsets, like this one.

Hope Centre January

It was an unusually dry January for Kashmir. We had no rain or snow for a month, and people were getting worried about the possibility of a drought. The weather was great for the building of a 1st floor on top of the Hope Centre, though. Here are some photos of the progress.














We had a banner made to put over the road to let everyone know that despite the construction taking place, we were most definitely open to help children with mobility disabilities (the focus of the Handicap International project).



















The month of January was capped off by the laying of the slab roof. On the big day for slab pouring, a huge crew turned up, and had a cup of salty tea (nun chai) before beginning work. I have not developed a taste for this tea, so chose to climb up to the new addition and take a photo instead.














Our nurse, sweet Lalia, came to donate her time that day to help with the cooking and making tea for the bosses. Here she sorts through the lentils to make sure there are no stones in them.



















This is how they make temporary stairs during a construction project in Kashmir.













Rough boards on top of bricks and toed in with a nail to the riser.


The cement mixer is the only automated part of the effort. Everything else is done by hand. In the middle of the photo Sami and his father, who donates all his time on the project, are carrying a tub of water.















The workers hauled the wet cement up two flights of stairs all day long to pour the slab roof.

































After the slab was poured, it had to stay wet for several weeks. Twice a day Sami's father would come and wet it down. One day I was out for a walk with Tania, and we pitched in too.























This renovation has been funded by Handicap International, www.handicap-international.org and the money is actually coming from the European Commission. The funding includes much more than the building, however. It includes salaries for more therapists and outreach workers, and equipment for rehabilitation. It has not been a complete blessing for the Hope Centre, however. There are clear areas that are not funded by Handicap International. The salary of the Admin Manager required to be hired for the project is not covered. Staff insurance, required for the project, is not covered by HI. Half the running costs of the centre are covered, but not the other half. There is no funding for special schooling, vocational training, or disabilities that are not mobility related, such as mental disabilities, hearing, or sight. And no one over 18 is covered by Handicap International's support. And no surgeries, only physiotherapy. Here are some of the children who came in to the Centre in January who are outside the Handicap International project.
























































This leaves a large and critical funding gap I am working hard to fill. We are partners with Handicap International. And as partners, we need to contribute our share, understandably. But there are no funders for the other half. Except me. I am giving, in addition to my time, around US $1200 a month. It is all I can do, and it is not enough. We used to get funding from the MEND Trust from New Zealand, which is how I came to learn about the Hope Disability Centre. But MEND has had its own funding stopped by the New Zealand government, and has almost completely stopped its financial support to the Hope Disability Centre. Everyone, including me, thought that with Handicap International in the picture, the Hope Centre would have all the funding it needed. I was so wrong about that.

As I have talked to friends around the world about the different nonprofit organisations I support, I hear a comment repeated by many: "I would like to donate, but I want to be sure my money is not wasted". I have seen how frugally this operation runs, and I can guarantee that not a penny is wasted. We refill our own ink cartridges, we use the back sides of papers, we run the heater as little as possible, (I went out to beat this rug to warm up!) we limit ourselves to one cup of tea per day for each staff person. Those are just some of the examples of how we stretch every single rupee donated to the organisation.
















Our admin manager, Showkat Ahmad, (seen here reading a postcard from Minnesota) has an extensive background in mental health He is specially trained for IQ assessment, behavioral assessment, and personality assessment of children with disabilities. Despite much better offers, he has chosen to work with the Hope Disability Centre. His salary is not paid by Handicap International, so we can only afford to pay him 8000 rupees per month, which is US $172. All his efforts are to help his family. He is putting his two younger brothers through school, and supporting the family. He also tutors in the mornings before coming to the Centre, and on weekends, to supplement the tiny income he gets from the Hope Centre. He has had better offers, but he turned them down because he would have to move far from his family, and they depend on him. He and I are the Admin Team. Both of us are absolutely necessary to the success of the project. I have the computer and Internet skills, and he deals with the paperwork, the receipts, the inventory of equipment, and the staff, few of whom speak English well enough for me to work with. I am training him in computer skills, so he will be able to do everything I do by the time I leave. I would so love to see him get a better salary. Yesterday he told me that his mother has been told by a doctor that she needs an operation on her ovaries. Showkat's family cannot afford the 14,000 rupees (US $300) for the surgery.

I share all of that with you because these challenges are what occupy my mind and my spirit most of the time - how to help the Hope Disability Centre hold up its half of the agreement with Handicap International, so the Kashmiris with disabilities can be helped, and how to keep Showkat on the team.

I have helped them set up a PayPal account for donations on the web site, www.hopecentre.webs.com, and I plan to add a credit card facility to the web site this coming week. If you know of someone who might be interested in helping with a general donation, please let me know. I can write, talk, send info to them about the work being done here for the Kashmiris with disabilities, who have no one else to turn to. Here are 4 patients who came in recent weeks who have not had help earlier in life, and who might not get it now, because they need surgeries, which are not part of the HI project, and because it is now more expensive to perform surgeries on them, than if they were babies.